Disney Tech Primer - Part 1: All About MyDisneyExperience
PassPorter.com > Articles > Walt Disney World > Planning Disney has always been willing to try new technologies to improve the guest experience and make their own operations more efficient.
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My Disney Experience (MDX) integrates a number of existing and new technological programs at WDW, allowing the guest to check and alter many aspects of their Walt Disney World stay remotely. The system replaces the old Key to the World card, which already integrated the room lock, park pass, dining plan, and room charging systems, and at the same time integrates several other systems that were not previously linked together. All together, these systems include:
* WDW resort reservations
* Disney's Magical Express
* WDW resort room locks
* WDW resort room charging
* WDW park passes (both Magic Your Way passes and Annual passes)
* FastPass+ (a new system replacing the legacy FASTPASS system)
* Disney Dining Plan
* Disney's PhotoPass
* WDW Resort Refillable mugs (future)
Additionally, interactive features can be added to in-park attractions which will use MDX to customize the attraction experience and perhaps even save preferences. Thus far, only Test Track in Epcot has such a feature, but more attractions with this capability could easily be added in the future.
Getting Started with My Disney Experience - Creating Your Account
All of these systems are tied together by Disney's computer system. Guests access the system by creating a free account on MyDisneyExperience.com. You don't need to have a Walt Disney World resort reservation to create an MDX account. Once you have created your account, you can link various features to it in preparation for your upcoming Walt Disney World vacation.
-> Link your family Start by linking your family's accounts to yours, so that the system will know you are traveling as a group.
-> Add your resort or package reservations Next, link your Walt Disney World resort reservations to the account. Once you link your reservations to your account, the MDX site will allow you to do additional things like on-line check-in and customizing Magic Bands.
-> Tickets If you have purchased tickets from the Disney Store, DisneyShopping.com, or an authorized ticket broker like Undercover Tourist (including Annual Passes), you can link them to the account, as well as the tickets included with a WDW resort package.
-> Arrange Your Dining Most Walt Disney World restaurants allow you to make Advance Dining Reservations (ADRs) up to 180 days in advance of your check-in date. If you have already made ADRs by phone or by some other means, you can link them to your MDX account with the confirmation numbers. If you have not, you can make dining reservations directly from the MDX site, and they will be linked to your account automatically. You can now use your MDX account to manage your ADRs, add new ones, look for duplicates, delete any which you don't need, or reschedule.
-> FastPass+ (FP+) FastPass+ is a reservation system for rides, shows, and attractions at Walt Disney World. By selecting an attraction, and a one-hour time window in which you'd like to experience the attraction, you make an appointment for the attraction. The number of people who can make such a choice in any given hour is limited, which means that FastPass queues for any attraction are virtually guaranteed to never be longer 20 minutes.
FastPass+ is a new system, replacing the older legacy FASTPASS system, which only allowed reservations for one attraction at a time, with no advance selection. Along with FastPass+'s new advance selection capability, however, come some new restrictions - each Guest is limited to 3 FP+ selections per day, and all three selections must be in the same park, even if you have a park-hopping ticket linked to your MDX account. Additionally, Disney is also experimenting with a "tiered" approach to attractions; at Epcot and Disney's Hollywood Studios, the guest can select one "headliner" attraction and 2 "minor" attractions. The tiered approach may or may not become standard at all parks once the FastPass+ testing phase is complete in early 2014.
In order to make your FastPass+ selections, you must first link a park pass and a Walt Disney World resort or package reservation to your MDX account. Once that is done, you will be able to make FP+ selections up to 60 days before your check-in date, for a stay of up to 7 days.
If you don't have a Walt Disney World resort or package reservation, but you are a WDW Annual Passholder, you can link your AP to your MDX account, and you will be able to make FP+ selections up to 7 days in advance, for one day at a time.
If you don't have a Walt Disney World resort or package reservation, and you are not an Annual Passholder, you will not be able to make FP+ selections in advance. You can still link a park pass to your MDX account, but you will be able to make FP+ selections only on and for the day of your visit, one day at a time.
-> PhotoPass Disney's PhotoPass is a system of roving photographers on WDW property who will take your picture with digital cameras. The pictures are stored on the PhotoPass computer system for 45 days after they are taken, and you can access them online through your PhotoPass account to order prints, digital downloads, and other products. The PhotoPass system is completely separate from the MDX system. However, there are links from MDX to take you to your PhotoPass account, where you can view, customize, and order your photos.
