The Writing is On the Wall for MagicBands at Disney.
It’s the end of yet another era for MagicBands, which have been slowly fading away at Walt Disney World for a few years despite still being pretty popular (comparatively). It’s a different story at Disneyland, where the MagicBand+ is as good as dead. This discusses the device’s decline on both coasts, what led to this, and more.
Let’s start with the latest development for Walt Disney World, which is really non-news. During a recent media briefing, leadership from the WDW Product Management, Guest Experience, and Commercial Strategy departments discussed what to expect from upcoming digital product changes. They covered an upcoming overhaul to the My Disney Experience app and updates to Disneyworld.com, the most consequential of which we cover in detail here: Walt Disney World is Making Major App Changes.
MagicBands were not mentioned once. That’s not necessarily conclusive of anything; we don’t expect nonstop MagicBand news. But if there were a time to discuss developments to the wearable or its future, it would’ve been at this briefing. Instead, there was a reference to Apple Wallet in the new trip checklist feature, and that was it.
If there is a new MagicBand coming, 2026 would be the time to announce it. The original MagicBand was introduced in 2013 at Walt Disney World, with the iterative MagicBand 2.0 being announced three years later and launching in 2017. Fast-forward past COVID, and the MagicBand+ was announced for the 50th Anniversary in 2021 and released one year later.
Assuming a similar cadence, the next generation wearable should be announced any time now and launch in 2027. Which is why it was a conspicuous omission for MagicBands to not even be mentioned during that briefing on app and website updates. If MagicBands have a place as a marquee product offering, you’d think they’d come up.
Our strong suspicion for a while has been that MagicBands have no such future. That they are slowly being phased out in favor of better support for digital wallets, along with the likely introduction of facial recognition technology at park entrances and Lightning Lanes. That to the extent something tangible is necessary, physical ticket media or room keys will fill the gap.
The writing has been on the wall for a while, and was reinforced at the start of the last fiscal year with the End of Discount MagicBand+ for Walt Disney World Guests. That alone was a massive blow to guest utilization of MagicBands at Walt Disney World, but even before that, it was increasingly clear that the wearable was on its way out.
While ending the pre-arrival discount program was disappointing, it sadly made sense. There are only so many upcharges that guests will purchase prior to their trips, and it behooves Disney to emphasize those that will improve satisfaction.
This is yet another way that the switch from free FastPass to paid Lightning Lanes has had second order consequences on other aspects of Walt Disney World trips, but it’s not just that. Guest satisfaction is likely higher among those who purchase After Hours or Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party tickets versus MagicBands, and with the ‘plus’ devices skyrocketing in cost, it absolutely is one or the other.
If I had to bet right now on whether three years from now I’ll be able to wear a new generation of MagicBand or ride Disney’s Magical Express (a service that does not currently exist), I’d pick the latter. Neither strike me as overwhelmingly likely, but of the two, the odds of a Disney’s Magical Express comeback are higher than a MagicBand renaissance.
Future of MagicBands
Before we get going, the silver lining is that MagicBands are still being supported at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. That is not expected to change anytime soon, so if you’re one of the Disney diehards who already owns a MagicBand or twenty, you’ll still be able to use it for the foreseeable future.
There’s no officially announced or even rumored sunset date for support of the MagicBand+ on either coast. My gut is that it’ll continue to work so long as major changes aren’t made to legacy systems, but I wouldn’t expect future features to roll out, entertainment enhancements, mini-games, or that sort of thing (especially at Disneyland).
Basically, to the extent that Disney doesn’t have to invest significantly more money into MagicBands, they’ll work. Keeping in mind that the interactive Pal Mickey (anyone else remember that, or am I the oldest Walt Disney World fan still standing?!) plus from the early aughts still works in limited capacity roughly 20 years after the product was discontinued, MagicBands are likely “safe” from a guest perspective for a while.
