Editorial: Magic Bands and Fast Pass Plus

Disney made a major announcement this week regarding the future of how Fast Pass Plus and Magic bands would be working for all guests, so I thought I would throw my opinion into the fray and do my monthly editorial on this $1 Billion dollar project know as "Next Gen".

Magic Bands and Mickey

Next Gen" is the term used by Disney to label an incredibly expansive project around the Walt Disney Resort. The project includes but is not limited to enhancements made to admissions, turnstiles, attraction queues, reservations, resorts, dining, and on, and on, and on.  The Disney company feels that the future of the theme park industry is in making every experience for every guest unique and personal, and I for one am a big fan of the project.

Change is always going to be a point of contention for die hard fans of any "fan" group, Disney, Star Wars, Star Trek, and comics all get lambasted anytime they make a change.  People by nature are abhorrent to change. I have never understood this really, for most times in life change is a wonderful thing. The changes that Disney is making now will forever affect the theme park industry and the way we travel and vacation.

Disney, as many of you know, now issues an item know as Magic Bands to all future resort guests, annual passholders, and as of this week, even day guests can buy their own Magic Bands to use in the parks. The band is used for a variety of things, it is your room key at the Disney resorts, your admission into the parks, your Fast Pass to the attractions, and your Photopass while visiting Disney.  The system uses a colorful bracelet which contains an RFID chip that has all of your information encoded to a main database and is genius in design.

The problem with the project is mainly found among annual passholders and frequent visitors whom over the years have found way to hoard Fast Passes to Disneys major attractions, and in reality, to manipulate a system that needed desperate change. I for one hate getting to the park at 12:00 PM only to find the Fast Passes for most major attractions gone.  The new system allows the Fast Passes to be spread among the masses more evenly.  A resort/passholder guest can now book three Fast Passes each day well in advance of their arrival at the resort and rest easy knowing that they have at least 3 key things reserved that they really want to experience.

Disney in the near future will be adjusting the Fast Pass system so that once those three items have been used, then guests may visit a Fast Pass kiosk and pick another selection, after that one is used they may do another, and rinse repeat. The system currently does not allow Fast Passes to be used in regards to what Disneyholics call Park Hopping (going from one park to another), this to will be changing in the future.

I would like to see everyone relax a little about the new systems and give Disney some time to work out the kinks and details.  I can say first hand that when combined with the My Disney Experience app the system has always worked great for me and has been a huge time saver and stress reducer. I am a fan and congratulate Disney on the foresight they have and look forward to the future of the "Next Gen" project.