Purchasing passes & Magic Bands [get grey bands if purchase close to trip?] - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Purchasing passes & Magic Bands [get grey bands if purchase close to trip?]
My sis-in-law and her family are joining us in April - we have annual passes so we got our lil' magic box to register for our Magic Bands - yay! - but I have a question I think I know the answer to......
they don't have their passes yet and I'm assuming if they don't get their tickets enough in advance they won't have a chance to customize their bands, and will end up with gray no-name ones. Is that correct?
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
They will be eligible for MagicBands as long as they are staying onsite, even if they don't have tickets linked to the reservation. They will not be able to make FP+ selections until they purchase/link their tickets though.
They are staying on property so I guess they need to purchase them in enough time to do fast passes for April. Does anyone know if fast passes run out like they do in the parks on the day of?
If they are staying onsite they should already have a Magic Band option--all onsite guests are currently in testing. They will just have to go to My Disney Experience to link the tickets to the MB.
If they are staying onsite they should already have a Magic Band option--all onsite guests are currently in testing. They will just have to go to My Disney Experience to link the tickets to the MB.
Actually, you can't customize your Magic Bands until you're 60 days from check-in. As long as you're staying on-site, you'll be able to select colors and names for your Magic Bands in advance, and they'll be mailed to you at home about a week before your check-in date.
Associating park passes is a separate issue and doesn't affect the Magic Band customization. Park passes are not associated directly with Magic Bands, they are associated with a particular Guest's My Disney Experience account.
Each Guest gets his or her own MDE account. Using either the web site or phone app, each Guest can select their own Magic Band customization, make their own FastPass+ selections, make dining reservations, associate a park pass with the account, and associate a particular room or package reservation with the account. Everything that's associated with a Guest's MDE account can be accessed in the parks using the Magic Band that is associated with that account, including room reservations (so the MBs act as room keys), park passes (you use your MBs at the park entrance), Dining Plan credits (you can use the MBs to pay for your lunch), room charging (you can use the MBs to buy stuff on property), and of course, FastPass selections (you use your MBs to get into the FP line when your windows opens).
The Magic Band itself is nothing more than a key, a type of ID that is used to access all of the features of the My Disney Experience system, which ties together all of the formerly separate electronic systems that Disney uses at WDW. Everything is now linked to a particular MDE account, and the Guest who owns that account can access everything in it through their Magic Band.
Also, multiple MDE accounts can be linked together so the system knows that a group of people are all part of the same party/family.
So, you don't need to buy tickets to customize your MB and add a bunch of stuff to your MDE account, but you do need tickets before you can make FastPass+ selections. So I roccommend that your SIL buy her tickets sometime before the 60-day mark, so she will be able to add the tickets to her family's MDE accounts in time to make her FP+ selections.
NOTE: Since she's buying tickets separate, she can shop around for the best price. I like to use Undercover Tourist, but there are a few other ticket brokers. And the best part is - she doesn't need to buy all of her tickets at once. She can buy one a month, or one per pay period, or however she wants to do it to space out the expense, instead of paying it all in one lump sum.
Actually, you can customize your magic bands more than 60 days out. We are not going until June 2014 and I have already customized our magic bands. We do not currently have tickets linked. We will be purchasing those soon so we can add them to our magic bands for the fastpass+ options.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
I have also already customized my Magic Bands for more than 60 days out. We are going in Apr/May. The 60 days is for selecting your FastPass+. You can start selecting these at 60 days out but you do need to have tickets linked on MDE. I have my APs linked.
Actually, you can customize your magic bands more than 60 days out. We are not going until June 2014 and I have already customized our magic bands. We do not currently have tickets linked. We will be purchasing those soon so we can add them to our magic bands for the fastpass+ options.
According to a CM I spoke to earlier in the month, we may be able to customize Magic Bands at more than 60 days out, but there is a strong possibility that all customizations will be wiped out as a new testing phase starts. So be sure to check back periodically to make your customizations are still there.
For the record: I am still 160+ days out and I made my customizations already. I do make sure to check the customizations every so often to make sure they are still there.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
According to a CM I spoke to earlier in the month, we may be able to customize Magic Bands at more than 60 days out, but there is a strong possibility that all customizations will be wiped out as a new testing phase starts. So be sure to check back periodically to make your customizations are still there.
For the record: I am still 160+ days out and I made my customizations already. I do make sure to check the customizations every so often to make sure they are still there.
Thanks for the info! I already customized our Magic Bands for our trip in june. I'll make I check every so often.
I'm at WDW now. I added DD on my package 5 days before arrival. The CM said if I customize the band that day we would get it. She was right upon arrival at the hotel DD band was waiting and it was Yellow! Due to customization, so at the moment you have 5 days before your arrival to customize your bands!
they don't have their passes yet and I'm assuming if they don't get their tickets enough in advance they won't have a chance to customize their bands, and will end up with gray no-name ones. Is that correct?
Nope, not correct. You gt bands if you're staying on-property, even without any ticket at all.
We did not buy tickets through Disney at all, and were still offered MagicBands. I had the colors customised before I linked the tickets we bought from Undercover Tourist, in fact.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
As long as you are staying at an onsite resort you will be able to customize your Magic Band. you can, at this time, customize them before 60 days out. You must link tickets to your Magic Band to be able to select Fast Pass+ options. You can select your FP+ options at 60 days out.
Make sure you create a My Disney Experience account to get the most out of your Magic Band and Fast Pass+ experience!
You must link tickets to your Magic Band to be able to select Fast Pass+ options.
And just because I know this question will be asked next:
NO, you do not have to buy your tickets directly from Disney, in order to preselect FP+ options. My 'ohana's tickets were all bought from Undercover Tourist (at a healthy discount, about 5% IIRC). I linked them to our MagicBands, and at 60 days (or maybe 59 days?), was able to begin making FP+ selections.
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Hybrid Mode