Given that the MagicBand user base is exponentially larger than that of Pal Mickey, I wouldn’t be surprised by ongoing maintenance and support for the wearables for a long time to come. Meaning that, for example, MagicBand tapstiles are likely at Lightning Lanes in Villains Land in Magic Kingdom and Pandora in Disney California Adventure, even if the devices are technically ‘dead’ by that time. In other words, the good news is that you’ll likely be able to use your MagicBands into the 2030s. Maybe even the 2040s.
MagicBands Already Dead or Dying at Disneyland
As for the MagicBand+ being dead at Disneyland, there have been rumors of this for a while now. It’s likewise been fairly obvious to anyone who visited a Disneyland gift shop, as there have been virtually no MagicBands anywhere.
At Disneyland, the MagicBand+ connects to park tickets or Magic Key Annual Passes to enter parks or Lightning Lanes. Additionally, you can connect your PhotoPass and use MagicBand+ for interactive activities around the park, such as the Disneyland 70th Anniversary touchpoints that are scattered throughout the park.
Unlike at Walt Disney World, the MagicBand+ will not unlock your hotel room, nor does it have resort charging privileges. A doppelganger device, known as DisneyBand+ (presumably for international IP purposes), is available aboard Disney Cruise Line as a stateroom key and for payment onboard and on the private islands.
Although I don’t pay super close attention, I can’t recall the last time I saw MagicBands on store shelves, period. Probably around New Year’s when a lot of 70th stuff being clearanced out at deep discounts. Speaking of the 70th, the beginning of that event is probably the last time I spotted any new designs.
Disneyland has officially confirmed as much, stating that the resort is ending on-property sales of MagicBand+ devices, but not support for them. Since that statement was made about one month ago, I’ve checked each of the three shops where MagicBands were last available, and have found no traces of MagicBands.
Along with this, I should note that I’ve heard unsubstantiated reports from Cast Members that the reason for the lack of MagicBand+ inventory is because a new generation of the device is going to roll out. I do not believe this for the reasons discussed above.
My gut is that this is chatter trying to make sense or come to terms with the MagicBand+ ending sales at Disneyland. Investing in yet another generation of the wearable feels like the ultimate example of throwing good money after bad. (Okay, when framed like that, it sounds like exactly the type of thing Disney would do!)
As you might recall, the MagicBand+ launched at Disneyland Resort in October 2022 to great excitement among a subset of Disney fans. The device had been anxiously awaited by diehards, who had been asking when the California parks would finally get MagicBands for years.
Less than one year later (September 2023), Disneyland announced a special offer: Magic Key Annual Passholders could receive a FREE MagicBand+ with any purchase at select Disneyland Resort gift shops. That was a free MagicBand+ with any purchase, not just with a purchase over a certain amount.
You could buy a bag of candy, magnet, or whatever the cheapest item was at participating locations and get a free MagicBand Plus. And in fact, when we went to take advantage of this deal, we actually had a harder time finding cheap products in stock than we did MagicBands, because Annual Passholders were spending as little as possible to score the freebie.
Prior to that promo, we had heard credible rumors that Disneyland over-ordered MagicBands to a staggering degree. I don’t recall exact numbers, but it was a comically large number ordered versus sold at full price (a single-digit percentage of units had sold, if I recall correctly). Giving away MagicBands succeeded at clearing that out, though.
At the risk of stating the obvious, MagicBand+ has been a massive flop at Disneyland Resort. The sluggish sales at launch and that giveaway less than one year later told me the MagicBand+ had no future at Disneyland.
Even after the giveaway, we still rarely see anyone wearing the devices. It’s amazing that Disneyland seeded tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) for free, and yet, you still seldom see them. Maybe they’re like that E.T. Atari game, and decades from now, we’ll find out they were all buried in New Mexico or something. If you were to play a “count the…” game with MagicBands and Monsters University hats, the latter would win!
