MyMagic+
MyMagic+ is the name of the vacation-planning and guest-experience platform introduced at Walt Disney World in 2013–2014, developed under the internal codename Next Generation Experience, or NextGen. It linked together the My Disney Experience website and app, RFID MagicBands, the FastPass+ reservation system and the Disney PhotoPass Memory Maker package, so that a guest's ticket, hotel room key, ride reservations, payments and photos were all attached to a single account and a single wristband. Reported to have cost around $1 billion, it was the largest technology project in the resort's history to that point, and its components still underpin a Walt Disney World visit as of 2026, though the MyMagic+ name is rarely used today.
History
Development began in 2008, and in February 2011 Disney approved a budget of $1 billion for implementing the NextGen system at Walt Disney World, initially targeting a rollout by February 2012 — a target that was missed.[1] Contemporary analyst estimates reported by the New York Times put the wider initiative at between $800 million and $1 billion.[2]
Disney publicly unveiled MyMagic+ on January 7, 2013, and rolled it out in stages through the year: testing with selected resort hotel guests, then annual passholders, and finally all guests, with the system in general use by early 2014.[3] The rollout required new RFID readers at park entrances, attraction queues, hotel doors and payment points across the entire resort, and the replacement of the paper FastPass system, which ended at Walt Disney World in January 2014.
MyMagic+ was never exported wholesale: Disneyland kept paper FastPass until 2017, and later resorts such as Shanghai Disneyland built their guest systems around smartphones instead.
How it works
MyMagic+ consisted of four main components.[4]
- My Disney Experience — the website and app where guests linked tickets, made dining reservations and planned their days.
- MagicBands — waterproof RFID wristbands, issued free to Walt Disney World resort hotel guests and annual passholders at launch and sold to others, which served as park ticket, hotel room key, FastPass+ credential and, for hotel guests, a charge card.
- FastPass+ — the digital successor to FastPass, allowing up to three ride reservations per day booked in advance, 60 days ahead for resort hotel guests and 30 days for others, instead of paper slips collected in the park.
- Memory Maker — the Disney PhotoPass download package, integrated so that ride photos and photographer pictures flowed automatically into the same account, triggered in part by the band's long-range RFID.
Reception and debate
Reception was mixed, and is usually summarised that way by later analyses. Disney reported early operational gains, including faster park entry, and per-capita guest spending rose in the system's first year.[5] At the same time, the advance-planning demands of FastPass+ were unpopular with some guests, the sheer cost of the project was questioned by commentators — one widely cited Harvard Business School case study asked outright whether MyMagic+ was "Disney's big blunder" — and the system's data collection prompted a neutral but persistent public debate: because a MagicBand could be read at a distance and linked to a guest's identity, itinerary and payment details, privacy advocates and some lawmakers questioned how much movement and behaviour data Disney gathered and how it was used, while Disney stated that participation elements were optional and that bands stored no personal information themselves.[6]
Judged as infrastructure, MyMagic+ endured. FastPass+ was retired in 2021 in favour of Lightning Lane, but MagicBands, My Disney Experience and account-linked photos remain in daily use, and every Disney planning system since — including Disney Genie — was built on the foundation MyMagic+ created.
See also
- MagicBand
- My Disney Experience
- FastPass
- Disney PhotoPass
- Lightning Lane
- Park Hopper
- Walt Disney World