How are you all feeling about the powerup bands at this point? We have a gen 1 wand we will use when we go in two weeks but am on the fence about the band. If we get one, DD13 and I will share. I’ve seen comments that the lines for the minigames can be very long but it can also be a fun way to spend time. I could see my DD13 finding it fun for 30 min and then wanting to not deal with “ugh boys” (lol) running around.
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The games are really fun. However, like wand spots, every place uses the honor system to queue. You can have families that hog the stations, kids that cut the line & etc..
If the the games are a big part of your plans / child’s wishes / you’ll be coming back to do it again then it’s an investment.
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I guess this is one positive thing about only buying them onsite - I’ll get a chance for her to sense if she’ll enjoy it.
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This is what happened with DD10 and DS8. It was fun for a short period of time (probably about 20 mins) and then they got sick of teenagers hogging time at the games and long lines so we moved on.
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As much as I adore doing wand spells, I always RD those instead of rides on the days I plan for WWOHP. Otherwise, you are standing there forever while a kid is trying the 12th time to get it to work! 
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I liked it better than the wands in some ways. It’s way more physical and requires two people to actually win some of the more physical games. I was sweating after. The wands probably provide more hours of fun tho. Way more wand ops. I was also there on a day when the express line for Mario kart was 45 min (aka it felt like a 9-10 crowd level) and I didnt find the waits long. Maybe 5-10 min tops.
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Thanks. I worry about attention span and competition. I feel like there was good crowd patience for wands because it’s not too physical. I worry SMW is so chaotic and energetic that it leans towards line jumping and less patience. I think we’ll wait and scope it out. This week has been so bad that I’m reading wait times for the games are around 30 min!!!
I may try and convince DD13 to do this our last day there!
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I didn’t see anyone cutting but I guess that just could have been when I was there. The longest wait we had was bowser and it was posted 20 and was more like 10-15. I didn’t know they posted the wait times for the band games themselves. Must be people posting that. We did play some of the games in Japan and those had 25-30 min lines there.
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@melcort10 just did a trip with her two sons in August. They got the powerup bands…maybe she can chime in with how her kids did attention-wise. She also has a trip report out there that recaps the whole experience!
The Epic portion of the program starts around here:
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We did power-up bands for our trip in November, and were at Epic the day before Thanksgiving. We got one each for DS8 and DD6. DS8 is a huge Mario/video game fan and he had watched so many videos about the games that it was high on list as a must-do for going to SNW.
He LOVED hitting the question marks to collect coins, collecting letters in DK Country and then he KNEW we wanted to play the final Bowser Jr Challenge and to do that we had to collect 3 keys from the minigames. In his words, “Mom, It’s like I get to be Mario for the day!”
We couldn’t find one of the mini-games, and another was broken so we didn’t have choices really, but they were SO fun to play. Also, both Mario Kart & Mine-Cart Madness were taking turns going down, and at one point Yoshi went briefly down, so it was CROWDED everywhere with people waiting around outside the rides and generally hanging out everywhere, but we also never waited more than 10 minutes at 2pm-ish to play the games. There was a 20 min posted wait for the Bowser Jr challenge but it was maybe a 5 min wait and the TM at the entrance told us the only reason he couldn’t get us right in was because he didn’t have enough slots for all 6 of us in the grouping before. So we waited far less than posted.
My older kids (DS14 and DD12) were overwhelmed with being in SNW by the time we started playing games (we had been there all day just trying to ride the 2 big rides and ate lunch at Toadstool), so they left to do Darkmoor and then rejoined just to do the final Bowser Jr challenge to close up our day in the land.
The final challenge was my favorite part and well worth the time it took to get the 3 keys required. So, we loved it but definitely isn’t for everyone because SNW is definitely chaotic and overstimulating. And you really just have to absolutely love Mario and have a nostalgia for the games/characters to just take all that in.
ETA: There are also touchpoints through the Mine-cart madness queue as well as hidden “M” emblems around the land that when you tap with the band show a digital projection of one of the characters in their 8-bit style. That was a cool little detail too, and made it a combo of a scavenger hunt on top of the minigames & world immersion.
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If it’s in your budget, I’d definitely recommend getting one of the bands. In addition to the minigames, which are super fun, there’s also a final minigame you can unlock that is really well done, inventive, and more engrossing than the other ones. The bands also allow you to participate in little scavenger hunts around the land, as well as to keep track of stats and achievements just like you would for a video game once you link them to the app.
Don’t get me wrong, it sucks that all of that stuff is paywalled, and the bands are pricier than they ought to be in my book. But without knowing your daughter’s tastes, I do think the bands give you access to a lot of stuff in SMW that ultimately makes them worth it. (One to share is definitely fine!)
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We got the bands and ended up getting a wand (that we were originally not going to do). I’m glad we had both. Like others said, SNW is very loud and chaotic and some of the smaller “effects” (not necessarily games) are giant free for alls. But I think the game games had pretty orderly queues.
My DS10 really preferred the HP windows with the wand. They annoyed me because there were never any without someone there ahead of us, so zero of the effects were a surprise. But they were always cool.
I’ll be honest that the games weren’t super high on our list as we had a single day at Epic to hit “everything.” So unless you feel like you have tons of time at Epic then maybe I would just wait and see. I would think a 13yo could make a judgement call on how she would rather spend $45.
I would think a 13
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Thanks so much for the detailed report! I do worry my daughter will fall into your older kids preferences. It’s good to hear that the times were reasonable. We will have 3 days there so I figure by the third day (which should be the quietest) we can decide if she wants to do it.
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Thanks for the insights. We would absolutely only do one band. It’s funny because I completely see the appeal of the wands as part of the experience and there was never any doubt about buying one when we first went to Universal. And despite really liking Mario items (she’s a big Luigi’s Mansion fan) I still find myself hesitant. How much did you spend doing the games?
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Your trip report was so great! We will have three days so I’m guessing by day 2 we can decide on doing the games day 3 vs just more rides. I think she’s most excited about the food at Epic!
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I am sure it’s on your list but you definitely cannot miss the Butterbeer Crepe!
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We’re not butterbeer people but we are crepe people so I’m torn. I tried almost all versions of butter beer when we went and none of them really worked for me. DD hated them all. Are the crepes very sweet / caramel like?
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I’ll put in my unsolicited 2 cents here. I love crepes and sweets and was really looking forward to the butterbeer crepes, but I did not like them. They had a custardy filling (maybe that was the butterbeer part?) and I don’t generally like custard. I couldn’t enjoy the chewy texture of the crepes because it was overwhelmed by the texture of the filling. And overall they were too sweet—no balance.
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A decent amount. First, we played each of the mini games once. Then we did the unlocked final mini game. Then we did a few more of the regular mini games with shorter lines again. But honestly, we spent even more time than that exploring/finding/unlocking all the little secrets around the land that you can interact with via the band. Full disclosure, we had early entry for SNW, so the lines for the minigames were short when we did them.
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