As was announced last year, MagicBands are no longer provided complimentary to Disney Resort hotel guests with arrivals beginning January 1, 2021.
For Disney Resort hotel room entry, Theme Park entry, and charging purchases to the hotel room with a valid credit card, guests may use a Key To The World card (provided at the Front Desk). Or, you can also use a MagicBand from a past visit (view potential limitations) or purchase a MagicBand pre-arrival.
On the “My MagicBands and Cards” section of My Disney Experience, MagicBand pre-arrival purchases are still available under the same former “Build-A-Band Upgrade” platform.
To reflect the changes, you can no longer filter between “Premium” and “Complimentary” bands. You can, however, filter by color or theme. The plain colored MagicBands that were previously complimentary are now available at a “special pre-order price” of $5, with a comparable value of $14.99.
Disney has stated plans to unveil an innovative new offering in 2021 as part of the My Disney Experience app that will bring the features of a MagicBand to smart devices, building on the app’s existing digital key feature.
Free souvenir luggage tags, which usually came in the same box as complimentary MagicBands, will no longer be mailed ahead of a guest’s trip, but are available for pick-up at Disney Resort hotel front desks for now.
Why is it always take, take, take now? Sad times. Although I imagine the cost was incorporated in the pricing anyway, so they were most likely never “free” in the first place. They at least seemed like they were.
As others have commented about the luggage tags, these are the nice perks that make staying (and paying) at a Disney World Resort worth the extra $. The Magical Express and luggage service, the Magic Bands, bus transport and so on.
That being said, I would be fine with this if the app can work on my Apple Watch along with Apple Pay, etc. However there are so many folks who do not have a smart watch and/or a less secure and less private system that Apple has (sorry Andriod/Samsung folks, but we all know that’s true!). I use my Apple Watch to pay at nearly every store I go to (come on Target – put your darn app on my watch!) so I would not want to pull out my phone for everything and using a key card – Really? 1990’s technology?
The strange part of this is using the Magic Band to pay for everything put’s money in Disney’s pocket easier! To me you think less about what you may be spending when you’re just waving your wrist in front of a pay point!
And to that… it is because of the Magic Bands that I first got an Apple Watch! After going to Disney World in 2014 (our last time) I loved the convenience of using the bands and paying for everything so easily. So a few years later when the Apple Watch came out, and the ability to use Apple Pay with it, I was all in!
Where can I find the discounted magic bands?