My Disney Experience VS Mobile Magic Apps

[horizons1]

Well, I tried My Disney Experience last Wednesday night at the Magic Kingdom and I have to say I was not impressed. First off, the app had trouble running on 3G. It was constantly "loading" to go from page to page and the delay was terrible. I know my 3G signal is sketchy inside the parks, especially way back in Frontierland and Adventureland, for example, but still, it was painful.

Once I was in a place where the Disney-Guest WIFI signal worked (Jungle Cruise queue was pretty good) the user experience picked up. But the next problem was location awareness. When I pressed "Here & Now" it was successfully able to identify my location and display nearby attractions about half the time. But when I would touch "Locate Me" (the little navigation arrow in the lower-left) it would popup the "While at Walt Disney World Resort you can use Locate Me to find the attractions, restaurants, and more nearest you!" and then a Close button. Um, neat, but the app didn't seem to know I was at WDW, even though if I pressed "Here & Now" it did.

The My Disney Experience app is data-intensive. I highly recommend using WIFI. I burned about 8MB of data in the short time I was messing with it on 3G. Using it all day would be a bit taxing if you don't have unlimited data. But while the usability of WIFI over 3G really makes a difference in performance, Disney still has its work cut out for it in making the entire resort WIFI-accessible.

Speaking of WIFI, I wanted to re-install the older Mobile Magic app which I stupidly uninstalled (thinking the new app would be best) but I could not get the app to download over WIFI in the park. They might throttle the data connections to ensure users are only checking email and not using the park's connection for streaming, etc. Just a guess. As a test, I was sitting in the very comfortable Dumbo indoor playground which had amazing WIFI reception. Good thinking because you know parents are sitting there checking email while their kids play. Anyway, I could get a strong connection and start downloading Mobile Magic but it would always stop partially through the download. I am sure this is deliberate and I don't hold it against Disney, just an observation.

[Wizzard419]

Especially with how Disney has been making the move to have wifi coverage in all the parks, you would think it wouldn't have been difficult to find a network. They really need to optimize that s*it, that is super that you have a rich multimedia experience, but as data caps stifle innovation as well as customers willingness to use the app, you end up failing before you even begin. One of their networks, ESPN, is even trying to subsidize the content so that carriers will not count traffic against mobile users on their website.

Speaking of speed, what model device were you using?

[Amy]

Well, I tried My Disney Experience last Wednesday night at the Magic Kingdom and I have to say I was not impressed. First off, the app had trouble running on 3G. It was constantly "loading" to go from page to page and the delay was terrible. I know my 3G signal is sketchy inside the parks, especially way back in Frontierland and Adventureland, for example, but still, it was painful.

Once I was in a place where the Disney-Guest WIFI signal worked (Jungle Cruise queue was pretty good) the user experience picked up. But the next problem was location awareness. When I pressed "Here & Now" it was successfully able to identify my location and display nearby attractions about half the time. But when I would touch "Locate Me" (the little navigation arrow in the lower-left) it would popup the "While at Walt Disney World Resort you can use Locate Me to find the attractions, restaurants, and more nearest you!" and then a Close button. Um, neat, but the app didn't seem to know I was at WDW, even though if I pressed "Here & Now" it did.

The My Disney Experience app is data-intensive. I highly recommend using WIFI. I burned about 8MB of data in the short time I was messing with it on 3G. Using it all day would be a bit taxing if you don't have unlimited data. But while the usability of WIFI over 3G really makes a difference in performance, Disney still has its work cut out for it in making the entire resort WIFI-accessible.

Speaking of WIFI, I wanted to re-install the older Mobile Magic app which I stupidly uninstalled (thinking the new app would be best) but I could not get the app to download over WIFI in the park. They might throttle the data connections to ensure users are only checking email and not using the park's connection for streaming, etc. Just a guess. As a test, I was sitting in the very comfortable Dumbo indoor playground which had amazing WIFI reception. Good thinking because you know parents are sitting there checking email while their kids play. Anyway, I could get a strong connection and start downloading Mobile Magic but it would always stop partially through the download. I am sure this is deliberate and I don't hold it against Disney, just an observation.

Thanks for the first hand observations! That is good to know about the data usage. I have unlimited data but I imagine it also drains the battery life too...

[Len90]

I haven't played with it too much in the parks but it seems to be okay. I do like how it lists attraction hours and has everything at your finger tips. However, as horizons said it is data intensive and you may need to utilize the guest wifi which is only around the major buildings in the parks.

[DaRkNeSs]

My favorite part of the Disney app for iPhone is that you can coordinate with your family and setup dinner reservations! Months in advance, that feature was very helpful. Other then that a lot of the "loading" screens.

[horizons1]

My favorite part of the Disney app for iPhone is that you can coordinate with your family and setup dinner reservations! Months in advance, that feature was very helpful. Other then that a lot of the "loading" screens.

Good point, but they improved the regular mobile website a lot last year and dining reservations over mobile web work too.

[Len90]

My favorite part of the Disney app for iPhone is that you can coordinate with your family and setup dinner reservations! Months in advance, that feature was very helpful. Other then that a lot of the "loading" screens.

Good point, but they improved the regular mobile website a lot last year and dining reservations over mobile web work too.

I thought it was within the past 6 months. When I booked some reservations for my most recent trip in November (six months out) it was the old system I remembered. In March I booked the last of our dinner reservations and it was different than the others. With the my disney experience stuff you need to actually input more information like everyone's name and assign a primary person who is in charge of the reservation.

[DaRkNeSs]

Yes that's very true Len the information you needed to give and having to share the plays with your family and friends was a bit of a pain. Trying to get all of us to see the reservation was trouble I just ended up emailing my reservation confirmation!
All very valid points here and I really appreciate the advice and hints!

[Goofyfan]

I'm too old..... I still have an old flip phone... takes me forever to text people.... old and cheap...

[BuzzyFan]

We should apply for a government grant. I wonder if one from NIH would apply. Could we make an argument for good mental health using the apps? Then it would be a potential NIMH project.

Make it preliminary to an outreach effort and NSF will love it, hug it, and call it George.

[horizons1]

The key is readily-available and reliable data. As long as that remains spotty, the guest user experience will suffer.

[Wizzard419]

Did anyone determine the frequency that the Disney run app updates and how accurate it is compared to the sign?

With the reliability for the 3rd party apps, they are fully dependent on the crowds. When the crowds are low, they have lower odds of people in the parks supplying info but if the crowds are low the app is not as useful since the wait times will be short. When they are packed the odds go up that they have fresher data but at the same time it doesn't matter since all the waits are going to be long anyway.

[Cardinals314]

Has anyone checked out the app from easywdw.com. It has queue times as well as fastpass return times. The fastpass return times were very helpful to get multiple attraction fastpasses where the return times fell within the same hour or so

[cy1229]

Did anyone determine the frequency that the Disney run app updates and how accurate it is compared to the sign?

Not yet. I'm still looking for a government grant to fund the research project. You want in if I find one?

[BenB]

Not yet. I'm still looking for a government grant to fund the research project. You want in if I find one?

Ooh! Me! Me!