Between its limited uses at Disneyland and the reality that most guests are locals, it’s not a huge surprise that MagicBand+ hasn’t really caught on in the California parks. We expected it wouldn’t be a huge hit, but even we were caught off-guard by just how quickly it was forgotten and how few fans wear them out west.
What has surprised me is just how long the MagicBand+ has been allowed to remain on life support at Disneyland. Just last year, Disneyland added a bunch of shockingly well-done touchpoints for the Disneyland 70th Anniversary, complete with working effects and fun free keepsakes.
I can’t imagine how much that cost to deploy–money that probably could’ve been better spent. It felt oddly reminiscent of how Wish keeps ending up in new entertainment despite being a flop; either an example of Disney trying to make fetch happen or an example of the development pipeline taking way too long.
To the best of my recollection, that was the last big interactive initiative with MagicBand+ at Disneyland. With new turnstiles and a shift towards facial recognition, it seems that MagicBands will soon see their utility reduced even further, so it makes sense that Disneyland isn’t ordering more of them for the stores.
Maybe Disneyland is finally going to get around to supporting Disney MagicMobile or digital wallets, which would likewise reduce the utility of MagicBands. (That’s what I would personally love to see, as both the digital wallet and MagicBands are more efficient at touchpoints than barcodes.)
Earlier this spring, I attended a media roundtable with Thomas Mazloum, who was Disneyland President at the time but has since been promoted to Disney Experiences Chair. Mazloum and other leadership from the resort shared plans for the future, along with changes they’ve made over the last year to measurably improve the guest experience.
Mazloum also fielded questions from media, with one of my peers asking whether MagicBands might roll out additional features, as the device is a ‘useful tool’ at Walt Disney World, whereas it’s a ‘glorified toy’ at Disneyland. Mazloum didn’t sugarcoat the future of the device in his response.
He explained that, from his previous role overseeing Walt Disney World resort hotels, he knew that a majority of guests using MagicBands in Florida were staying in the resorts. He also explained that Walt Disney World has a ton of hotel inventory, giving the MagicBand actual utility.
This wasn’t really news to me. In discussing the sustainability (or lack thereof) of Early Entry at Disneyland vs. Walt Disney World, we pointed to hotel inventory. There are under 3,000 on-site resort rooms at Disneyland Resort (hotel inventory plus DVC), whereas there’s over 10 times that number at Walt Disney World.
Mazloum then discussed demographics, touching on familiar topics such as Annual Passholders vs. tourists, off-site vs. on-site stays, and more. The usual suspects that come up when discussing how Disneyland and Walt Disney World differ. Or rather, how Walt Disney World is the outlier when it comes to the parks, and everywhere else is more like the California parks (except arguably Disneyland Paris).
Putting a finer point on it, Mazloum explained that the theoretical audience for MagicBand+ at Disneyland is 7% of guests, whereas it was closer to 50% at Walt Disney World. He questioned the wisdom of spending on something that has a ceiling of 7% of guests, as opposed to investments that’ll benefit all park guests.
Frankly, I would argue that 7% actually overstates the audience for MagicBands at Disneyland; that the only way of reaching that number is giving away MagicBands to hotel guests, which Disneyland does not do.
I’ve always wondered why Disney bothered with MagicBand+ at Disneyland. From the very beginning in 2022, it felt like throwing good money after bad, and a project that was doomed to fail.
My strong belief is that the device was DOA at Disneyland, and that had nothing to do with its functionality or lack thereof. It seemed like Disneyland had MagicBand+ forced on them, possibly as a way to spread development costs. If not that, I’m not really sure what.
Nothing Mazloum said during that roundtable was remotely surprising. The only surprising thing would be if the leadership before him didn’t reach this exact same conclusion with anything more than like 30 minutes of analysis. It’s the patently obvious conclusion.
This might rub some fans the wrong way, and I’m aware that MagicBands have a passionate fan following. Many of those enthusiasts will argue that the device would’ve been a success at Disneyland had the company done X or Y differently, investing more in MagicBand+ infrastructure or whatever.
