Several weeks ago now, Disney suspended the ability to pre-order MagicBands for your hotel stay.
But now there are rumblings of Disney switching to mandatory on-line check-in going forward (starting in July?) to avoid unnecessary contact with front desk staff, etc. It makes sense.
But then…what about MagicBands? They are the key into the room. How will guests check in on-line and enter their rooms without MagicBands? Will the use of smart phones to access the rooms become mandatory? But then…not all smart phones are necessarily compatible with the NFC technology. (My phone, for example, doesn’t have NFC.)
I’m sure Disney will work it out…but it does make me wonder if, when folks can pre-order their MagicBands, we can use that as indication they really will be opening up (at least the resorts) soon.
US residents receive the bands in the mail a week or two prior to the check in day. I think think when they open up the order process will be a good sign of planned resort openings.
I think it could indicate that some of the rumours about them opening to locals first could be true. It would only take a few days to ship MagicBands to anyone within the US who doesn’t already have one. They probably aren’t expecting many international visitors for the first few weeks or month.
Indeed. I see international guests being out of luck for a while…but, then, I worry they might even limit out of state guests. Hopefully they let us in by August!
I was wondering about upgraded MBs for cancelled trips.
Have US folks still been receiving them or have they been refunded as part of the cancelled trip??
Just wondering because we’ve paid to upgrade our bands for our POP night in July, but being UK, they won’t be posted to us.
If our POP night is cancelled, are we just out of pocket for the upgrade?
Although they will likely mandate online check-in, there will still be a need for some in-person services at hotels. I think MagicBands is one of those.
Maybe they can do it contactless, but it’s a situation they’ll have to be prepared for. Maybe they could do like Amazon lockers? and you get a code/locker number.
Perhaps…although then the problem is they are forcing folks to touch the same things repeatedly. Maybe if they keep hand sanitizer there after you pick it up it would be okay.
I’ll admit, I’m not personally impacted. We had purchased MagicBands for ourselves before we ever intended to stay on site. But I was thinking about it more generally.
Yeah…but doesn’t it require your phone supports NFC? Or, can you unlock your door without actually placing your phone near the door? In which case, it is using just some kind of internet access.
Ah. Interesting. On a resort tour video I watched, the lady pushed the button on the phone, and then held the phone next to the door handle…so I thought it was using NFC.
If you don’t have to do that (she must have been doing it unnecessarily) then it is just using basic internet to send the unlock…which is smart.
