Arriving super early/picking up golf /cart super late

[nnw]

Hello!

We are doing a split stay between Universal and Disney in early May. We’re going to arrive at “The Fort” super early on a Wednesday morning, like 7am-ish and immediately hit the bus for Epcot. Can we enter through the gate with our magic bands on check-in day that early and keep our car in the lot? Or do we have to check-in with someone? I’m concerned there might be issues with our magic bands without checking in with someone first, or with parking our car, who knows.

We also reserved a golf cart. Will they hold it for us, late, until we arrive back after a park day? How is that process after hours?

Any suggestions/tips/information you can provide will be very much appreciated.

Can’t wait!

 

[bama_ed]

Hi @nnw.

The initial arrival to the Fort is the same as the other resorts. If you have done the on-line early check-in and show your arrival time as 7am (for example) AND if you get an assigned campsite/cabin text with a number, then your magic bands should work at the "returning guests" gate and you can use them to get to the parking lot to catch your bus.

If you have not received your assigned site/cabin number in a text message, then your magic bands will not work the "returning guests" automatic gate and you will pull into the side where the security guard is 24x7 who will verify your name is on the lists of guests for that day (it's your arrival day so they will be) and will let you in. It's up to you if you want to run inside to check-in before catching a bus or let the online checkin system work for you later in the day.

The resort "arrival day" used to roll over at 6am technically. I've gotten online texts with our campsite number as early as 630am in the past (that usually happens when there was no guest at the site/cabin the night before so it's already cleaned, prepped, and ready overnight).

As for the carts, during daytime hours a CM is usually in the checkin-lane building #1 with several carts in lane #1 so that's where you would go to get it. There is also a sun umbrella/podium stand used occasionally around where the carts are lined up but it more often has a sign telling you where to go to get keys. After hours (in the evening coming back from a full day at Epcot), the sign usually tells you to go inside to the Front Deck in the Check-in lobby to ask for a key.

Have a great stay. Are you getting a cabin or a campsite?

Bama Ed

PS - I will add that on our last trip to the Fort (Nov 22) they did something for the first time for us when we checked in (I still like to walk in and talk with the CM's). Part of the check-in was to put our 1st gen magic bands on a little scanner and it read our chips in the bands. CM said this helps make sure they work right away. Our bands are years old and have been used many times. I guess the bands don't work the first time they are attempted to be used at times and folks end up having to come to the front desk to get a fix/scan. So now for walk-ins like us, it was part of the process. If you try online early, the returning guest gate may not work (happened to us as well once and guard walked over to let us in). Thus YMMV but I told you how the process SHOULD work.

 

[nnw]

Wow! That was a very helpful and informative response @bama_ed ! Thank you so much for taking the time.

We are staying in a cabin.

 

[nnw]

PS - I will add that on our last trip to the Fort (Nov 22) they did something for the first time for us when we checked in (I still like to walk in and talk with the CM's). Part of the check-in was to put our 1st gen magic bands on a little scanner and it read our chips in the bands. CM said this helps make sure they work right away. Our bands are years old and have been used many times. I guess the bands don't work the first time they are attempted to be used at times and folks end up having to come to the front desk to get a fix/scan. So now for walk-ins like us, it was part of the process. If you try online early, the returning guest gate may not work (happened to us as well once and guard walked over to let us in). Thus YMMV but I told you how the process SHOULD work.

So with that additional information, I probably should go in to speak with a CM upon arrival. We have 1st gen magicbands, never used. We had issues with our son‘s not working last time and had to visit the front desk.

I imagine it’s not very busy that early in the morning

 

[bama_ed]

I imagine it’s not very busy that early in the morning

Nope. It's not busy at all.

 

[Jimsig]

Bama Ed

PS - I will add that on our last trip to the Fort (Nov 22) they did something for the first time for us when we checked in (I still like to walk in and talk with the CM's). Part of the check-in was to put our 1st gen magic bands on a little scanner and it read our chips in the bands. CM said this helps make sure they work right away. Our bands are years old and have been used many times. I guess the bands don't work the first time they are attempted to be used at times and folks end up having to come to the front desk to get a fix/scan. So now for walk-ins like us, it was part of the process. If you try online early, the returning guest gate may not work (happened to us as well once and guard walked over to let us in). Thus YMMV but I told you how the process SHOULD work.

So with that additional information, I probably should go in to speak with a CM upon arrival. We have 1st gen magicbands, never used. We had issues with our son‘s not working last time and had to visit the front desk.

I imagine it’s not very busy that early in the morning

Interesting. Magic bands should work at all tap points no matter how old the band, it's the far field tech that won't work due to the battery. However I have heard of some people having issues with older bands not working on touch points if they have a lot of MB's on their account.

Hope things are well Ed

 

[tetera]

Interesting. Magic bands should work at all tap points no matter how old the band, it's the far field tech that won't work due to the battery. However I have heard of some people having issues with older bands not working on touch points if they have a lot of MB's on their account.

When we were having issues with our first gen. Magicbands opening doors/gates last year the CMs at the Outpost told us that there was often an issue with older magicbands "activating" things but it shouldn't be a problem for them to "be read". (e.g. if they have to be used to unlock a door that takes a lot more "oomph" than a CM using their reader to scan for tickets).
We just sucked it up and bought new MagicBand 2s earlier this year, with the retro MK map designs, (but not dealing with the MagicBand+ and charging them).

 

[bama_ed]

Interesting. Magic bands should work at all tap points no matter how old the band, it's the far field tech that won't work due to the battery. However I have heard of some people having issues with older bands not working on touch points if they have a lot of MB's on their account.

Hope things are well Ed

Hiya Jim. Things are fine and hope you are well now with DD.

In the past we were always told to "activate" our bands on arrival on something like a Comfort Station door or the Laundry Room door before trying to use it for anything else like using a "returning guest" gate or a theme park entrance. I think it was only an issue once for me where that didn't work (a gate near the overflow area) and I had to go up front.

I have no experience (nor heard of any) of folks using bands to open cabin doors so I am no help there.

To add detail to our most recent check-in, the CM on the other side of the counter was precise in pulling up each guest's profile when scanning the band so that "my" scan went with "my" profile. Same for DW. We sent our adult kids up to the office when they got to the Fort for them to do the same thing.

It wasn't a big deal since I tend to still do in-person walk-in check-in because we arrive so early in the morning when nobody is hardly in the lobby. We don't have many bands since we have kept using the 1st gen and the in-ride picture (using far field tech) feature and the new lights/buzz features don't get me excited at all.

Considering next visit just using one of the little plastic cards they still hand out to guests without a MB like we used in the old days and ditch the band. I don't wear a watch and like my hands and arms free anyway.

Ed

 

[wdw_dine_junkie]

We had much better luck with the phone app unlocking the 'returning guests' gate on our past trip. We did check in with security on our first drive through the gate as well, even with the assigned site text. (honestly that was just to avoid any tail swing coming in)

 

[Teamubr]

We had much better luck with the phone app unlocking the 'returning guests' gate on our past trip.

That was our experience last year. The Magic Bands worked about half the time. It was just a pain to have to dig out the phone, pull up the app and tap it. We did have one generic band from a trip a few years ago that the gate seemed to like, so I threw it in the cup holder. But even that one only worked 3 out of 4.

j

 

[mco65]

Our magic band worked perfectly on our trip in Jan (2023). We were there 2 weeks and were in and out most every day. Never failed to work! When we were there in the Fall (2022 for 2 weeks) the magic band did not work at all, maybe once... It was a nice surprise to see it working in Jan.. hopefully that is a trend!