To each their own, but I strongly disagree. The device flopped even after liquidating inventory by giving them away. Disneyland couldn’t achieve meaningful uptake even after giving a ton of MagicBands away for free, so it was never going to work as a paid device.
About the only outcome-determinative change that I could see changing the equation would be time-traveling and launching them a decade earlier, back before smartphones were quite as ubiquitous and the wearable had more novelty. In the here and now? There’s nothing Disneyland could do to change the outcome.
The DisneyBand+ Difference
Beyond the parks, the MagicBand+ started rolling out aboard the Disney Cruise Line fleet as the DisneyBand+ in Summer 2023. It has since rolled out to every ship save for the Adventure (different beast).
By all reasonable accounts, the DisneyBand+ has been a popular product offering aboard DCL. This is probably because the ships are more akin to Walt Disney World than the aforementioned locals’ parks, and also because there are so many water-centric activities that makes the waterproof wearable more desirable.
We love the DisneyBand+ on DCL, as it’s convenient, not likely to get lost, and makes it possible to leave the phone back in the room. While the ‘plus’ version has many of the same problems plaguing MagicBand+ at Walt Disney World, it’s dissimilar from Disneyland. If anything, the DisneyBand+ is arguably the best implementation of the wearable anywhere.
Glow with the Show 2.0
Since it launched, MagicBand+ has felt like the Glow with the Show 2.0 to me. It’s pretty amazing that Disney learned exactly zero lessons with that flop when choosing to develop the pricier wearable, and then to import the MB+ from Walt Disney World to Disneyland.
For those who don’t remember Glow with the Show, it was a then next-gen product (like Pal Mickey before it and MagicBand+ after) that consisted of color-changing and “magical” Mickey Ear Hats that interacted with World of Color and Fantasmic!
Glow with the Show was a huge push for a few years (~2012 to ~2014) in the parks, with the ears being given prime real estate in just about every major gift shop at Disneyland Resort, despite sluggish (at best) sales.
In the end, Glow with the Show was a colossal flop. Even with those prominent in-store displays, multiple giveaways to “seed” some truly cool PR photos, very few guests purchased Glow with the Show ears.
The problem was that they were bulky, cumbersome, and–critically–the person spending the money on Glow with the Show ears could not benefit from how they interacted with shows and changed colors, since you cannot see the top of your own head.
MagicBand+ solved that problem, as most people can see their own wrists. (If you can’t, close this tab and seek medical attention immediately.) However, the MagicBand+ introduced a number of new issues, including poor battery life and higher costs. Its “interactivity” with the nighttime spectaculars is also worse than the technology released a decade ago.
When the original MagicBand was released back in 2013, wearable technology wasn’t really a thing. In the years since, all sorts of smart watches and other devices have been released, raising the technical bar every single year.
By contrast, MagicBands have only seen one major redesign, and at least from a tech perspective, now feel archaic as compared to other wearables. I realize that for many people, that’s the appeal of MagicBands–having technology that doesn’t require looking at a screen but still makes life more convenient.
This is precisely why MagicBands still “work” well enough at Walt Disney World where guests are in vacation mode and the devices have more utility. At the same time, MagicBands are dying out in Florida despite the value they add because of their cost and no longer being pushed pre-arrival. The MagicBand+ is in this no man’s land where it’s not good by wearable standards nor is it cheap enough to justify as a no-brainer add-on for the sake of convenience.
All of this is a lot to overcome, especially at Disneyland where the dynamic is different. By disproportionate numbers, guests are not staying in on-site hotel rooms. Those who are out of state tourists are largely staying off-site and incorporating Disneyland into bigger picture Southern California trips. MagicBands don’t have the same value for them since it’s not a lengthy ‘Disney Bubble’ vacation with an emphasis on escapism.
