Can one have too many Magic Bands?

I should have been a bit clearer but not sure it makes a huge difference. They didn't tell me it was exclusively the bands themselves that were the issue. They said we just had a lot of STUFF in general on our accounts. Bands, lots of previous reservations and FP. Multiple accounts that had been merged. Again I believe the word they used was "instances" on our account. I had been having some issues on the past few previous trips before that with logging in on phone versus PC and everything seemed buggy. Once they did whatever it was they did I didn't have any issue logging in and all of our bugs and glitches seemed to disappear. I have no idea of the cast member knew what they were talking about but whatever the person they were talking to over the phone did seemed to help us out because we have had no problems since.

I will be interested to see how it goes on our upcoming trip.
 
We recently returned from a 10 night/4 resort stay. No problem with Magic bands for 9 nights. Checked in to Copper Creek Villas at Wilderness Lodge for our last night. CM took forever at check-in. DH & I had no problems until this point. She started asking questions about there being two of my husbands name in MDE. When MDE first started we had made 2 accounts- 1 for each of us, later learned that was a bad idea. She told us this was messing everything up. She merged DH two names on MDE, then couldn’t make his magic and work for opening door. We stood there for 35 minutes while she tried to “fix” it. Told us we needed to deactivate all old bands then gave DH a new band to be able to get in room. Someday, i’ll Call IT and try to get it all fixed.
 
I had read that a magic bands battery life is 2-3 years and cannot be replaced..has anyone re-used a magic band for longer than this?
 


We stood there for 35 minutes while she tried to “fix” it. Told us we needed to deactivate all old bands then gave DH a new band to be able to get in room. Someday, i’ll Call IT and try to get it all fixed.
I wonder if you and I spoke to the same CM! I got the same line (see my earlier post) when I tried to ask a CM to fix the problem that always prevents me from opening the door to our room. I intend to ask a (different) CM at our next stay to just reset my MagicBands. Hopefully it will resolve the issue.
 
I had read that a magic bands battery life is 2-3 years and cannot be replaced..has anyone re-used a magic band for longer than this?
A magic band has 2 different batteries/functions, long range and short range. Short range, what is used at all tapstiles (so FPs, park entry, room entry, photopass, etc) will work forever as it gets it's power from the touchpoint itself. It's the long range that dies after 2-3 years, which is mainly for the special effects you see on some rides and a few ride photos. But the bands will essentially work for all the main functions forever.
 
You can't have too many MB's physically - but you can have too many active ones.

I recommend only have a few (under five) that are listed as "active" in your MDE account. You can always re-activate older ones if you want to take different ones on different trips.

Here's what I learned the hard way. When I had about 9 active bands at one point - I just wasn't getting my text message about my room being ready on arrival day. Finally - about 4:30 pm - I got notice that I needed to come to the front desk of my hotel to get my room assignment. Earlier - they had tried to link my MB's to my room - but it kept not going through at the resort that day. Even when I did get to the front desk - it still took them 2 or 3 tries to get the two MB's I want to use for the trip to sync up to the room. The CM suggested deactivating some of my older bands. I haven't had a problem since - but now I deactivate any bands I'm not physically taking with me on the next trip. No problems.

Yes - I realize others never have this problem and they may have dozens of active bands - but it's a risk in terms of slowing you down at some point during your trip based on tech failure - and that's just annoying.

Thanks for posting this! I have been having this issue last few trips and wasn't sure why. In the past they couldn't be removed, but good to know they can now.
 


Park systems can handle many bands... no issues there.

Resort door locks have more limitations. They have really small memory capacities. If your whole list of bands doesn’t make it into the lock’s list, the CM’s have devices at the front desk that can force the association between your favorite band and your door.

Disney was one of the first (and still possibly one of the few) to stretch the limits of normal hotel RFID locks and support the concept of room keys that guests would want to collect and bring back with them.
 
You can't have too many MB's physically - but you can have too many active ones.

I recommend only have a few (under five) that are listed as "active" in your MDE account. You can always re-activate older ones if you want to take different ones on different trips.

Here's what I learned the hard way. When I had about 9 active bands at one point - I just wasn't getting my text message about my room being ready on arrival day. Finally - about 4:30 pm - I got notice that I needed to come to the front desk of my hotel to get my room assignment. Earlier - they had tried to link my MB's to my room - but it kept not going through at the resort that day. Even when I did get to the front desk - it still took them 2 or 3 tries to get the two MB's I want to use for the trip to sync up to the room. The CM suggested deactivating some of my older bands. I haven't had a problem since - but now I deactivate any bands I'm not physically taking with me on the next trip. No problems.

Yes - I realize others never have this problem and they may have dozens of active bands - but it's a risk in terms of slowing you down at some point during your trip based on tech failure - and that's just annoying.
I had the exact same situation on my last trip. I hadn't thought to go home and deactivate a bunch.
 
Park systems can handle many bands... no issues there.

Resort door locks have more limitations. They have really small memory capacities. If your whole list of bands doesn’t make it into the lock’s list, the CM’s have devices at the front desk that can force the association between your favorite band and your door.

