"Inexpensive" alternative to smartphone for FP+ on our trip

[lauradis]

we have iphone4 and the wifi isn't great in the parks it was faster to run off our 3g data.

wifi is ok but slow and we had to reconnect almost every time we tried to us it.

 

[Miffy]

Miffy,

That's really strange about your Nexus 7 tablet. I have the Nexus 4 phone and had no problem downloading and using the My Disney Experience app.

Loves2Read: I know! It seems crazy, especially because my N7 is running the latest version of Android. But the Google Play Store won't even let me attempt to download MDE! It says "not compatible on your device" in the space normally reserved for "install."

And now that I've had some time to read through a few threads here, I realize that I can go to the WDW page and access MDE through that site. So I'll be able to plan things from my N7 as long as I have wifi access, which, sadly, is not great in the parks, unless something's changed drastically from last year. My wifi access last year wasn't even all that great from my room at WL, although I was able to use it.

It was a bit frustrating to try to figure out what's going on with MBs and FP+. I had to ask just the right search question in order to find out that, as of right now, the only way to use FP+ is to have a Magic Band, something that wasn't clear from reading about FP+.

 

[My3Princez]

Miffy,

That's really strange about your Nexus 7 tablet. I have the Nexus 4 phone and had no problem downloading and using the My Disney Experience app.

Not compatible with my nexus 7 either. Maybe before we go..

 

[Miffy]

Not compatible with my nexus 7 either. Maybe before we go..

I just bookmarked the MDE Internet site. I guess that's what I'll be using in January, assuming nothing changes. It's not like I can use my N7 without wifi anyway!

Let's hope the wifi in the parks improves and soon!

 

[friend2Figment]

We just got back last week. We used the kids ipods, as the parks now have wifi. At the resort we used the Nook. The kiosks were not to busy but it is not fully rolled out yet.
We did not use all our fast passes as the lines were not so bad. Toy Story Mania & Test trek & Soaring were the only ones that had more than a 20 min wait on any given day. Most had 10- 15 min and that might have been that it took you that long to wind through the queue.
The kids would get off the rides and go right back through with minimal wait.