UPDATE – 1:07 PM: Touch points are back up and running at the Magic Kingdom.
UPDATE – 12:41 PM: Cast Members are now using iPads to scan guests in as a back-up method while the physical touch points at the park appear to still be down. Entrance issues are also being reported by guests at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
While Cast Members at the Magic Kingdom are no strangers to phase capacity closures and heavy holiday crowds, add a system malfunction into the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. Today at the Magic Kingdom, technical difficulties at the entrance touch points led to a sea of backed up guests all along the Monorail ramp and ferry docks.
Issues with My Disney Experience led to a full stop of the guest entry process, and guests were held at the entrance for some time.
The entrance crowds were at a standstill until an official decision was made to allow all guests in without scanning a MagicBand or ticket. During peak crowd times, fingerprint scanning is sometimes disabled, but it’s rare to have no scanning of MagicBands or ticket media take place. Guests with MagicBand or tickets were simply waved in by Cast Members. Given the size of the crowds, it was likely a safety concern, which is why guests were just let inside.
Within minutes, the entire backed up entrance was cleared using this method. For a live look at the crowds passing through the touch points, check out our video below:
You know, I’m all for using modern technology for all it’s ease and intuitiveness…but, I’d gladly go back to the old paper ticket scan/punch days. Because more often than not, the My Disney Experience system has too many hiccups and fails. I’d personally love for them to put at least the ticket turnstiles on the old style system. It was much more fluid…
Paper tickets get lost too easily. I’d much rather have a magic band. My Disney Experience needs a major overhaul, they constantly have downtimes. Somehow they manage it okay at Disneyland though, the only thing that ever goes down is fastpass and very rarely. WDW overall has a lot of issues that need fixing in my opinion, it is not a well oiled machine.
Okay Boomer.
Okay junior
That had to be a fun couple hours, good luck to all the guests in the park today
Did FastPass work during this period?
Is it an issue with My Disney Experience? I can’t book my fast passes today for some reason and it’s the 30 day mark.
Oh my gosh! Is it possible that Disney got gypped out of a few bucks?
I’m sure they’ll find a way to take it out of all the cast member’s hides!
What if they don’t have a ticket they were let in for free then
Correct
Wow! I am not a fan of the my disney experience shopping section. It’s always wrong. It says items can be found in certain stores but I ALWAYS find the items sold out when I arrive. A lot of time wasted when it was supposed to make shopping easier. Plus, NOT everything is available. I wanted to get one of the new tie dye spirit jerseys for my niece. Can’t find it and if you put in jersey you find nothing.
My family,party of 3, were there 4 day in a row. The lines were just too long, each day was worst than the last. We made sure each day was in the park with the least attendance and it was horrific. My personal feeling on attendance is that it is way over limit to be able to enjoy the experience at disney. There max of attendance at the parks were at capacity at 2 of the 4 days. Definitely not a fun experience.