Thought I loved them now I don't

[gwilliamc]

Well, I have been to WDW way too many times to keep track. I am a DVC member and a FL resident and a PAP holder. I am currently at the parks/resort and have not had the best FP+ and magic band linking with passes experience. I have 6 more trips planned this year alone.

Let me preface by saying my bands and my children's bands seemed to work fine, but my friend who travels with me 80% of the time with her two little ones had the worst day yesterday and I was caught up in the in magical mess since they needed my info to try to link FP+ Etc... She couldn't make dining choices, her passes would not show up as active and so we couldn't link the FP choices so we could vacation together. She left the FL keys at 4am to arrive at AKV at 9am.

I'm not even going to get into my 2 hr wait at the front desk the previous day to get rooms close together (all points from my DVC account) to find out the girl didn't do what she said she did and then wait another 1+ hours for them to try again. They got them closer but not as they were the previous day.

Anyway, so she tries to activate her tickets FL AP so we can link FP choices and she was going to upgrade to the DVC PAP tickets. The hotel can't do this so she was told (she was going to blizzard beach) they could do all this there. Upon arrival and a 2 hour attempt the woman couldn't figure out what to do. Well, they sent her on her way to DTD (all taking magical transportation and 3 kids in tow) to upgrade the tickets there and link FP. The lady at BB didn't return her DVC membership card. After a long wait (for some reason BB "lost" their tickets in the system too) they got them up and running and waived the $23 it would have cost to upgrade for the hassle. Well, they take the first water park bus, this one to TL just so her kids could go swimming. They go in just long enough to change into bathing suits and her eldest step daughter (13) well let's just say she became a woman, so here she goes again with 3 I tow back to AKV. At this point it's 3pm. I arrive back from the park to meet up and head to DTD for diner reservations and head back to guest relations to try to figure out what's going on with the ticket FP situation. We go and they have to take the problem in the back room and they still couldn't see that she had valid tickets in the computer (even though she entered TL). So the people are trying to help but they can't link the FP choices because the times I have are no longer available for her. It's now 10:30pm and we are still at the guest relations and decide to give them my number to "fix" the problem and they will call me. It's after midnight and they call but they moved our FP times around so we could all go together not taking into account my dining reservations so now we are out a ride that falls at the same time as dining. Well, they said due to the inconvenience of losing an entire day they will give us 3 extra fast passes per person to use tomorrow - we are going to HS tomorrow and they gave us 3 free extra choices at MK, and we are really down to 2 FP choices because the one is at our dining time, and if I skip the dining the credit card gets charged. So, one day lost and I fear the worst today. Looking at the FP choices assigned we are now all over the place in different parks then we have planned, and nothing I had planned 60 days ago are the same. The worst part is the times are still not all linked correctly. Something tells me it will be another long day at guest relations. I'll let ya know what happens.

 

[wilma-bride]

Sorry you experienced a lot of problems, although it does sound like only some of them are attributable to MagicBands/FP+ - the room location and ticket upgrade issues would have been the same even if MagicBands didn't exist.

Hope today is more magical for you.

 

[Owlpost23]

Lord,what a mess! A vacation shouldn't be that much work-hope the rest of your vacation is better!

 

[gwilliamc]

Sorry you experienced a lot of problems, although it does sound like only some of them are attributable to MagicBands/FP+ - the room location and ticket upgrade issues would have been the same even if MagicBands didn't exist. Hope today is more magical for you.

The tickets, even before the upgrade would not show up in my Disney experience, which I attribute to the new FP system. If there was no FP online system she could have walked into the park with me and pulled FP tickets with me and not have to worry about linking times since our times would have been the same waking to the kiosk together. Her tickets worked they just didn't show up in their fancy system. Yes, the upgrade was a separate issue and I lumped it in, but still an issue in our oh so fun trip fingers still crossed that the day is more magical.

 

[JanaDee]

Well, I have been to WDW way too many times to keep track. I am a DVC member and a FL resident and a PAP holder. I am currently at the parks/resort and have not had the best FP+ and magic band linking with passes experience. I have 6 more trips planned this year alone.

Let me preface by saying my bands and my children's bands seemed to work fine, but my friend who travels with me 80% of the time with her two little ones had the worst day yesterday and I was caught up in the in magical mess since they needed my info to try to link FP+ Etc... She couldn't make dining choices, her passes would not show up as active and so we couldn't link the FP choices so we could vacation together. She left the FL keys at 4am to arrive at AKV at 9am.

