MagicBand+ became available to everyone this past week at Disney World. We decided to buy, and give them a test run at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (DHS). This article will give you an idea of what your day could be like if you choose to lean in and use some of the new features available to you with MagicBand+.
First, a brief description of what MagicBand+ is. From Disney’s announcement: The original MagicBand was introduced in 2013 at Walt Disney World, making the guest experience in our theme parks and resorts more convenient and hands-free for things like park and guest room entry, retail and dining, Disney PhotoPass and more. MagicBand+ will retain those popular features and add functionality that unlocks new moments of magic for you.
After you enter a theme park, MagicBand+ will come alive at various times with color-changing lights, haptic vibrations and gesture recognition. The wearable will allow you to engage with favorite Disney moments in new ways, including:
- Play like a bounty hunter in a galaxy far, far away and find virtual bounties throughout Black Spire Outpost in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
- Interact with the “Disney Fab 50 Character Collection,” the golden sculptures spread throughout the Walt Disney World theme parks.
- Experience nighttime spectaculars in a new way as you see your band light up and complement the magic in the skies, including the new “Harmonious” at EPCOT and “Disney Enchantment” at Magic Kingdom Park.
TIP: We highly suggest you buy a MagicBand+ before you arrive to the park for your first day to use it. This will ensure you that you have it updated, and fully charged. We purchased ours a couple days ago, brought it home and made sure we would have a flawless first day with it. Reports on the Internet have been mixed on buying one and trying to also use it the same day. Major complaints is about the battery running out. So if you can try to solve this before arrive at the park if you can.
MagicBand+ at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
As mentioned above, we took our MagicBand+ to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for our first experience. We had two specific purposes in mind for our first day with MagicBand+. Those were the Disney Fab 50 character collection, and Star Wars Batuu Bounty Hunters. Let’s cover our experience with the Fab 50 characters. For a little history you can check out our report on the Fab 50 locations pre MagicBand+ in our article, All 50 of Disney’s Golden Character Statues Locations.
The location of the Fab 50 characters in DHS are relatively close to one another in what can be considered the hub of the park. There are 7 total statues here with 9 characters on them. With the addition of MagicBand+ to our lives, these statues have a couple of features that come with it. As you are walking around, your MagicBand+ will vibrate to let you know you are close to something. One thing to mention is you should download and install the Disney Play app from the Google Play store or IOS App Store. This offers you a little more features, but isn’t 100% needed if you don’t want to deal with it.
As you approach the statue you can open up your Play app and start the Disney Fab 50 Quest. Follow the prompts to get started, however make sure you are in the correct park in the app otherwise you get to go through this activity again. One of the really annoying features of the Play app is how buggy it is with location.
One thing to keep in mind with this activity is the Play app is optional. If you simply approach the statue and wave at it you will get it to play it’s interactive sounds/music which we found pretty cool! Here is a hot tip, you have to actually wave at it like a hello wave. I spent about 5 minutes obnoxiously waving at the statues only to have them invisibly laugh at me and do nothing. Once I slowed down and waved hello it worked!
The drawback with this activity comes from the Disney Play app. First off I am not a fan of being glued to my phone while in the theme parks, and it is becoming more of a thing than I would like it to be, and why isn’t the play app integrated to the “My Disney Experience” app already. It is yet another thing on my phone. If you aren’t tech savvy trying to remember which app does what is cumbersome, and a lot of overhead on guests trying to relax.
Another drawback to this activity is how buggy the Play app is when you are trying to complete your activity. Many times when the statue was found, we found ourselves having to close the app, or refresh it several times to get it to count. We are both tech savvy, and work in IT, so we have the patience to deal with this bugginess, however our observations and interactions with other people let us know quickly that they will give up rather fast and move on with their day. Not a great experience to say the least.
Star Wars Batuu Bounty Hunters
Let’s turn our attention to Star Wars Batuu Bounty Hunters. As the name suggests, this takes place in Batuu. Again to start this activity you do need to have the Play app installed and you need to start the Star Wars: Batuu Bounty Hunters game. Keep in mind as mentioned above, this is buggy and take you a couple of times to get it to start correctly.
Once you have started the game, or quest as we referred to it, you will need to locate the bounty board in Batuu pictured below to actually get a bounty job in order to start. When you approach this interactive board you will need to tap your MagicBand+ to accept a bounty hunter job, and then you can start the hunt!
Once you tap your MagicBand+ you start wandering Batuu in search of your bounty! What is nice about this game is the amount of interactivity you get from the MagicBand+. As you traverse the planet of Batuu, your MagicBand+ will be flashing red for far away, or green for you are close to your target.
As we moved through the marketplace looking for our first target bounty, all of a sudden my MagicBand+ started vibrating very aggressively to let me know I was close, and then it will turn to purple when you are at the right spot. It led me to a door in the marketplace. I then had to pull my phone out, open the play app which decided to not start where I left off but act as if I never had it open in the first place, which is a frustrating common occurrence with the Play app. I then had to re-open the Star Wars Batuu Bounty Hunters game again to scan the door. Scanning the door is very buggy, and will take several times for it to register. Once you successfully done this your MagicBand+ will continue to flash purple. When this happens you get to walk back to the area right next where you accepted the quest to turn it in.
Having the turn-in door next to the bounty board is sure to cause confusion, but make sure you head back to get in the turn-in line to receive your virtual credits. You stick your hand in a little hole and get scanned to collect your reward! Below is a spoiler video of your first turn in from the guildmaster. We did 3 captures before calling it a day at DHS. You level up on the Play app for each one you do.
Final Thoughts on MagicBand+
Well there you have it our experiences in DHS yesterday. While we do like the interactive aspect of the MagicBand+ we do not enjoy that fact it relies on the Disney Play app. The Disney Play aspect of this experience can really drag you down with how much you will be staring at your phone. Also the app is not polished, and is missing basic features you would expect from a mobile game. This causes frustration, as well as battery drain on your phone!
We found our 4 hours of using MagicBand+ to be generally positive. Running through Batuu collecting bounties is fun, and not as dependent on the Play app which is a good thing. Waving at the golden Fab 50 statues is also fun, and probably even better if you skip the Play app all together, and just settle for the interactive music that occurs when you wave at them.
Overall we recommend grabbing a MagicBand+, but caution you to have some patience ready if you decide to use the Play app along side it. Also if you can have it already purchased and ready to go before you hit the parks. What are you thoughts? Have you tried MagicBand+ yet, or will you grab one before your next trip to Walt Disney World? Let us know in the comments.