Magic band upgrade progress

[mickeyway]

Does anyone know what the progress on upgrading magic bands for $10 is making? I, like thousands of others, could not get an upgraded band and was just wondering if Disney is still working on it ? I was getting messages saying they were working quickly to fix the the issue between supply and demand but I don't get those messages any longer. IMHO it could be fixed by making a 30 day window between order and reservation.

 

[Jason_79]

I am wondering the same thing myself. I am surprised (not surprised) that they sold out, if only taking into account that amount of annual visitors each year.

88 million visitors last year. Order 30 Million magic bands? Nah, they only got a few thousand.

 

[siren0119]

The biggest fail I see in this whole upgraded MB thing? They didn't roll out the access to purchase based on when your onsite reservations/tickets were. So folks with trips in July weren't able to purchase upgraded MB before people with trips in October. They would have been able to control the process MUCH more if they had allowed upgrade purchases on a rolling basis based on arrival days. But I am not at all surprised they botched it.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

The biggest fail I see in this whole upgraded MB thing? They didn't roll out the access to purchase based on when your onsite reservations/tickets were. So folks with trips in July weren't able to purchase upgraded MB before people with trips in October. They would have been able to control the process MUCH more if they had allowed upgrade purchases on a rolling basis based on arrival days. But I am not at all surprised they botched it.

Yes, I completely agree with this. If they had done it on a rolling basis and had some type of timeframe to pick the MB's, it would have helped enormously. Heck, make it 60 days to coincide with FP+ reservations or, better yet, 30 days to coincide with package balance due dates. Especially with the 30 day mark, WDW is pretty much ensured people are showing up for their trips and not just ordering MB's at a discount. I'm really bummed as our trip is in late July and I have not been able to order the bands nor have we received a promo to order them from ShopDisney. It doesn't seem fair, IMHO.

 

[SarahC97]

And I can't even get a regular magic band order to show up right. We arrive next month and only have a couple of days left to personalize. I've chosen regular bands at least twice and it sends me a confirmation email, but then doesn't show in MDE that I customized the order. Arrrgggghhhhh.

 

[focusondisney]

Especially with the 30 day mark, WDW is pretty much ensured people are showing up for their trips and not just ordering MB's at a discount.

Anyone who ordered thinking they were just ordering MB at a discount & could cancel their reservation later will be in for a big surprise. My understanding is if you cancel your resort reservation after ordering your MBs, you will be charged the full price for them. So I expect most people who ordered will be keeping their resort reservations. Instead of sending the bands out immediately after being ordered, Disney could have kept the fulfillment process the same: order whenever you want, but they are customized & shipped the same as always, within 30 days of your stay.

 

[tnolan]

We weren't going to get bands for our short August trip but then we saw someone on the forum say that the decline option was gone. So we took a look and sure enough it was. Since I didn't want to end up with grey bands with no name if we didn't select any, we chose 2 of the regular colors and personalized them. Still wonder why they no longer have the option to decline.

 

[hvanes]

I decided to just order the solid-color bands today for our July trip, mostly out of annoyance at Disney for the time I wasted checking for updates on this whole debacle. It's $70 in my pocket. I just wish I could get the image of that castle band out of my head...

 

[OuterStace]

I admit, I was pretty excited for the new bands (its how I discovered these forums in the first place, trying to find out what was going on with them)

but, it is what it is and so it will a orange band for me. Oh well, I guess I'll use the $10 on something I otherwise wouldn't get.

 

[MarkinNM]

Well not agreeing on the botching part they just underestimated the popularity of this one item. What I find odd is that Shop Disney seems to not have issues keeping inventory but the MDE seems to have issues.....

 

[Rach3975]

Didn't upgrade yet for our November trip since it's still so far away . But I've heard of others with trips around the same time who have already had shipping emails for their upgraded bands. I'm surprised Disney didn't foresee that causing supply issues. Fingers crossed they work out the kinks soon and everyone can get the bands they're hoping for.

 

[FortWildernessLoopy]

We renewed our APs a week before the roll out and I am still holding off on ordering the bands because i would like to upgrade them. I already have all the colors and was looking forward to the new bands. We're literally trying to give them money. They are normally down with that

 

[glvsav37]

Well not agreeing on the botching part they just underestimated the popularity of this one item. What I find odd is that Shop Disney seems to not have issues keeping inventory but the MDE seems to have issues.....

Botched = underestimating. I guess more specifically, what was botched was that they never made the managemental call to not limit the availability to those with reservations within a certain time frame (30-60 days) and seeing how demand goes. As it was, there were people here who ordered on day 1 who didn't have check-in dates until mid-2020. That's nearly a year's worth of resort guests.

All the more reason shop Disney has stock but MDE didn't? One word—discount. IMO and prob others, buying a magic band at $25-30/ea for a short trip—say for a family of 4—gets expensive, given you get one that does the exact same thing for free. But for a ten-spot? Yea, that's a price point that makes it more manageable. So of course there will be a swell of demand, besides....when does Disney discount ANYTHING?

They can't even keep new popcorn buckets in stock. They have to limit new merchandise items so people don't snap them up and sell them on eBay. So of course I can agree they 'botched' this and underestimated demand, or didn't put stop-gaps in place, just knowing the history of the 'new anything' frenzy caused by the Disney community. Rolling them out in waves would have allowed them to assess and restock accordingly.

