Hey Howdy Hey fellow Buckeye David and welcome to planDisney!
MagicBands and MagicBand+ are such great ways to navigate the parks in Walt Disney World Resort. They are so convenient in so many ways and allow you to focus on the fun of the day rather than other details. Thank you for stopping by with your question on the lifespan of older MagicBands. There is a lot of information out there on the usage, so let's review a few things.
With conversations that I have personally had with Cast Members on the life of the batteries with older MagicBands, they usually last 2-3 years as these batteries cannot be changed or charged. That being said, I have heard from many sources that the 2-3 years is for full usage of the bands. You may be able to use older ones to access things like your room and theme park tickets but if the battery is dead, this may impact its full usage. You may not be able to link pictures to your
My Disney Experience account and any ride photos may not link either. So this would greatly depend on your expectations of usage with the bands.
If you wanted to take a chance at using the older ones but find out they are not working as you want them to, you still have a few options. The first one is using
Disney MagicMobile Service from your smart device. You can set this up for free and you can use your smart device similar to the MagicBands for your days in the parks. You can set this up by logging into your
My Disney Experience app and tapping the three horizontal lines on the bottom right for more options. Tap on the Disney MagicMobile tile next and follow the prompts and you should be all set!
You can also look into the purchase of
MagicBand+ or
MagicBand 2 still available on ShopDisney. MagicBand 2 works the same as the older ones, just with updated technology and fun themes. MagicBand+ is the newly released MagicBands to give your experience in the parks an extra unique feel. With MagicBand+, you can interact with the parks around you in many ways and even become part of the story in some lands. You can recharge these bands and use them for years to come without issues.
If you do have MagicBand that is assigned to one member of your party and you want to transfer it to another, this is a job for Disney Cast Members. You can do this but you would have to
call Disney at (407) 939-4357 or stop by the front desk once you arrive onsite at your Disney Resorts Collection hotel and have the Cast Members make this update for you.
I hoped that helps to give you a little more clarity on the MagicBand situation. Please feel free to reach back out with any further questions you may have, we are always happy to help!
Have a Magical Day,
Nick