-> Walt Disney World Resort room charging Hotels have allowed guests to charge things to their rooms for decades, and Disney resorts are no exception. With the size and complexity of WDW, however, this becomes an extremely useful feature, since Disney allows resort guests to use room charge to pay for anything bought from any Disney venue on Walt Disney World property - meals, souvenirs, ticket add-ons, golf, tours... if you're buying it from a Disney-owned shop, store, restaurant, or cart, you can charge it to your Walt Disney World resort room.
In order to utilize this feature, the guest must put a credit card on file; the credit card on file is used to pay for anything charged to the room. In the past, putting a credit card on file was done at time of check-in, but now, you can do it in advance, using your MDX account. Note: If you don't want to put a credit card on file in your MDX account, you also have the option of using cash, travelers checks, or Disney Gift Cards to establish a credit for room charging. However, this must be done at time of check-in. Perhaps in the future, MDX will be amended to allow Disney Gift Cards to be put on file, instead of a credit card.
Coming next week... Magic Bands!
My Disney Experience
The first day of my trip on My Disney Experience
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Reader Comments:
WOW! What a lot of work, Will. Thanks so much for putting all the information in one place and organized so that it's really helpful.
Thanks so much for putting this together! LOVE it!
Great compilation of info!!! Thanks for taking the time to put up that post!
.Very nice sticky. Thanks for putting all that info together in one easy to read and understand format.
Great job Will!! Thanks!!
Thanks for the information. WOW--that was a lot of work putting it all together.
Will, Thanks so Much for this!!! It has most of the info I've been searching for the past week, and now it's all easy to find. Great job.
Thanks for the information. I now have an easy way to explain all of this to my parents when I suprise them next December with their 50th Anniversary trip!
Great work Will!
Wow, you put a lot of work into this! Thanks for all the info!!
Lots of great info. Thanks!
Just one question why is the term MDX being used instead of MDE for My Disney Experience? I haven't seen anyone else using MDX and I think if just one board used it people could get confused.
Super article! For those of us who plan our days months in advance with "ahem" a spreadsheet:o, this is terrific! Last trip we downloaded our spread sheet to our phone and then used a lines app to manage waits etc. And the Disney app to check ADRs. Now it should be seamless, all the planning can be done ahead, saving even more on backtracking! I've been on the globe 1/2 a century, but I am good with all this technology- it's made Disney easier than ever to "manage"
Thanks for all the good info. I was dreading learning this new "system" for our 2015 trip, but this will make it much easier for me to understand and share with my DS & DDiL as we plan our trip. They are both "techies".....I just hang on and go with the flow! LOL
for the great article, it's very helpful!!EastYorkDisneyFan;4278045 >Just one question why is the term MDX being used instead of MDE for My Disney Experience? I haven't seen anyone else using MDX and I think if just one board used it people could get confused.
I used MDX instead of MDE, because MDE is too easily confused with DME (Disney's Magical Express). I've already seen a large number of posts on the boards where people mistyped DME instead of MDE, leading to confusion, since Magic Bands are now being used to check in for DME at MCO.
I saw MDX used on another board and decided to use it in this primer, because I like it better - it's obvious, as long as you're speaking in context about My Disney Experience. But I've got a poll going and MDX is losing. Dangit.
When the poll is done, I'll probably wind up replacing all of the MDXs in this piece with MDEs.
MDE... MDX... DME... MCO... DMK... EPC... DHS... DAK... DTD...
Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put on K.P. Thanks for the primer. One question though. I have two upcoming reservations which bookend a cruise. Stay 1 is a package with 8 day park hopper tickets which I've linked to my MDX account. Stay 2 is a room only because I'll be using the remaining days on the tickets from Stay 1. Will I be able to make FP+ reservations for Stay 2 when that reservation is a room only? In other words, will the tickets linked to my account for Stay 1 trigger FP+ privileges for Stay 2?:confused:
asa disney;4278384 >Thanks for the primer. One question though. I have two upcoming reservations which bookend a cruise. Stay 1 is a package with 8 day park hopper tickets which I've linked to my MDX account. Stay 2 is a room only because I'll be using the remaining days on the tickets from Stay 1. Will I be able to make FP+ reservations for Stay 2 when that reservation is a room only? In other words, will the tickets linked to my account for Stay 1 trigger FP+ privileges for Stay 2?:confused:
I can only speculate, since this stuff is rather new and I have not yet heard reports from anyone in your position, however...
