Note: Today’s Post is Part 1 in a Three-Part Series discussing various aspects of MyMagic+
One of, if not THE hottest topic among Disney World fans in 2013 (and still going strong) has been MyMagic+. Technologically advanced and seemingly complicated (at first glance) – MyMagic+ is the way the Walt Disney Company expects guests to vacation at Disney World. MyMagic+ includes a website and smart phone app called My Disney Experience, RFID-equipped wrist-wear called Magic Bands, and the new, paperless Fast Pass Plus (FP+) system for rides and attractions. All these components work together to create a new vacation experience that, for some, may seem anything but magical. Change is difficult and scary for most people and if the change in question seemingly involves negatively impacting your vacation to the Happiest Place on Earth then it may seem like a very poor move for Disney indeed (there are a lot of haters and nay-sayers out there). I’m keeping an open mind and hope you will too. I love Disney World and this is not going to change my feelings,
Maybe I’m being ridiculously ambitious, but I’m going to try my best to give you a good overview of MyMagic+ – there’s a LOT to cover. If you, like many of my friends, are planning a Disney World trip during the next 12 months and will either be going for the first time or haven’t been there in quite a while, this post is for you. I’ll include some links to articles and information I found helpful, and offer suggestions on ways you can make MyMagic+ and all its components work best on your Disney World vacation. Let’s face it, you cannot just show up at Disney World with no prior planning and expect to have the best experience!
Today in Part 1: My Disney Experience – the Site and Smartphone App
The My Disney Experience site is the place to start planning your vacation. Begin by registering as a user and navigate through the options – it’s very user friendly! Ultimately, all your plans for a Disney World vacation go into My Disney Experience. Edna Mode is there to give an instructional video that sums it all up nicely. The website and the smart phone app work together. Think resort reservations, dining plans/reservations, park tickets, daily plans, Fast Pass+ selections, etc. Carrying your smartphone around on vacation goes against the grain for a lot of folks who want to vacation stress- and intrusion-free, but having all your reservation and Fast Pass+ info handy in case of a system glitch is probably a good idea. Also – if you want to make changes to dining reservations or add/change Fast Passes – much easier to do it on your phone than wait to use a computer at one of the parks’ kiosks (installed just for this 
purpose).
The free My Disney Experience app opens to an interactive guide map of Disney World – touch the map to zoom in on a particular park or area – Mickey icons allow you to quickly find park hours and extra magic hours (if available). Touch an arrow on the park hours info and you’ll go to the Attractions section for that park – the best feature on this page is “Wait Times” (more on that in a minute). Newbies will appreciate the “Location” tab for quick and easy reference.
Clicking on the menu (upper left corner) will reveal a list all the app’s bells and whistles. The MDE App has many features – not all features will be used (or appeal) to everyone. I’ve just started using the app myself in preparation for a couple of upcoming trips and so far have my resort reservations, advanced dining reservations, and links to each member of my party entered into the appropriate sections. Info can be entered into either the website or app and will update both places.
Once a ticket or pass as been purchased, it can be added to the app by either scanning the ticket’s barcode or manually entering the ticket’s ID number.
60 Days in advance of a park visit, guests will be allowed to choose Fast Passes (Fast Pass+) for rides and attractions. For newbies – Fast Passes allow you to bypass an attraction’s stand-by line and, basically, go straight to the front with little or no waiting. Singularly, this is currently the most controversial part of the new system. Until all testing (still underway) is completed and the final form of the next gen Fast Pass program is completely understood, taking a wait-and-see stance is probably advisable (take a deep breath and keep calm – the final results of testing are still unknown).
Podcasts, blogs, Disney discussion boards – everyone is discussing this particular aspect of the My Disney Experience as potentially having the biggest (possibly negative) impact on how vacationers will tour parks and enjoy attractions. Those of us who have visited many times have become used to the paper fast pass system giving us the ability to ride headline “e-ticket” attractions (in more than one park per day) without spending a huge chunk of valuable vacation time waiting in line. Current testing has a three per day, same park limit on Fast Passes – Disney World is also testing a tiered Fast Pass system that allows guests to select only one major attraction per day – believe me when I tell you that this is VERY upsetting for many people (myself included). I’m optimistic that Disney will not continue this practice in FP+’s final structure. I believe the amount of negative feedback Disney is receiving over this will be impossible for them to ignore. 
