New WDW Tech Launches

[HauntedGabe]

Typhoon Lagoon has now been fitted with Touch to Enter for guests to use with their RFID cards and bands.

I'm curious how this particular venue is going to with guests using the RFID magic bands and curious how the final ones will look and fasten. I hadn't thought about the Water Parks. How waterproof the bands will ultimately be. Also if they have a buckle type fastening system.

Having children that were competition swimmers, they were not allowed to wear any types of jewelry for safety reasons. My mind sent to some of the Kiddie attractions and the lagoon especially, where I regularly get smashed into other guests with the tidal wave.

[doconeill]

Typhoon Lagoon has now been fitted with Touch to Enter for guests to use with their RFID cards and bands.

I'm curious how this particular venue is going to with guests using the RFID magic bands and curious how the final ones will look and fasten. I hadn't thought about the Water Parks. How waterproof the bands will ultimately be. Also if they have a buckle type fastening system.

Having children that were competition swimmers, they were not allowed to wear any types of jewelry for safety reasons. My mind sent to some of the Kiddie attractions and the lagoon especially, where I regularly get smashed into other guests with the tidal wave.

I haven't seen an actual release one yet, but they are a pretty smooth rubbery plastic. Haven't seen what the fastening side is yet - it has holes, so it could be a buckle style or just a post style. A post style might be more problematic from the safety side though, although I'm not sure what safety issues would be unique to competition swimming or general pool use. I would think you just wouldn't want it for the drag factor...

[HauntedGabe]

I haven't seen an actual release one yet, but they are a pretty smooth rubbery plastic. Haven't seen what the fastening side is yet - it has holes, so it could be a buckle style or just a post style. A post style might be more problematic from the safety side though, although I'm not sure what safety issues would be unique to competition swimming or general pool use. I would think you just wouldn't want it for the drag factor...

No, they can't compete at all with jewelry, lane lines, blocks, sewer covers are a biggie. I think about the fast slides like summit. Curious how it will play out. Just never thought about the water parks, it is the one place I have always left my jewelry in the room.

[HauntedGabe]

Currently and through early Spring WDW is upgrading guest WiFi at their resorts, parks and DTD.
There could be brief service interruptions.


Nice to see they are addressing the slow service and dropped service during the busiest of times.

[clj2]

How are you supposed to know when you'll arrive for a meal at a quick service restaurant? You could get in a line, get interrupted, have a broken down ride, anything. My days at WDW rarely go as I want them to, something usually comes up. I've never done an ADR, but I could see maybe reserving at a sit-down restaurant, but scheduling the morning around a quick service lunch seems kind of excessive.

I guess maybe all of this scheduling makes sense around Christmas, etc., but with light or moderate crowds, I don't like the idea of having such a structured day.

[HauntedGabe]

I have no answers for you and tend to be in your camp. It all seems to fit the My Disney Experience master plan, of scheduling and making appointments for every aspect of your Disney Experience. Slap that rfid bracelet on and robotize. lol

I read the FP+ attractions for the World Showcase and making an FP+ reservation for Imagination just made me chuckle.

[clj2]

FP+ for anything at EPCOT other than Soarin' and TT is laughable. I still think most people that opt for FP+ will probably use it for the "E-Ticket" included in the "block", then forget about the others and do them whenever. Why bind yourself to Imagination during a certain time period if you can do it any time with little wait? I don't think the "crowd distribution" will work for them.

I could be wrong, but I don't see the reservations for the quick service restaurants being that important. I mean...the lines aren't that bad. I guess my main complaint with this, as has always been, is that Disney seems to be trying to force more visitors to stay at their on-site resorts (which I'm not a fan of, as I've said before) by shutting more people that opt to stay off-site out of their extra offerings. It'd at least be nice if they would extend it to the DTD resorts, but we know how they feel about them.

Any ideas yet on when Disney is shooting to have this fully implemented? It might have been on here and I could have forgotten. I have had a change of opinion on one thing - the "touch to pay" or whatever it was initially called that would let you pay with the band - that might be one of the best features of the program. It would certainly help speed up lines.

[HauntedGabe]

Disney's Website and WiFi are struggling with high volume. They are upgrading now through I believe March all the WiFi areas on property including resorts and parks. My Disney Experience is useless to them if large chunks of guests can't access their website and guests will balk at using up their data plans.

Now there website has not really been tested for extremely high volume. If that crashes that could be ugly.
The last time it continued to crash was for the private soft openings for AP holders of the FLE. That was a freak'n mess, and then the first fix failed too. They were suppose to test a larger group of guests at Beach Club but backed out of it at the last minute. For now I believe it is just CM's running around trying FP+ out in a very controlled environment.

[HauntedGabe]

FP+ Rules are starting to trickle out and are subject to change.

Edited from better info from Doc!

Magic Your Way ticket holders can book your FP+ experience 60 days out. You will choose a FP+ experience set and may change the FP+ Experience set until the first FP+ experience is used or expired.

***The selection window for other ticket media may vary.

You can modify the balance of unexpired FP+ the balance of the day.

FP+ can only be for one park per day.

FP+ can only be once per day per attraction/event.

Disney reserves the right to reschedule your FP+ due to an unplanned downtime, attraction downtime or park operating hour change.

FP+ are not transferable, so no acts of kindness for unused FP's

***Other restrictions and rules may apply depending on type of park admission


***thought these were interesting

[doconeill]

FP+ Rules are starting to trickle out and are subject to change.

Magic Your Way ticket holders can book your FP+ experience 60 days out. Once set you cannot alter until your first experience scheduled has been attended, skipped or expired.

***The selection window for other ticket media may vary.

You can modify the balance of unexpired FP+ the balance of the day.

FP+ can only be for one park per day.

FP+ can only be once per day per attraction/event.

Disney reserves the right to reschedule your FP+ due to an unplanned downtime, attraction downtime or park operating hour change.

FP+ are not transferable, so no acts of kindness for unused FP's

***Other restrictions and rules may apply depending on type of park admission


***thought these were interesting

These have been known for a while actually - they were published in the My Disney Experience Terms & Conditions when that part of the web site went live several months ago.

On the first part, I don't believe that's true. It says you can change the entire "experience set" until the first selection in the set is redeemed or expired - then you can change each individual item. That "experience set" is the odd thing - they say you will initially choose an "experience set" - which to some means that you won't have completely free choice of the items, but only have several pre-chosen sets to choose from. Another way is that you can choose freely (subject to limits), but if you want to change just one, you have to dump them all and start over...

Now, they may be doing something different as part of the initial testing, since only pre-selected guests checking in will be in the "live" test groups - although I haven't heard of testing actually having started still.

Transferring would involve giving away your MagicBand/RFID card - not a good idea

[HauntedGabe]

Thanks Doc,
What a fluid system!

[clj2]

Wow, this is a BIG blow to heavy FP users and park-hoppers.

[doconeill]

Thanks Doc,
What a fluid system!

I'm thinking "fluid" as in that green slime stuff they used to sell that you just can't pick up...

[Mo Noyz]

Who else is using a similar system that they can copy from?

[doconeill]

Who else is using a similar system that they can copy from?

It does not appear as if they are copying anyone, and they generally don't "copy" such things. I think the QBot people were working on something similar in some respects.