For locals, the overwhelming majority of Disneyland’s audience, there’s no such thing as the ‘Disney Bubble’ in the first place. Screen time isn’t viewed as negatively, and there’s not as much of a market for MagicBands. Consequently, it all comes down to the interactivity and utility for the MagicBand+ at Disneyland. Neither of those things are sufficiently compelling to justify the cost of the wearable. The MagicBand is already as good as dead, and will be replaced by digital wallets or your face in the future.
Planning a Southern California vacation? For park admission deals, read Tips for Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets. Learn about on-site and off-site hotels in our Anaheim Hotel Reviews & Rankings. For where to eat, check out our Disneyland Restaurant Reviews. For unique ideas of things that’ll improve your trip, check out What to Pack for Disney. For comprehensive advice, consult our Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide. Finally, for guides beyond Disney, check out our Southern California Itineraries for day trips to Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, and tons of other places!
Your Thoughts
What do you think of the MagicBand+ slowly dying out? Do you regularly use the interactive wearable devices at Disneyland? Surprised it took so long for the MagicBand+ to fade away at Disneyland, especially given the liquidation back in September 2023? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
We are MB+ fans and were MB fans in the past . Fun and interesting and easy . Nerdy or not , we like the themed ones and have bought the Halloween , Christmas , and 70th ones of course. Not wild about the charging process but definitely better than having to drag my phone out or search around in my purse for the darn park cards . Hope they continue into the far future and let you choose which method of park entrance you want to use .
MagicBand+ signaled the end of the technology. It offered incredibly underwhelming benefits in exchange for a significantly higher price point. I just finished 2 days at Disneyland with my family, and we all had MB+ from our last trip to Disney World. While I appreciated the utility of having the tap points for park entry and lightning lanes, as well as the extra 70th anniversary stations, they were otherwise pointless. There were several places in the parks on the walkways where bands would vibrate and light up, but none of us would figure out why. The Batuu Bounty Hunters game didn’t work for us at all (though that was more an issue with the Play Disney app). The lighting effects for shows were pointless, because even though I can see my wrist, I don’t want to hold my wrist in front of my face while watching a show.
Disney should have just evolved MagicBand 2.0 to work at Disneyland and the cruise ships. No pointless vibration and lighting. No finicky gestures. No need to recharge every single night. Just a simple and elegant replacement to bringing out your phone to scan into the park and attractions, that’s priced cheaply enough that it’s an easy decision to buy for most guests.
you don’t need to charge them. they work without power just fine if you don’t want the lights.
The problem is not MagicBand, it is MagicBand+. And I will not be surprised to see MagicBand 2nd gen make a comeback at some point.
– It’s the right price point
– It works on the ships (they sell DisneyBand+, but we have used our 2s on them)
– It works at Aulani, where it has similar value to WDW + the ‘get wet’ aspect
– It works at Hilton Head & Vero Beach
In short, MagicBand 2 will have buyers outside of WDW — and those buyers will be more inclined to buy the 2 than to cough up the extra money for the extra features of the + that have nothing to do with what is attractive to these users about the bands.
Totally agree with all of this. If Disney were smart, the next generation would be “MagicBand Classic,” which would just be MB 2 again.
Hogwash. Magic bands have gone from being a free accessory mailed to hotel guests to a collectable starting at $35 and up. Its one of the amazing category of merch disney has created along with ears, bubble wands and now popcorn buckets and novelty drink holders.
There is too much profit in them for them to go away. Its probably more that they are close to market saturation.
Given how heavily Walt Disney World skews to first-timers and infrequent visitors (Pandora is still new to a majority of guests), there’s no way MB+ has achieved market saturation.