Personally (yes, I’ll eat my words if necessary) – I don’t think they intended the tiered system or the FP+’s one-park-per-day restriction to be permanent – but that’s strictly my own opinion.
Back to the App’s wait times. At each park, rides, shows and attractions are grouped like this: No Waiting, Short Wait Times, Moderate Wait Times, Long Wait Times, Open Throughout the Day, and Closed. This will make selecting plans in the absence of a Fast Pass much easier!
FAQ’s From the Disney World web site has a lot of good “official” information.
Come back for Part 2 and find out what happens after you book the trip!
OK, I read part 2 first, but both are great. As relates to FP+, I’m with you, I can understand everybody’s frustration at the restrictions on FastPasses but I’m optimistic that they won’t be permanent. My thought is that, especially as relates to the one-park-per-day limit, the restriction is to cut down on the potential for chaos while they work out the bugs. Of which, yes, there are still plenty… so limiting what’s available during that time period is probably a smart move. Of course I have no insider info on this, so for all I know, their plan was to cut down the number you can get and limit people to one park all along… but given that they are still selling Park-Hoppers and want people to buy them, that doesn’t make a lot of sense!
As for the rest, I’m optimistic there too. I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that people don’t like change. We are used to things going a particular way and for many frequent visitors, changing the ropes can change the entire experience! I can’t blame people for getting upset if their vacation experience is impacted, but the testing can’t occur in a vacuum forever… the only way to find most of these problems is to make the system live, unfortunately. So I sure hope that by this time next year we’re all back to having a great time. I’d like to say “and MDE will make everyone’s vacation easier!” but I think that might be pushing things. 😉 Just so long as it’s not messing anyone’s vacation up, we’re fine, lol!
Yes – excellent feedback – you totally get how I’m feeling about the 1-park limit on FP+! We have always been major park-hoppers and willing to pay the upcharge for the flexibility – we even hit all the parks on our last day there once so everyone could ride their favorite ride…I still want to be able to do that and can’t see how with the 1-park limit. Time will tell. I did not mention in my posts the reality that some people do not have the technological skills to use this all to the best advantage. I believe this is where good travel agents will come in! Taking care of all the reservation details – including FP+ and then potentially demonstrating how to use the smart phone app. Worst case – directing clients on where and how to use the park’s kiosks – there will still be some who do not have a smartphone. Thoughts?
The 1-park limit was not at all restrictive for us on our last trip, because it was just me and my 7-year-old daughter and we only had a total of 4 days. So in order not to be overwhelmed we just did one park per day and thus weren’t affected by the restrictions. Also, we were there during off-season, so getting only 3 each day wasn’t a problem either… in fact, in some cases we didn’t even need that many! But our experience wasn’t the “typical” WDW vacation, if there is such a thing, so even though it didn’t cause a problem this time, I know there are people who were able to get, say, 8 FPs a day and now they’re significantly limited. Can’t blame them for shouting! So I hope that it is temporary, or that it somehow does ease line congestion. I’ve heard people argue that it will redistribute crowds to ease wait times – I’m not sure how that will work…
I can’t agree with you more about travel agents being useful for this. 🙂 For some people I think this program will be very freeing and give them the opportunities to plan as much as they want – but there are always people who don’t want to, or can’t, spend all their time leading up to a vacation planning and that’s definitely a place where being able to put it into someone else’s hands is a relief. I just hope this doesn’t drive away potential guests who start to read about this and get intimidated, since there are definitely options for help! And there are definitely plenty of people who don’t have smartphones – I think it’s workable without them once Disney lets non-resort guests book in advance.
For our trip, we did all our FP+s in advance and just let them happen while we were there, didn’t edit anything while in the parks; again, fortunately, we didn’t have to. Biggest and most important tip for once you’re in the park: take a picture or print out a confirmation screen of your FP+ selections in case something happens to the system and they get lost. I have heard from several people who have showed up at the ride and the FP+ was lost. Carrying proof can get you in!
Excellent observations and suggestions! When you were there with your daughter, had you purchased park-hopper tickets? That’s still my biggest point of confusion. What’s the draw of park-hoppers if you can’t avoid the lines when you get there?
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