 

[MarkinNM]

Botched = underestimating. I guess more specifically, what was botched was that they never made the managemental call to not limit the availability to those with reservations within a certain time frame (30-60 days) and seeing how demand goes. As it was, there were people here who ordered on day 1 who didn't have check-in dates until mid-2020. That's nearly a year's worth of resort guests.

All the more reason shop Disney has stock but MDE didn't? One word—discount. IMO and prob others, buying a magic band at $25-30/ea for a short trip—say for a family of 4—gets expensive, given you get one that does the exact same thing for free. But for a ten-spot? Yea, that's a price point that makes it more manageable. So of course there will be a swell of demand, besides....when does Disney discount ANYTHING?

They can't even keep new popcorn buckets in stock. They have to limit new merchandise items so people don't snap them up and sell them on eBay. So of course I can agree they 'botched' this and underestimated demand, or didn't put stop-gaps in place, just knowing the history of the 'new anything' frenzy caused by the Disney community. Rolling them out in waves would have allowed them to assess and restock accordingly.

MEH.............................


Sour apples as a magicband does not and will not NEVER dictate to me on how my vacation is going to be or ever slightly affect it whatsoever!......................



Its a fancy rubberband..............



Disney way underestimated this and was def not prepaired and as far as limiting it to those who are going "first" again sour apples as it first come first serve, now some need to quit worrying about a fancy wrist rubberband as in all honestly nobody will even look and have some Disney fun!

 

[ErinsMommy]

Didn't upgrade yet for our November trip since it's still so far away . But I've heard of others with trips around the same time who have already had shipping emails for their upgraded bands. I'm surprised Disney didn't foresee that causing supply issues. Fingers crossed they work out the kinks soon and everyone can get the bands they're hoping for.

We're going in November and also in December and DD wanted a "themed" one for each of the trips, and we got both already. I was a bit surprised we actually got them this early -- I figured they'll just be in an "ordered" status and they'll get shipped out within the normal time frame that MBs usually get shipped. So now with 6+ months on one of the bands to still go, I'm just going to have to hope the battery life lasts that long.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

Anyone who ordered thinking they were just ordering MB at a discount & could cancel their reservation later will be in for a big surprise. My understanding is if you cancel your resort reservation after ordering your MBs, you will be charged the full price for them. So I expect most people who ordered will be keeping their resort reservations. Instead of sending the bands out immediately after being ordered, Disney could have kept the fulfillment process the same: order whenever you want, but they are customized & shipped the same as always, within 30 days of your stay.

I so agree with this. Someone just reported on another thread that they received their upgraded bands already and they aren't traveling until late Oct./early November, so, almost 5 months in advance. That's ridiculous. No wonder the inventory is completely depleted.

 

[glvsav37]

MEH.............................


Sour apples as a magicband does not and will not NEVER dictate to me on how my vacation is going to be or ever slightly affect it whatsoever!......................



Its a fancy rubberband..............



Disney way underestimated this and was def not prepaired and as far as limiting it to those who are going "first" again sour apples as it first come first serve, now some need to quit worrying about a fancy wrist rubberband as in all honestly nobody will even look and have some Disney fun!

what's a fancy rubber band to you may not be to others. A resort room on property might be magical to you while its a colossal waste of money to others.

no sour apples here as I received my order, although not without an issue that was resolved. But there is no denying that by the countless threads on the subject here alone that "botched' is a pretty on-point word to use for this promotion. By your own words "underestimated" and "not prepared" not sure that should earn them a gold star for managerial decisions.

While you are right, 'first come first served', they could have avoided "underestimated' and 'not prepared' with simple supply chain 101 decisions. Instead, they got caught offering a product they could not fulfill and had to offer emergency fixes to keep their guests happy.

We can debate semantics back and forth, but regardless of the product offered, this was a major fail, and one of many in a long line of IT infrastructure guest letdowns.

Today it was fancy rubber bands, tomorrow it could be something more personal to you.

 

[BSBNess]

MEH.............................


Sour apples as a magicband does not and will not NEVER dictate to me on how my vacation is going to be or ever slightly affect it whatsoever!......................



Its a fancy rubberband..............



Disney way underestimated this and was def not prepaired and as far as limiting it to those who are going "first" again sour apples as it first come first serve, now some need to quit worrying about a fancy wrist rubberband as in all honestly nobody will even look and have some Disney fun!

I happen to look at my wrist and I wanted to see Black Panther on my wrist. Also and limiting it to those who going first is no different than extra morning hours for people staying at a Disney Resort or Reservations for Galaxy Edge.

 

[MarkinNM]

I happen to look at my wrist and I wanted to see Black Panther on my wrist. Also and limiting it to those who going first is no different than extra morning hours for people staying at a Disney Resort or Reservations for Galaxy Edge.

Whoops...............


I will look at my wrist, erh.......naw as there is MUCH better things to look at SWGE and or in WDW.......

 

[epcotobsessed]

July arrival here - I constantly got error messages even trying to view the options and ultimately gave up. At least I did customize them with the original colors back when I booked the package so I'm hoping we at least get those shipped to us.