I'm not even going to get into my 2 hr wait at the front desk the previous day to get rooms close together (all points from my DVC account) to find out the girl didn't do what she said she did and then wait another 1+ hours for them to try again. They got them closer but not as they were the previous day.

Anyway, so she tries to activate her tickets FL AP so we can link FP choices and she was going to upgrade to the DVC PAP tickets. The hotel can't do this so she was told (she was going to blizzard beach) they could do all this there. Upon arrival and a 2 hour attempt the woman couldn't figure out what to do. Well, they sent her on her way to DTD (all taking magical transportation and 3 kids in tow) to upgrade the tickets there and link FP. The lady at BB didn't return her DVC membership card. After a long wait (for some reason BB "lost" their tickets in the system too) they got them up and running and waived the $23 it would have cost to upgrade for the hassle. Well, they take the first water park bus, this one to TL just so her kids could go swimming. They go in just long enough to change into bathing suits and her eldest step daughter (13) well let's just say she became a woman, so here she goes again with 3 I tow back to AKV. At this point it's 3pm. I arrive back from the park to meet up and head to DTD for diner reservations and head back to guest relations to try to figure out what's going on with the ticket FP situation. We go and they have to take the problem in the back room and they still couldn't see that she had valid tickets in the computer (even though she entered TL). So the people are trying to help but they can't link the FP choices because the times I have are no longer available for her. It's now 10:30pm and we are still at the guest relations and decide to give them my number to "fix" the problem and they will call me. It's after midnight and they call but they moved our FP times around so we could all go together not taking into account my dining reservations so now we are out a ride that falls at the same time as dining. Well, they said due to the inconvenience of losing an entire day they will give us 3 extra fast passes per person to use tomorrow - we are going to HS tomorrow and they gave us 3 free extra choices at MK, and we are really down to 2 FP choices because the one is at our dining time, and if I skip the dining the credit card gets charged. So, one day lost and I fear the worst today. Looking at the FP choices assigned we are now all over the place in different parks then we have planned, and nothing I had planned 60 days ago are the same. The worst part is the times are still not all linked correctly. Something tells me it will be another long day at guest relations. I'll let ya know what happens.

I'm so sorry you are having such an awful experience. Vacations shouldn't be as difficult as Disney is making them.

I sure hope today is better for you!

 

[kapoof]

It must be so frustrating to customers and cm's with these silly magic bands. Two hours waiting trying to figure them out and it still wasn't right! What a mess so sorry and hope your trip improves.

 

[gwilliamc]

Well the CM came through for us. The Extra FP's worked, so the one we couldn't use cancelled it out. The CM worked on our case for hours upon hours yesterday so I stopped at DTD and gave her one of my paintings - I paint Disney paintings and they have little sayings on the top like "thanks for the extra magic or thanks for the pixie dust" etc... She was very grateful. I have to say with the extra FP it felt like the old days when you actually had enough for your favorite attractions and I wasn't tiered or limited. We used 5 total today with the extra given.

 

[granmanh603]

I'm so sorry you are having such an awful experience. Vacations shouldn't be as difficult as Disney is making them.

I sure hope today is better for you!

Yes Disney is making my vacation a miserable experience, stressful and not magical. They tell you what you can do, and when you can do it. Met a poor young couple on honeymoon trying to get fast passes this morning waiting on huge FP+ kiosk lines only to have rides gone for day or given awful times. Finally we met them on the boat going over to Epcot(tried to get FP for Sorin, one) to try monorail to MK. It was their last day, I felt so bad for them.
We have AP so doesn't matter but my kids came last and basically could only do a few ride a day since standby line had loooong waits and we just would not wait over a hour for most other rides. At dHS we literally did 4 rides and left ST 2X cause wait was 20 min, ToT, RNR. Oh wait we did movie ride and left time 4 hours when wait times moved way up. No one wanted to go back at night.

 

[Davey Jones II]

Disney doesn't give KTTW cards anymore, as a backup? That's a disservice to the guests, since we know that the Magic Bands still have bugs and glitches.

My advice: refuse to book an onsite hotel until/unless they can promise you a backup room key.