Just when you think you know all there is to know…
A friend tells me today that she scans HER finger for her child whenever they enter the park. This came up because she and her husband are in different locations at WDW, but meeting up at a park later today. She asked me if her husband could update the finger scan to his own vs hers. I had no idea what she was talking about. She said she thinks they let her scan because the child is 3. But I saw loads of littles scanning this past weekend (and before that). It seems like this could be an issue — won’t the park see her as scanned in under two profiles and flag her? Isn’t that what we’ve been told?
Hi! You can definitely scan for your kids. We always do. We were actually told that it was recommended since kids tend to forget which finger or wiggle their fingers when they tap.
Has this happen with DD4 last February. Her band was linked to my finger. I was already in MK. She came in later with DH and they let him switch her band over to his finger to get in.
A lot of parents scan for kids, I was told by a cast member that sometimes that have to because little fingers are tougher to get a consistent read on.
If your friend wants to switch from hers to her husbands they just need to let the cast member know, I think it needs to be someone with a tablet.
Edited to add, Disney may just do fingerprints for child tickets differently, but I don’t think they store them for children or adults in a way that it would flag two accounts that match.
We’ve done all the combos for our kids. They were originally on their own fingers. That was a mess so we each took a kid and were their fingers. That somehow wasn’t working so they were back to their own fingers this year.
At one point last year H was the finger for DS2 but H left WDW early so I had to have him rescanned for our last day.
Yes, they can update the finger scan to her husband. Just takes a bit of extra time. They’ve always taken a picture of the kids with a tablet when we have an issue.
the finger scan isn’t unique - it can be on multiple tickets. it’s paired with the ticket, so the pass will only work with that finger. many parents scan their finger for multiple kids.
Okay… so bear with me. Let’s say my DD4 and I go to HS at 6 am next Wednesday because we’re both awake and we get through the tapstyles and I get BGs for ROTR for her and I. Then, later in the day, she goes back to the hotel with the babysitter, but my husband comes back with her band and his finger (presuming he’s an assigned finger on it), can he use her band/BG!!!
I used my finger for my kids in 2016, per CM’s instruction.
Last trip in 2018, they made my kids do it. My twins at 9 were fine, but my 6 year old had issues. We ran into one wise CM after yet again having issues at MK. She said kids tend not to put their whole finger on the scanner. She had him place his finger on the scanner with the tip touching the back curve. She told us to make sure his finger was always touching the back of the scanner when he entered a park and we wouldn’t have any more problems. Worked like a charm. Didn’t have an issue the rest of the trip. We plan on using this strategy in May.
This is good to know, because I think we will have this happen for our next trip as well. Grandma has volunteered to take some naptimes and bring the kids back.
When we last went, all of our kids were very tiny. My friend who is a cast member told me I would probably need to scan for them because their fingers were so tiny the scanner might not work well for them. He went through the line with us and helped, because he’s a doll. They were 5 and 4. I am going to see if I can scan for the six year old for our upcoming trip because she is very petite and her fingers so tiny. If they don’t let me, I will try the trick mentioned above where they put their fingertip to the black curve. I had never even considered what would happen if DH took the kids to another park without me!
Brilliantly my kids upon entering the park for the very first time - one kid put her magic band to the tapstile while my son curiously stuck his finger on the scanner. So he was her finger for a couple of days until there was a CM at the entrance with an iPad to fix it for us. CMs seemed really confused each time as to how that could possibly happen and just waved us through in the meantime.
Later she cut her scan finger and had a bandaid on it so we switched it to my finger.
Why am I just find out about this now? My youngest son, who is on the autism spectrum always has trouble with his finger scanning. Glad I know this now.
So he was her finger for a couple of days until there was a CM at the entrance with an iPad to fix it for us. CMs seemed really confused each time as to how that could possibly happen and just waved us through in the meantime.
