I have no experience with MDE or FPP but I am doing my best to sort it out. I searched for the answer to my questions, but am not clear. Any advice would be appreciated.
I have a friend who may join me for my upcoming solo trip. He is out of the country and will be gone well past the 60 day mark for booking FPP. (He has internet access, but is unable/unwilling to make any arrangements while he is away. I already suggested it. Let’s not go there.)
All of the instructions I have found, advise that he should create a MDE account and that I should then send a friend request to link, and finally I can then book FPP for both of us. But this is not possible as he will not have a MDE account until well after the FPP are booked.
Here is my plan:
If he decides to join me, I will order a hard ticket for him to be delivered to my home. Once it arrives, I will add him and his ticket number to MDE. (I assume you can do this because I’m sure folks do this for grandparents or children or other folks in their traveling party?) After he is added, I will book our FPP at the 60 day mark. When he returns, he can then create a MDE account and access the FPP that have been booked for him.
Your plan is exactly correct. You can make all his FP (and ADRs if that interests you–dining reservations that is) but for the FP you will need to have a ticket linked to his name. That is all you need. I’ve always made all the FP for my group of 6. One of our friends who goes with us just pays me back for his ticket when I see him for the trip. I order the ticket to be sure that I get it in time.
Yes you can create a profile for him. Tickets aren’t refundable once linked though (they are reassign able) do make sure you’re comfortable with that before fronting that much $$
@duffybear, I am not paying for his ticket. I have his credit card details. I’m just having it shipped to my home. Once it arrives, I plan to create a profile for him under my MDE account, link his ticket, and then make our FPP reservations. When he gets back to the US, I assume he can create a MDE account. But I’m unsure how he will be able to see his FPP reservations, and regain control of them.
I agree with @OBNurseNH. Once you’ve created a profile for him it’s quite a hassle if he then creates his own account. It would need Disney IT to “uncouple” him from you and move his ticket and FPs over.
If you’re doing the planning, leave him on your account for this trip.
Although I have to say if he’s not interested enough to buy a ticket and get himself set up, which would take all of 20 minutes, then I would question whether he’ll bother coming.
I set up DH and DS under my account and it was no hassle at all to link their own accounts when they made them at a later date - DH in 2016 and DS last year. No need for a call.
But was that whilst you had an active trip planned, whilst tickets and FPs were already in place? Or after a trip and before booking a new one?
I remember reading reports of people who tried to do it whilst tickets and FPs were already linked to a profile, and they couldn’t transfer the tickets over.
You’re British. J don’t mean to sound glib but the Disney universe seems To function rather a bit differently for those across the pond.
When you set up someone’s account you’re creating them from scratch. And then you “own” them for all intents and purposes. When your friend has an account and you link to them they remain their own person and control can be kept strictly with them or shared to you to allow you to make plans for them.
I created DH back in the day. Meanwhile he created himself. It created a mess for us eventually and I spent a long couple of hours on the phone with Disney IT to straighten it out.
I think OP’s friend should take the brief time it will take to create their account before leaving the country and they should link up as friends, at which time the friend would say that OP has permissions to make plans for them. It would be the easiest of all things to do.
Which makes sense as tickets are not transferable. Else people would create “friends” all the time and then transfer the tickets to some random person later on down the line.
Yes it was. DH set up his account about 2 weeks before our trip, and DS some time between ADRs and FPs. We didn’t need to transfer the tickets. We linked their accounts to their names in my account. It just asked if they were the same person when I added them (or they added me, can’t remember) to my friends and family list.
I would think you could just create his own MDE account. I set up DH, DD21, and DS19 with their own MDE and then I friended them. Of course, they had to accept I think they had to respond through their email.
I suppose you could set him up with one of your emails. He can change his info later. Plus, you have his credit card.
I’m glad it worked. I don’t think it’s a risk I’d want to take.
There again, when we had our first trip after MDE was introduced, I just created accounts for everyone and insisted they accept my invitations before Sunday dinner.
Is there any reason your friend wants to have their own profile and be able to make independent plans from you? If they’re fine with you handling everything, I would just include them on your account as if it was a spouse or child. That would avoid any issue with linking or unlinking accounts.
If they do want their own account, just need to set it up and link to yours before leaving the country.
I have just today from this thread discovered that it was a risk! I asked about DS setting up his own MDE last year in case he went off on his own and everyone said yes he sets it up and then you can invite him. Nobody said they’d had an issue.
This has been my experience too. On our trip lads Jan, I set up my fam as guests under me and had tickets connected. Made FPPs and then invited my mom and sis to actually create their own accounts so that we could have multiple logins available when magazine FPPs in park.
I didn’t have any issues, but they had no existing account at all until I invited them. Issues I have seen reported seem to be when someone is created as a guest but they already had an MDE login and you have to try and merge the two.
I didn’t buy and link hard tickets, so this isn’t an apples to apples comparison, but I created MDE profiles, NOT accounts for my husband and all my kids. Then I was able to send my DH a request FROM MDE, I think next to his profile, inviting him to manage his own profile. He used THAT INVITATION to create his MDE account, and the room we had reserved under his name and the ADRs made for him instantly popped over to him. We hadn’t done FPPs yet.
In my situation they didn’t have accounts before I invited them. I invited them using their preferred email and it prompted them to make and account.
For my mom, she created a brand new account using the email that she received from my invite. For my sister, if I remember correctly, she technically had a disney login from a disney store online purchase, so it was slightly different - like activating it on MDE.