My gut feeling is that the answer is probably yes. FP+ selections are made available for the length of your WDW resrt stay, so long as you have both a reservation and a valid ticket associated with your MDX account. Since your Stay 2 has both of them, my guess is that you will be able to make your FP+ selections for Stay 1 60 days from check-in, and that you'll be able to make FP+ selections for Stay 2 60 days from that check-in.
But as I said, this is just a guess. I might be completely off base here.
That being said, you could be a test case for us; we'd all really appreciate if you'd come back and report how your FP+ selections go when you get to those 60-day marks.
And welcome to Passporter!One MagicBand surprise we had in Nov'13... We walked on the Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdom, without scanning our MagicBand anywhere, and our ride photo automatically appeared in our PhotoPass account! One other tip... some times the MDX app was down while we were touring, so I did a screen capture of our FP+ times so I could look them up in my phone's photo album if the app was down and did not have to locate a kiosk in the park for assistance.
Well, WILLCAD, I'm happy to report that I was able to
make FP+ reservations on Stay 2, once the 60 day window opened. Not sure if having a resort reservation was enough, or if having unused tickets linked to my MDX account did the trick, but it worked.asa disney;4279097 >Well, WILLCAD, I'm happy to report that I was able to
make FP+ reservations on Stay 2, once the 60 day window opened. Not sure if having a resort reservation was enough, or if having unused tickets linked to my MDX account did the trick, but it worked.
You definitely need both to make FP+ selections in advance.
Thanks for the report. I'm sure your situation will come up for plenty of people, especially those who are cruising.Thanks for all the info!
I would like to add an update. Photopass is now Memory Maker. Memory Maker is download only so you no longer get a CD of your photopass pictures. I preordered my Memory Maker for our March trip. When the card arrived in the mail, I went to MDX & registered the number on the back & linked it to my MDX account. I received an e-mail confirming the link-up.
I used MDX last year before you could link everything & I loved it specifically for the wait times. This year I have been using it to plan itineraries for the parks. I'm hoping once we get to the parks, it works better than it did last year when I had some spotty connectivity problems.bec;4280131 >I would like to add an update. Photopass is now Memory Maker. Memory Maker is download only so you no longer get a CD of your photopass pictures. I preordered my Memory Maker for our March trip. When the card arrived in the mail, I went to MDX & registered the number on the back & linked it to my MDX account. I received an e-mail confirming the link-up.
I used MDX last year before you could link everything & I loved it specifically for the wait times. This year I have been using it to plan itineraries for the parks. I'm hoping once we get to the parks, it works better than it did last year when I had some spotty connectivity problems.
PhotoPass is still PhotoPass.
Memory Maker is a specific PhotoPass product which replaced a previous product called PhotoPass+.
Both the PhotoPass+ and Memory Maker products include 2 things:
1) Digital files of all of the images in your PhotoPass account (PP+ was on disk, MM is download-only unless you pay a $29 extra fee to get a disk)
2) A special PhotoPass card which allows you to add pics to your account from attractions and dining venues that are not included in a regular PhotoPass account
There is a lot of confusion regarding PhotoPass; many people think that "The Photo Pass" refers to the cards given out by the photographers, while others refer to the PhotoPass Archive CD as "buying the PhotoPass".
But PhotoPass is the name of the entire system, and the system has multiple products available for purchase, including digital downloads of individual pics, the Archive CD (which contains all the pics in your account), and the aforementioned Memory Maker Product.
Incidentally, as relates to the tech primer: PhotoPass photographers are now equipped with a new type of scanner, which can scan both the old-style barcoded PhotoPass cards, and can scan Magic Bands. So, if you are staying on-site and have a Magic Band, you can use it to associate PhotoPass pics with your PhotoPass account (which is linked to your My Disney Experience account). If you do not have a Magic Band, the old-style barcoded PhotoPass cards are still available for free from any PhotoPass photographer.Thank you, Will, for your excellent sticky! You make it so easy to understand and all of your info is really well organized! Kudos to you!!
Sorry to be a bother.... we will be travelling from Canada and have our resort and flight already booked but will be using Air Miles (a points reward system in Canada) to pay for our park tickets at a later date as we are on a tight budget.
I have been able to customize our MagicBands with nicknames and select colours but I was wondering how we would go about adding our 4 digit codes for purchases to go on our account via the MagicBand and if we will be able to link our park tickets to MDX even though we used a rewards system to purchase them?