It’s pretty incredible how Disney simply doesn’t get it. We love MBs but hate the MB+. Who cares about special lights and useless functions like that? All guests want is a convenient (your smartphone is NOT convenient) wearable that lets you get into your room, get into the parks, get onto rides, and charge things. That’s it. MB+ was simply a money grab – the basic MBs worked great and I’m sure were pretty cheap, as Disney used to give them you for free when you booked a room at WDW. Just like the Mouse Ears fiasco, you have to ask yourself if Disney even polls its guests first to ask them if they want to pay for something that used to be free and is basically useless. In my opinion, had Disney kept the basic MB as free at WDW, it would still be used by almost all guests staying on site. We are long term Disney World fans, but their drive to make things “more convenient” (read that as “more money for us”), is slowly driving us away. We used to go every year and now go every 2 to 3 years, if at all.
Love MB. Not having to hve pre-teens have a phone or ticket to worry about is major advantage. MB means we can split up and kids can still tap into LL.
Disney bubble is less screen time. Has tajen years to perfect navihgate LL to minimize screen time.
Big picture is they are very useful at WDW. Keep them there!
I still wear my original Magic Band from when they were first issued. It still works fine. I new the 2.0 version would flop. Who wants something that needs to be charged? From what I’m seeing in the comments, my Apple watch may work? I don’t like the idea of having to get out my phone all the time.
I love magic bands and this is sad to hear. Nobody wants their phone out more than they already do, they have fun designs, and are great for kids if nothing else. The still say not using them at the hotels and such was the big mistake here. That’s what originally sold me on them at WDW. Room keys are super annoying.
Since I have an Apple Watch I’ll survive without them if that can be used for ALL the same stuff including hotel, but that’s the only consolation. I absolutely do not want to be using my phone.
as everyone has already noted, MBs are extremely useful for children.
how exactly are we supposed to take all the kids through the LL multipass line without MBs? The slow scroll through the digital tickets on the phone?
Also as has been mentioned, we prefer the old lightweight non-rechargeable MBs.
I hope i can dig up all of our old ones so we don’t have to buy the MB+ versions when we’re there.
Disney just seems to enjoy making life harder and harder for guests with small kids.
What’s their target market again?
Magicbands are very useful for children who are old enough to need a ticket, and young enough to not have a phone. But given how often Disney has been demolishing playgrounds intended for this same age group, it’s no surprise that they aren’t considering them when making these decisions.
How sad for the eventual demise of those fun useful Magicbands. They serve us well and will continue to use them until we cant. The wrist is alot easier and more convenient than the other options!
Magicband+ are awesome, we love them and the subtle little glow during fireworks and exiting rides. They are easy to use and work 100% of the time, much unlike people with apple watches, who constantly get stuck at the park entry turnstiles and back up the line. If any support for devices should be dropped, it should be apple watches, they’re just flaky.
Our family really enjoys the easy of use with Magic Bands 2.0. We will be sad if Disney stops using them.
One thing that often gets overlooked in discussions about the future of MagicBands is the scale of the infrastructure Disney built around them.
MagicBands themselves are only the visible part of the system. Walt Disney World invested roughly $1 billion in the underlying technology platform. That included RFID touchpoints at park entrances, attraction access points, retail and dining POS systems across the property, hotel room door locks, PhotoPass integration, network infrastructure, software platforms, and the backend systems tying it all together.
Think about the scale for a moment. At Walt Disney World alone, more than 28,000 resort hotel room doors had to be replaced or upgraded to support the system. That’s before you even consider the park turnstiles, attraction touchpoints, retail and dining locations, transportation systems, and countless other readers and devices deployed throughout the resort.
From an operational standpoint, Disney didn’t just create a wristband—they built a resort-wide identity and transaction platform. The same credential could open your hotel room, enter a park, access Lightning Lanes, link photos, and charge purchases virtually anywhere on property.
That’s why I don’t see MagicBands disappearing entirely. Disney may continue expanding phone-based options, but replacing or abandoning the underlying infrastructure would mean walking away from one of the largest guest-experience technology investments ever deployed in the theme park industry.
Lots of interesting comments here!
One clarification I want to make that could potentially be helpful is that Apple Wallet (and presumably other digital wallets) do not require any screen time, nor do they drain your phone’s battery. To the contrary, they work even after your phone has been dead (up to 5 hours).
