Hi Shawn, and thanks for visiting us at planDisney! There’s nothing better than sharing a magical Disney vacation with your family and friends. So let’s make sure you’re all set for your upcoming trip!
There are two things that need to happen for your friends and family members to associate their MagicBands with your Disney Resort hotel reservation. This will let them use their bands for things like opening the hotel room door and accessing the pool.
First, their profiles need to be connected to the reservation. If you booked through the Disney World website, it would’ve prompted you to match the names on your reservation to profiles on your
Family & Friends List. If you booked elsewhere, it’ll prompt you to do this when you link the reservation in
My Disney Experience.
Now, let’s talk about the MagicBands. The bands aren’t linked to a specific hotel reservation, but are connected to a person’s profile, either through their own MyDisney account or a profile managed by someone else. For instance, I manage my nephew’s profile since he’s too young to have an account, and my parents’ profiles since they didn’t want to create their own accounts.
For any friends and family members who have their own MyDisney account, they can link their MagicBands in the My Disney Experience app. If you manage any of their profiles, you’ll need to link their MagicBands through your account. To do that, open the app and go to ☰ in the lower right corner, then MagicBands & Cards (under Account). Scroll to the bottom of the screen and select Link Your MagicBand or Card. Here you can scan their MagicBand+ (under Tap, if you have the band with you) or input the ID Number on the back of the band (under Type ID, if your friend or family member has the band—just ask them to send a picture of the code on the back). You’ll be prompted to choose which person you’d like to assign the band to. Double-check your selection since this can’t be changed.
For everything to work seamlessly, the profiles you attach to the Disney Resort hotel reservation need to be the same profiles linked to your friends and family members’ MagicBands and theme park tickets. Sometimes I’ve run into issues when I created a managed profile for a friend when booking our hotel reservation, but then they also opened their own MyDisney account. If this happened, Hakuna Matata! First, make sure the account the other person made is on your Family & Friends List. In my experience, when Disney sees you have two similar profiles on your list, you should see a notification flagging them as possible duplicates. That notification will prompt you to merge the two profiles.
I know this may sound complicated, so you can always call the
App and MagicBand Support phone number, and a Cast Member would be happy to walk you through the process!
Before I go, if you have a MagicBand+, I wanted to remind you to keep it charged since there are lots of fun surprises throughout the park that will have your band vibrating and lighting up! Two of my favorites are hunting for the
Fab 50 Character statues and playing
Batuu Bounty Hunters in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
I’m wishing you and your ‘ohana a magical vacation together at Disney World! And if you have any other questions, you’re always welcome back at planDisney.
JoAnna