The MagicBand Saga

Before I start, please understand that this post is in no way a complaint. We have had an interesting experience with MDE/MagicBands and I want to share it in case it is affecting other people. We are having an issue that Disney is having difficulty resolving, but as you'll see from our little tale, it is not for lack of trying. It has actually been very interesting to be a part of the testing process and to be able to provide information that may help someone else to have an easier time using their MagicBands. The saga is ongoing, but here is what has happened so far:

Some background on the situation:
We had been discussing DVC since our trip in August 2010. In November of 2012, we decided to buy into DVC at Saratoga Springs on the resale market. The catalyst for this decision was that WDW was offering a Premium Annual Pass to DVC members that if purchased by December 31, 2012 did not have to be activated until December 31, 2013. Since we were planning a trip in December of 2013, this timing could not have worked out better. In January, 2013, Disney launched their new website with some of the early MDE features enabled. Of course, being the ardent Disney fan that I am, I couldn't wait to set up my login and get started! I had a previous account for all things Disney under my universal username that I've used for everything from AIM to ebay over the past 10 years. When the new website launched, my old account migrated to MDE. This was also initially my user name for the DVC site. At some point, I was prompted to create a new login with my email address instead of my username. I added DH to my friends and family list and invited hint o plan and share with me. At some point in June 2013, I upgraded to the Disney Visa that has the annual fee but better rewards and used the statement credit to offset the purchase our MVMCP tickets. I successfully linked both out PAP and MVMCP tickets to my account and we were good to go.

It all goes Haywire:
In early October, I noticed that DH had still not accepted my request. Of course, that annoyed me, so I logged into his MDE account and accepted the request for him. DISASTER. When I logged back into my account, I now had 2 PAP's under my name. DH had 0. We had only 1 MVMCP ticket and it was assign to me (luckily I still had two physical tickets). OMG I broke MDE!

Resolution:
I called Guest Relations and explained my problem. The CM that I spoke with did not know how to fix the problem at that point. I decided to wait a few days and call back again. The same thing happened again, so I chalked it up to not enough training and waited two weeks to call back. This time I got "Katie" on the phone who couldn't fix the problem, but she referred it to her supervisor who spent several hours working on my account and everything now appeared to be correct. MDE still seemed very buggy to me and would not always display what should have been there properly, so we just crossed our fingers, held our breath, and counted on the fact that Disney would fix it if something went wrong during our trip.

Result:
We spend 11 days at Saratoga Springs with every aspect of our MagicBands functioning as expected. They worked for our room keys, charging, ticket media, FP+, and PhotoPass. We did have two sets of missing PhotoPass pics, but we're not sure that we actually scanned out bands at those locations and we always have the photographer take a pic on our camera just in case!

Everything is great now, right?
Not so much...I didn't realize before we left home for our April trip to Boardwalk that neither Benn's AP MagicBand nor his Boardwalk MB were active on his account. The only active band was his SSR band from December which, figuring that we couldn't possible need, was the only set of MB we had that I had left at home! The concierge at BWV was able to link the room key, but not the AP on the FP+ selections. (Not a huge problem because we still have the AP card for backup right now and that works fine.) Heather, a CM from Hollywood Studios finally succeeded (after maybe 30-45 min) in linking DH's AP to a completely new band (had to re-link BWV room back at concierge), but still the FP+ reservations would not link. She did, however, give us two universal FP+ selections for the day where we could walk up to any two rides at any time that day and get FP access. We used these to get the elusive second TSM FP on the same day!! We just continued our vacation with DH using his AP without issue. There was absolutely no trouble with my MB or with my parents' MB's.

Well what happens on the next trip?
Great question! Of course, when we got home, I logged onto MDE and attempted to link the BWV and AP bands. Of course, this still results in an error message. When our OKW bands arrived, I checked--sure enough, brand new band active for my (and for DH's aunt and cousin who are accompanying us on this trip), but now new active band for DH. Attempted to manually link the band using the "link MagicBand option". Nothing. Called my good friends at tech support. I spoke with Leland, who was the first person to suggest that the duplicate account and using different log-ins for MDE and DVC could be related to the problem. An hour later, we had solved that problem. My account now looks much cleaner, but still no new MagicBand on DH's account.

Now What?
Well, I waited a day or two and tried to manually link the MB again. No luck. This time I submitted a feedback form on the website and included some other feedback from our BWV trip that we were interested in sharing. Within 48 hours, I had a phone call from Hannah. We talked for about 30 minutes and I tried to give her all of the potentially relevant information that I could remember and she assured me that she would have our problem resolved before we land at MCO on May 15. With a day or two, I got a call from Steph (I think) at OKW who ultimately reissued our MagicBands.

So that solved the problem?
Not exactly. But, bonus! Our original OKW bands shipped right before the DVC sliders were included, so we had not gotten them. Our second box of OKW bands came complete with sliders! I still can't link DH's new band to his account. I now have 5 bands to his 1 band. *facepalm* So I called Hannah back and she is still working on a resolution to our problem. There is clearly something wrong in Benn's account that is causing it not to accept new MagicBands. It is impossible that we have had 4 defective Magic Bands and that of the 16 total MagicBands that our family has been issued in the past 6 months that all 4 of the defective bands belong to Benn. Hannah agrees and she assures me that the technical team is working feverishly to correct the problem. So that's where we are at the moment. So, that's where we stand at the moment. More updates to come!

Wow, it's taking a long time to get this resolved. Do you hate MagicBands now?
Not at all. Despite the issues, we are still fans of MDE and MagicBands. There are definitely still some kinks to work out, but overall, I think this product is going to make park touring much less complicated for us. I love not having to do rope drop to get FP for my favorite rides, being able to control my FP return times, and not having to fish out my park ticket or paper FP ticket or KTTW card/credit card because everything is conveniently housed on my wrist. Once we got to the tech team, everyone has bent over backwards to try to get our problem fixed. The front line CM's did everything within their power to help, but they clearly do not have the tools and technology access necessary to handle this particular problem. My only regret is not documenting names and dates better because I think that info would probably be helpful right now. In the beginning, I expected each phone call to be the one that fixed the problem for good.