Disney's MagicBand

Set of four Walt Disney World cards, June 2013

Last year, entry to the Disney World parks required a card. This year, almost everyone staying at a resort hotel or with an annual pass is using the MagicBand but cards are still available as an alternative. One MagicBand is issued for each family member. The bands arrived in the mail before our trip, each personalized with first name on the inside and in a color we selected. Of course, I chose gray.

Here's how it works. The mouse emblem has to be touched directly to a reader and that can require a little bit of coordination. It worked quite well for hotel room entry, theme park entry, FastPass+, the Disney Dining Plan, and PhotoPass. It could be set up to allow room charges at merchants throughout the parks.

The wristband also allows Disney to track your location from a distance. It is used to automatically add photos from the rides to your PhotoPass account which is an outstanding enhancement to the program. It can certainly help identify a lost child and I suppose it might even be used at some point to track and locate lost children.

My left wrist festooned with MagicBand, Fitbit, and wristwatch. The Swiss Army watch is the reminder of just how dated my ways truly are.

Note:  Don't miss my earlier posts about Disney World.

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