You just need to set up Express/Transit Mode. Same goes for using a smartwatch. More details and how to set up here: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/magicmobile-versus-magic-band-plus-disney-world/
If you’ve ever traveled to a city with robust public transportation, you’ve probably seen people primarily tapping their phones/watches as opposed to using physical tickets. Exact same system being used. It’s incredibly efficient, absent user error.
Keep in mind that this is with the exception that it only applies to apple’s wearable smart watch tech products. Google pay, Samsung pay etc. do not currently work with the Disney MagicBand operating systems. While it can be utilized on you android handheld device it unfortunately does not coincide with the andriod based wearables. It’s important to note that the MagicBand tech is also now being widely utilized on Disney’s fleet of cruise ships. The freedom to be able to use these bands and tech sidelines the necessity of hanging the lanyard with a physical key card around your neck or simply physically carrying around the card itself. However, the same issues with android based wearable tech compared to apple’s tech as it integrates with the MagicBand system is also seen on DCL’s ships. While this article appears to lean towards the possibility of a phase out, their continued expansion of how and where they are being used appears to yield quite the opposite. With our experience across Disney’s vast portfolio of Parks, Resorts, Cruise ships, etc. we can say that the ability to utilize the MagicBand system via its MagicBand+ bands, has combined peace of mind with its ease of use thus improving the overall magical Disney experience.
The Magic Bands are a nice part of the Disney resorts experience. But I forgot mine when I visited Disneyland in May and had no issues using my phone. We are a smart phone society and most people are very capable of using their phone for everything. Time moves on.
@Stephen not everyone has a smartphone-gasp!-ex my husband, my disabled father-so even though we are a “smartphone society” the assumption that everyone either has one or is able to maneuver the tech is shortsighted. Also as many have mentioned the advantages for children and teens of a MB are great (not all parents allow their kids a smartphone nor should we be forced to by society-the emotional issues that come from too much smartphone and social media access are scary)
When Disneyland California finally brought MagicBands over to our parks I was elated for the possibilities! I wanted the ability to sync my band with my app/pay program and tap with ease, but Disneyparks never made the capability available. I also utilized it for my DAS pass because it made access to the kiosks so much easier than fumbling a phone and swiping ticket by ticket.
I still wear my band for access to the parks, photo opportunities, and for lightning lane check in (since Disney decided DAS shouldn’t be offered anymore) so to hear them say we need YET another reason to pull out our phones for yet another feature is exceptionally tone deaf. One of the biggest feedbacks from everyone is that they’re tired of being on their phone “managing their day” and not in the moment with their family/friends.
This makes me sad- has aways been a little thing that made u feel like u were away from the real world for a while.
Why in the world would I prefer to have to take my backpack off of my back, fumble around for my phone, navigate to my wallet on my phone when, with a band on my wrist, I just hold out my hand and tap the band to an electronic reader???? Never have I seen a better case for “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
I could not agree more. My daughter uses her phone to get into the parks while I use a MagicBand (just the puck in a holder on my Apple Watch). It usually takes her twice as long to get in, since she needs to open her phone and then open the wallet on her phone. It’s the same at Lightning Lane tapstiles. I will continue to use a MagicBand for as long as their little batteries last.
We enjoy our Magic Bands (I preferred the smaller, lighter profile and less hassle of the prior gen, plus they don’t glow and pulse all night as you charge them) but we probably have 15-20 MBs for our family of 4 and at DLR, we can let guests borrow them while visiting the park (they are hard coded at WDW which causes all kinds of headaches we we use them at DLR first).
I’ll be sad to see them go, love not having to take my phone out more than necessary—though let’s face it, I’m generally pulling it out to get our next LLs. We will keep using them until we can’t.
BTW, Tom, I know it’s a bit of a special situation but Club 33 at DLR has been selling MBs as recently as this spring, they put a new Club branded one out a few months ago, but it has since sold out.