Remember the news reported last week that Disney would be testing attraction photos being sent directly to MagicBands? Well, the first series of tests have been completed and it appears as if things may have gone rather smoothly.
Sure, there were some hiccups but it is still the testing phase. The following is a full account from a source of mine that participated in the first testing at Magic Kingdom which was done on Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin.
There were about 900 cast members, 400 got a baggie with a magic band with a number written on it, a big marathon-esque number, matching the magic band that you had to tape to your shirt, and a sheet which u wrote your name on, how many times you rode each space mountain and buzz light year, and at the bottom it said how many pictures were correctly matched to your magic band. so they took my picture with my number and my cast ID, to make sure no-one took the magic bands home and we sat in the monsters theater at about 930, park was closed at 9.
Then we get led to space mountain. there were specific instructions on when the picture is taken, to not have your number blocked and no profanity, obviously. so the first time the lights were off, but the 2nd and 3rd times there were lights on, and I’ve only done that once before, and it was pretty awesome. after the 3rd time on space, we then were led to buzz lightyear. its about 11pm at this point. we go inside and same instructions, make sure the number is visible when the picture is taken. so we ride it 3 times and then we proceed to what is called a checkout. We are taken to the buzz picture counter area and there are about 6 kiosks with photo pass people and they all have computers and magic band scanners by them. when I’m called up, he asks me how it was, just small talk, and then asks me how many times i rode each attraction. he then enters his perner on the computer and then scans my magic band, 6 pictures pop up one at a time, and each one matches where i was sitting. i was quite impressed. They were saying before the test that its still in early testing phases, and i heard some people say that I didn’t work 100% of the time for them. But i was quite impressed that it did for me, matched my vehicle and seat with just the touch of a magic band.
It appears as if this same kind of testing will be done next week at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for Rock ‘N’ Rollercoaster and Tower of Terror. Cast Members have entered their names in a drawing of sorts and will be randomly selected for the testing.
