Magic Bands

I am way late on this review sorry gang.
Ok so we had the bands and used them 6/21-23/13 We had no problems with ours at all and aside from the restaurants not being up to speed we had no issues. We did have to take a lot of surveys both in the AM and then upon returning but they rewarded us with chocolate so it was all good.
I bought accessories for the band and actually enjoyed wearing them. I took them off each night and did not shower with them so I can't vouch for their water wearableness (is that even a word sheesh) anywho for those that don't like feeling restricted I can say that I had no issues with that, you can make it as tight or loose as you like and take them off at night which I did...I don't like sleeping in jewelry or anything restrictive.
I wish I could remember the "turn Mickey green song" that goes along with them. We were serenaded several times prior to using the bands at registers.
Ok now for an actual review...initially I just wanted them for the cool factor . The box alone was pretty sweet we received them in the mail well before our trip and once we arrived at AKL our hostess took us to a table with 6 laptops. The bands were uploaded with our info (credit card, resort room keys et al) and off we went...first stop was our room. I don't know about you but sometimes I need to get into the room quickly and let me tell you we had no issues getting into our room. Even with numerous packages or beverages in hand. +5 for ease of room entry
Then we boarded the bus for the MK. Getting into the parks was awesome! no issues and no problems. We spoke with several CMs who asked us if we worked there because Disney was slowly rolling out the bands to CMs. Some CMs were excited about getting them while others weren't quite ready to drink the koo-laid. The CMs in bars and restaurants seem to believe that it will be more difficult and cause more delays, which I could see especially if you order drinks at the bar and then want to move to a table. The restaurants at AKL had the technology and it seemed to work well there but you know how new things can sometimes go over like breaking wind in church LOL (side note by now they should be disseminated to just about all CMs)
Using the bands as fast passes was great. It was as easy as the fast pass+. No issues there, my issue was trying to decide from the choices given while I was at home. It's really not as simple as picking your favorite ride and going on it. You don't really realize how many of your favorites there are until you are limited in pre-booking your FastPasses.
The accessories are very cool!

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I'm glad you had minimal issues with your magicbands! They haven't given out the bands to all cms yet. Only ones that are testing it.

Thanks for all the good deets, Dee!

thats a great review! thanks dee

I can totally get down with having your room key on your wrist, and your park ticket too. I always have to take off my little backpack, dig through it, unzip a little pouch, and get out my ticket for every admittance and FP machine. Cool.

And all of the above is especially a pain if you are all rain geared up....

Now if there was just a faster way of bag inspection....

Yeah... The problem that I could see with the fast passes is that because of the demand of Fast pass plus they had to make pretty much all the rides into fast passes so that there would be enough so I can See how it would be hard to pick

Thanks for the review, Dee! I'm really excited about these!

Thanks for the report on the Magicbands. I agree with you about picking which ride you would Fastpass at home.

Thanks so much for bringing us up to date Dee!

Can you tell us a little more about how paying with the MagicBand will work at a table service restaurant? Do the servers have portable scanners or some sort of tablet?

Thanks for the info. What are the details of the next group testing them?

The restaurants at AKL had scanners either attached to the large black receipt holders. They seemed to work very well. When completing our daily survey the CMs had attachments to their iPads and laptops, and they just had to touch the band to the scanner. Think QR scanner without having to lineup the squares. Also similar to the safety drill were the person touches your KTTW cad to their mobile fun container
Overall I really enjoyed them. I attached my AP to mine so I'm hoping I'll get to use it again. I'm seriously considering a very quick trip fro my 45th in September. My DW would kick my @$$ because we leave for HK 2 weeks later but I'm contemplating i just to see if my band will work. I spoke with a few higher ups who said it should work fine, it would be a matter of linking my current reservation to the band.
I'm having a hard time uploading pics of the bands and accessories but when I do i'll post what I have of them

I have no idea. We got lucky

Oooo, Dee, a birthday trip in September? I say go for it.

Cool on the BOG beta test. Cannot wait to hear how that works out for you guys.

How exciting! Can't wait to hear how it goes!

Pick me, pick me, pick me

Oh awesome! I just read about this! Can't wait to hear how it works and what you eat!!

How do you get picked? Is it because you were staying in a resort? We would love to participate in something like this. I wonder if there's any selection of local annual pass holders or if it's just resort guests. Can't wait to hear how it was.

"My DW would kick my @$$ because we leave for HK 2 weeks later"

it's true...My desire to go back to Tokyo trumps my going to F & W this year

You big tease!

You don't play fair Mrhub.

Must.Have.Trip.Report!!!

Sad that it didn't work out. Hope that it's fixable, b/c it sounds like a decent idea. Can't wait to read about it and the rest of the trip!

!! MR HUB !!

So when do you we think Disney is going to start using the Bracelets for every visit ?

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They expect to have the program completely rolled out by the end of the year. Probably within the next couple months.