That story made my night. It reminded me of Jean Shepherd. “In God we trust, all others pay cash”.
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Yes, I’ve done the same thing with my phone. I should have wrote my comment more clearerly. 
I meant some do, some don’t have NFC, which is one example of a variable they’ll have to deal with to support.
Thanks! I got on a roll there.
Some interesting prototype and rare Magic Band photos here:
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Slightly old news now, but good info:
MagicBand 2 unveiled at D23 Destination D
Funniest, most entertaining post ever…you made my day!
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…and another story on Magicbands at Gizmodo: How I Let Disney Track My Every Move
Which references this blog post at adafruit.com: Hacking The MagicBands From Disney
Interesting to see the comments on the Gizmodo post almost immediately devolve into people’s gripes about having to “plan” to go to WDW vs “wing it”.
Omg, I laughed so hard I choked. So glad I clicked on this random post that didn’t seem like it applied to me or my interests at all.
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I’m glad!
not about the choking part.
but glad you liked it! 
My search for MagicBand and other technology ins and outs continues…
Disney Uses Big Data, IoT And Machine Learning To Boost Customer Experience
A lot of old rehash of the philosphy of the MBs driving data, but some interesting tidbits:
The more data Disney collects it can improve operational efficiency such as in the scheduling of 240,00 shifts for 80,000 employees each week, the better it is able to target marketing because the preferences and behaviors of past guests are used to create future packages and offers specific to them and Disney is even dabbling at making robotic versions of Mickey and Minnie and all of its characters that would move around among the guests and interact with them.
also…
Future generations of blockbuster movies might be determined based on the ability to re-shape content during the film based on viewers’ reactions. Disney Research is already tracking reactions of audiences through a neural network it has developed which is helping the company quantify how a film is working on a granular scale. While studios have used test audiences to preview early cuts of films for years and would make changes based on that feedback, the difference with today’s methods is the amount of data that can be analyzed. It is expected that these sentiment-analysis cameras would also make its ways into other experiences such as at the parks or restaurants.
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Glad you got in!!! Loved your story! 
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Absolutely hilarious. Loved the original story. And hadn’t thought about how Disney can use our Magicband data to improve their advertising and also our experience, so that was interesting. Thank you! P.S. more stories needed!
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This article is from last year but somehow just showed up via my search notifications:
Companies taking Disney’s tech concepts a step further
I dunno, a restraunt-style “your table is ready” methodology doesn’t really seem like a real “step further” for me. In fact, I’m not sure how it’s a step at all because that seems exactly like what the current Fast Pass is at Disney World, as everyone who’s in that line has the same “your place is ready” notice. Unless I completely misread the article?
The only “advancement” I really think Universal needs to get on is to put MB Tech into the HP Wands. Imagine the little ones enjoying opening up the hotel door with a touch of the wand? And I would think the cosplayers would go absolutely nuts for it.
Package that up like Disney does their MBs in advance of the trip? To me that’s nothing short of a home run.
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Funniest post I have EVER read
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More about human ingenuity and use of story than data or magic bands, but, interesting:
This is a bit of a Microsoft PR article, but still interesting: ‘Magic of nature’: Disney’s smart birdhouses reveal the secret lives of purple martins
Fantastic read. We’ve had that happen to us at AK as we were trying to RD FOP. Complete meltdown on my part. The CM hadn’t activated the tapstiles yet.
I think we should’ve gotten anytime fastpasses for the ride we were rushing towards
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Not a MagicBand, but an interesting video from the Disney Research Hub:
EM-Sense: Touch Recognition of Uninstrumented Electrical and Electromechanical Objects
Most everyday electrical and electromechanical objects emit small amounts of electromagnetic (EM) noise during regular operation. When a user makes physical contact with such an object, this EM signal propagates through the user, owing to the conductivity of the human body. By modifying a small, low-cost, software-defined radio, we can detect and classify these signals in real-time, enabling robust on-touch object detection. Unlike prior work, our approach requires no instrumentation of objects or the environment; our sensor is self-contained and can be worn unobtrusively on the body. We call our technique EM-Sense and built a proof-of-concept smartwatch implementation. Our studies show that discrimination between dozens of objects is feasible, independent of wearer, time and local environment.