Also, will we still be able to add the Memory Maker on we have our tickets (assuming we can link the tickets to the account once we get them)?
Thanks a bunch!!!!Alliecat;4283678 >
Sorry to be a bother.... we will be travelling from Canada and have our resort and flight already booked but will be using Air Miles (a points reward system in Canada) to pay for our park tickets at a later date as we are on a tight budget.
I have been able to customize our MagicBands with nicknames and select colours but I was wondering how we would go about adding our 4 digit codes for purchases to go on our account via the MagicBand and if we will be able to link our park tickets to MDX even though we used a rewards system to purchase them?
Also, will we still be able to add the Memory Maker on we have our tickets (assuming we can link the tickets to the account once we get them)?
Thanks a bunch!!!!
No bother at all, answering these questions is why Passporter Boards exist.
1) Any WDW ticket can be added to your MDX account. There have been some glitches with older tickets from prior to 2005, but new tickets can all be added to MDX.
2) Memory Maker can be purchased whether you add tickets to MDX or not; it's simply a product you can buy from PhotoPass.
3) My memory is fuzzy; I can't remember exactly how to set your 4-digit PIN in MDX. I believe it's done after you complete on-line check-in.WillCAD;4284208 >
3) My memory is fuzzy; I can't remember exactly how to set your 4-digit PIN in MDX. I believe it's done after you complete on-line check-in.
:yeahthat: That is correct. You must do online check-in (starting at 60 days prior to travel) and add a credit card to your reservation for incidentals and room charging purposes. During the online check-in process, the system prompts you to create a 4 digit PIN. 
IMHO, I think Disney is making this harder for non-techie people to enjoy their stay at the World. There are still legions of us that will not get a smart phone or want to plan their days 60 days in advance. Spontaneity is a thing of the past at WDW!
jjjmranch;4287752 >IMHO, I think Disney is making this harder for non-techie people to enjoy their stay at the World. There are still legions of us that will not get a smart phone or want to plan their days 60 days in advance. Spontaneity is a thing of the past at WDW!
I don' see that at all Disney is not forcing anyone to book there fast passes in advance. If you don't want to you don't have to. You can still be spontaneous if you want to, and if you do decide to get fast passes you can still add them once your there.The only bad thing I have noticed with MDX is that there is no space for additional reservations. I have my kids scheduled for The pirate and princess experiences but I can't input them into the MDX. I thought it was supposed to be a place for keeping everything in one place? If I missed something let me know!:confused:
there's a place where you can add notes I think but it doesn't show up like a restaurant booking or fastpass + time. Id' recommend you set a reminder on your device for those events.
Thanks for answering all the questions about magic bands swimming in my head. Haven't been since 2011, so many changes.
What attractions have the Photopass pictures that will automatically go onto your account when it detects your Magic Band?
Disney Dork;4430898 >What attractions have the Photopass pictures that will automatically go onto your account when it detects your Magic Band?
WillCAD;4431006 >
Great! Thank you!Will, thank you for this post. I USED to be a Disney expert. I knew it all inside and out. Then "life" happened and my family and I haven't been able to go back to WDW for 4 years (or, in Disney years: 4,000,000,000,000) Everything has changed since we last went and my head has been spinning trying to figure it all out. Though I may not have it all completely down, you have beautifully summed things up making it easy for anyone to understand. Great job. Thank you!
bfth;4497590 >Will, thank you for this post. I USED to be a Disney expert. I knew it all inside and out. Then "life" happened and my family and I haven't been able to go back to WDW for 4 years (or, in Disney years: 4,000,000,000,000) Everything has changed since we last went and my head has been spinning trying to figure it all out. Though I may not have it all completely down, you have beautifully summed things up making it easy for anyone to understand. Great job. Thank you!
Four bazillion years is half a bazillion too many. Honestly, I start getting the shakes and jitters after about a month.
If there's anything you don't get, just keep asking questions. The Tech board is here to help!Thanks Will, I'm sure I'll be full of a ton of questions before June!
Will, you might want to update the FP+ section in the first post. It still says you ahve to sue the kiosk to get the 4th and subsequent FP+s. It doesn't mention about being able to use the app now
Is there any info or suggestions on getting separate fast passes when a group (like Grandparents and adult children) are all under the same reservation. We want to be able to do our own thing and are linked to the kids account... We want to learn some tech info to be able to do things separately???
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Updated 01-23-2014 - Article #1046
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