Disney was one of the first (and still possibly one of the few) to stretch the limits of normal hotel RFID locks and support the concept of room keys that guests would want to collect and bring back with them.
I don't think all CMs are aware this can be done. The one I spoke to in July kept insisting the only fix for my problem was to deactivate all but one or two bands. Hopefully next trip I can talk to someone who knows how make my bands open my door.
 
I don't think all CMs are aware this can be done. The one I spoke to in July kept insisting the only fix for my problem was to deactivate all but one or two bands. Hopefully next trip I can talk to someone who knows how make my bands open my door.

Not sure if it’s still the case, but for a while CM’s had what appeared to be little Android tablets that they could use to force it (either at the front desk or sometimes come to you on a golf cart or whatever). The really good CMs would even do this proactively at check-in when they noticed you had a big list of bands, just in case.
 
We are here now and had an issue that was quite odd

I have 1 band and it wouldn't work for charging. Worked for park admission, FP, ride photos, everything but charging. Gave an error that all CM said they'd never seen before.

I checked MDE and it was showing as active. Reset my pin. Nothing fixed it. CM at the resort stuck with me fixing it. Finally got IT on the phone and turns out it had been deactivated on 1 system. IT fixed it and charging worked. Short while later got a text from Disney IT asking me if we could discuss the bands issues. Wanted to make sure it was fixed. I told them it was and mentioned how it worked for everything else. He said and I quote

"(1/3) It may have been that it was communicating with those systems but that something was preventing it from communicating with the system used by your resort. The different features of the MagicBand service are operated by independent programs. "

And I got a text number to reach out of I have any further issues.

MB themselves are not a problem but having a lot of them is a signal that your account has a lot of data and an account with too much data will have little issues here and there, due to the different systems. So it's just easier to say too many bands are the problem but it's really too much data
 
I have only one MB and it's never been used or out of the box. I prefer the card.

It's one of the MBs first issued to CMs during the testing phase before being released to day guests. I'm sure the battery is dead by now.
 
I think it has more to do with the total linked to you, not any one individual’s total. When we were there last August my family of five had 8 MB each (40 total) and my husband and one of my son’s wouldn’t work. Once the front desk deactivated all the old ones theirs worked fine the rest of our trip.
 
We are here now and had an issue that was quite odd

I have 1 band and it wouldn't work for charging. Worked for park admission, FP, ride photos, everything but charging. Gave an error that all CM said they'd never seen before.

I checked MDE and it was showing as active. Reset my pin. Nothing fixed it. CM at the resort stuck with me fixing it. Finally got IT on the phone and turns out it had been deactivated on 1 system. IT fixed it and charging worked. Short while later got a text from Disney IT asking me if we could discuss the bands issues. Wanted to make sure it was fixed. I told them it was and mentioned how it worked for everything else. He said and I quote

"(1/3) It may have been that it was communicating with those systems but that something was preventing it from communicating with the system used by your resort. The different features of the MagicBand service are operated by independent programs. "

And I got a text number to reach out of I have any further issues.

MB themselves are not a problem but having a lot of them is a signal that your account has a lot of data and an account with too much data will have little issues here and there, due to the different systems. So it's just easier to say too many bands are the problem but it's really too much data
I had the same issue on my last trip. I ordered an orange band and didn't really like it. Used my yellow band from my last trip and it worked for everything except charging to my room. I didn't pursue it any further and just used my gift card which really wasn't a hassle and saved me from having to go to the lobby and pay my charges at the end of my stay.

I think knowing this now that I might just keep the last two bands received and "decommission" all the rest.
 
I had the same issue on my last trip. I ordered an orange band and didn't really like it. Used my yellow band from my last trip and it worked for everything except charging to my room. I didn't pursue it any further and just used my gift card which really wasn't a hassle and saved me from having to go to the lobby and pay my charges at the end of my stay.

I think knowing this now that I might just keep the last two bands received and "decommission" all the rest.

If you want to do this, have the MBs removed from your account by WDW I.T.

(If a guest does the "deactivation," the MBs are still "seen" in your account.)
 
Sounds like that would work.
But, that's not the case.
Even after a guest "deactivates" a MB, it is still "active" for many purposes at WDW.
And, that means that it's RFID number is still in your MDX account and that info is
accessed every time you attempt to use any (current or otherwise) MB at WDW.

The only way that a MB can be fully removed from service is by having that done by Disney I.T.
Can a deactivated band still be used for SotMK?
 
We have 20-25 magic bands each. I deactivated all except 1 per person for our most recent trip. Half of them
Worked to open hotel doors, half did not. Charging worked for some of us but not all. Park entry and fast passes we’re fine. I have emailed IT to ask they all be deleted from our accounts except 1-2 special ones per person.
 
A magic band has 2 different batteries/functions, long range and short range. Short range, what is used at all tapstiles (so FPs, park entry, room entry, photopass, etc) will work forever as it gets it's power from the touchpoint itself. It's the long range that dies after 2-3 years, which is mainly for the special effects you see on some rides and a few ride photos. But the bands will essentially work for all the main functions forever.
More importantly from Disneys point of view, long range allows them better tracking as they can set scanners all over and see who is going where when
 

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