Can one have too many Magic Bands?

Louis morrell

DIS Veteran
Joined
Oct 29, 2017
I currently have 5 active magic bands listed in my account. I have another trip coming in Jan. Should I let them send another set of Magic Bands? Can I have too many?
 
There is an ongoing discussion about this.
Some say yes, some say no.
In reality, some guests have trouble with multiple MBs per guest.
Some have over a dozen active MBs (for example,) and they have no problems at all.
 
I have about 25 for each of us. I date them when customizing and just use the couple of most recent.
I deactivate the rest.......I really, really want to find something fun to do with the ones we don't use. I can't just throw them away!
 
I have about 25 for each of us. I date them when customizing and just use the couple of most recent.
I deactivate the rest.......I really, really want to find something fun to do with the ones we don't use. I can't just throw them away!
I do the same...just deactivate the old ones. Some are from 2013 so not sure they still work. I get the new ones because I like removing the puck and put it in the Puck Carabiner.
 


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.
 
Is there anyway just to delete them off? I have thrown all of mine away as I tried to reuse it when they first came out and the answer I was given was it is not possible. Seemed a waste to me. Anyway mine goes in the trash each time I return home.
 


Is there anyway just to delete them off? I have thrown all of mine away as I tried to reuse it when they first came out and the answer I was given was it is not possible. Seemed a waste to me. Anyway mine goes in the trash each time I return home.

You were given VERY BAD information.
Even the oldest of all MBs ever issued will still work just fine for most functions at WDW.
 
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.

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.
 
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.
What if you list it as lost? Would that work better?
 
We declined MBs during our July 2018 trip and used the ones from Sept 2017 and October 2016. They worked perfectly. I've read reports that even the "deactivated" ones can cause issues. disney IT has to go in and delete them. Or you can just decline new ones. @AngiTN can share her experience.
 
What if you list it as lost? Would that work better?

I don't know what is done (if anything) procedurally between listing a deactivated MB and a lost MB.
 
I literally have boxes full of the things. Like, 25+ for myself alone. Having that many does seem to cause some issues, mostly with opening doors at resorts (for us, anyway). The way it was explained to me (no clue if it's anywhere near reality) was that when you try to open your door, the system must look through all of your magicbands to validate the one you're trying to use is active. If that takes more time than allotted, it times out and the door blinks red. It sounds plausible, but again, who knows. Two Poly CL cast members seemed to agree on this when they were trying to figure out why my phone wouldn't work to open my door.

I've never had any problems with them in the parks though.
 
I have about 25 for each of us. I date them when customizing and just use the couple of most recent.
I deactivate the rest.......I really, really want to find something fun to do with the ones we don't use. I can't just throw them away!

We use ours to make a countdown chain! We link them all together, hang it in the kitchen, then take them off one by one as our trip gets closer. Currently, we can make a 30-day chain, and it gets longer every year, lol. :)
 
I pretty much decline them every time except for every other year our AP bands. I had some old ones from 2013-2014 before they let you decline. I threw them out and had IT remove them from MDE. I hate clutter of all forms :crazy2:
 
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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.

We had some major issues with our bands and our MDX accounts last trip. My wife and I each had 6-8 bands on our account. We were told by Guest Relations that was what was causing the issues. Too many instances on our profiles or something like that. They called someone and had everything taken off our bands, deleted most of our old bands out of our account and reloaded everything on to our newest bands. Didn't have a problem at all after that.

IIRC I also had multiple Disney accounts years ago that had been previously merged a few years back. I think one was under a user name and one might have been an email address. They could see that as well and stated that may have been part of the problem. They had me log to of MDE on my smart phone and log back in with my email address after doing all of the deletions. That may have played a part as well.
 
I literally have boxes full of the things. Like, 25+ for myself alone. Having that many does seem to cause some issues, mostly with opening doors at resorts (for us, anyway). The way it was explained to me (no clue if it's anywhere near reality) was that when you try to open your door, the system must look through all of your magicbands to validate the one you're trying to use is active. If that takes more time than allotted, it times out and the door blinks red. It sounds plausible, but again, who knows. Two Poly CL cast members seemed to agree on this when they were trying to figure out why my phone wouldn't work to open my door.

I've never had any problems with them in the parks though.
This is very interesting to me. Lately I have been having so many problems opening the door to our resort room. I touch the MagicBands and it flashes green. I tried to talk to a CM about it, and she told me the only way to solve it was to have just one or two active MagicBands. I didn’t want to do this as my daughter has about 18 active MagicBands (I have maybe 10; mostly I’ve deactivated mine), and they all work without issue. I ended up needing to wear an extra MagicBand of my DD just to get into our room, which was very annoying. The only place I have trouble is opening the door to our room. Everything else works without issue. I find it somewhat annoying because I mostly collect the special and limited edition MagicBands (I have a few plain colors that I use on occasion). What’s the point in collecting the LE ones if they all need to be deactivated and not used??
 
This is very interesting to me. Lately I have been having so many problems opening the door to our resort room. I touch the MagicBands and it flashes green. I tried to talk to a CM about it, and she told me the only way to solve it was to have just one or two active MagicBands. I didn’t want to do this as my daughter has about 18 active MagicBands (I have maybe 10; mostly I’ve deactivated mine), and they all work without issue. I ended up needing to wear an extra MagicBand of my DD just to get into our room, which was very annoying. The only place I have trouble is opening the door to our room. Everything else works without issue. I find it somewhat annoying because I mostly collect the special and limited edition MagicBands (I have a few plain colors that I use on occasion). What’s the point in collecting the LE ones if they all need to be deactivated and not used??

Its a pretty safe bet that its not the MBs that are the actual problem.
The glitchy unreliable "system" is the more likely issue.

The act of eradicating X number of MBs may be a partial "work-around" and that kind of info
takes on a life of its own.
The multiple MBs then "become" the problem.

If this was the ONLY problem with MDX, that would indicate one thing, but the whole operation
is shaky at best, and a borderline technical nightmare at worst.

Since so many OTHER guests are also reporting that THEY own scads of active MBs and DON'T
have negative issues at WDW... that, again, points to glitchy, inconsistent software.
 
We had some major issues with our bands and our MDX accounts last trip. My wife and I each had 6-8 bands on our account. We were told by Guest Relations that was what was causing the issues. Too many instances on our profiles or something like that. They called someone and had everything taken off our bands, deleted most of our old bands out of our account and reloaded everything on to our newest bands. Didn't have a problem at all after that.

IIRC I also had multiple Disney accounts years ago that had been previously merged a few years back. I think one was under a user name and one might have been an email address. They could see that as well and stated that may have been part of the problem. They had me log to of MDE on my smart phone and log back in with my email address after doing all of the deletions. That may have played a part as well.

For the record, NOTHING is loaded or stored on ANY magic band. Bands contain exactly one and only one piece of data - an id number. That number acts as a key to access your MDE account. That's all it does.

CMs have been repeating the nonsense that having multiple bands is the cause of all MDE issues since the bands are first introduced. Might it contribute to the issue? Possibly. But it's simply not possible for the number of bands (keys) to be the primary reason for MDE issues. The idea (as earlier posters have said they've been told) that the system has to look through all connected bands is silly. Database systems do not work that way.

Steve
 

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