Pages

Disney World's new MAGIC BANDS!

Disney is moving away from park tickets and room keys to Bracelets called Magic Bands.
This should be available for everyone by Christmas time. The bands are part of your hotel package when staying at a Walt Disney World Resort. 
After your vacation is booked your travel agent will send you a link with information to set up your Disney Experience website to share with people in your traveling party. Here you can set up your account, plan your itinerary and choose the color of each magic band for every member traveling with you. 
Once you've got the basics set up you can start planning your magical vacation! 
If you booked through the Travel Depot we most likely set up your dining for you so make sure you enter your confirmation numbers into your Disney Experience so you don't have any issues with overlapping of your fast pass times!
You can set up to 3 fast passes per day within the same park. You can not make fast pass time in more than 1 park for the same day. 
Here are our Magic Bands from our most recent trip with Grandma. They arrive in a cool box to store them for your next trip! If a member in your party has a small wrist you can cut the gray away and have just the colored part for a better fit. I did not bother with this and they still fit fine. By the end of the week I was wearing mine and both of my children's bands! One has skin issues and the other has Asperger's and it started to annoy him. Cast Members didn't seem to care that I had on all 3! 
We had a pin number set up for our room which was required with every purchase! I really liked that extra security since kids could pull their bands off and drop them anywhere. 
 

I did the FastPass for Fantasmic and found it to be pointless! If you want better seats, than make sure you let your travel agent know that you want a Fantasmic Dinner Package! This will take up only 1 sit down meal credit per person and give you preferred seating for the show. 
After seeing the Fantasmic FastPass I cancelled my plans for the Wishes FastPass and was disappointed to see the seating area. When you are facing the front of the castle there is a small fenced in yard space and people were sitting on the grass with space to spare. I will definitely take that FastPass if it is offered next time! Here are a few pictures of the area, excuse my sons head! If you don't want to use a FastPass for the fireworks then, there is also a small little pavilion down this path that can be accessed from Main Street or from the bridge to Tomorrowland. There were 2 other families sitting down there with us! So many people either feel that they HAVE to sit on Main Street or they have plans to run out of the park or to an attraction as soon as it is over. No matter where you sit there will be a crowd to move from it. 

My suggestions for Magic Band FastPass selections are listed below by park. These are all available to those using FastPass on a Magic Band. 
 Magic Kingdom: Be Our Guest (quick service lunch), Wishes, Under the Sea - Journey to the Little Mermaid, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain or Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Hollywood Studios: Star Tours, Toy Story Midway Mania!, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, or The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
Animal Kingdom: Kali River Rapids, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Expedition Everest - Legend of the Forbidden Mountain, or Primeval Whirl. 
Epcot: Mission Space, Test Track, Soarin, The Seas with Nemo, or Turtle Talk with Crush. 


There were very few places that I couldn't use the Magic Band. Door to our room, entrance to the parks, charges made to our room, FastPass stations, Sorcerer of the Magic Kingdom activity, Test Track attraction,  Here I am using to design our vehicle for Test Track in Epcot. 



My #1 complaint was the speed of the website! It seemed to take forever to set up our FastPasses prior to our trip. As the week went on it seemed to go a little faster using the app. It was very difficult to change our FastPass selections on the same day. I kept getting a message saying "no other time" or "no other experience available". Definitely make sure you are happy with your choices prior to heading to the park for the day! 

Here is a quick, but noisy video of me using my Magic Band for the first time. Some stations responded quicker than others.




The Travel Depot is an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner. Let us help plan your next vacation! 
Mention the Travel Depot Blog at time of booking and receive a $25 Disney gift card on any Walt Disney World vacation of 5 nights or longer booked by October 31, 2013!



CONVERSATION

0 comments:

Post a Comment