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An article in this months Wired details how Disney spent $1 Billion developing, testing, and rolling out their Magicband system that started actually rolling out in 2013.
Disney's Magicband system is based on a wristband containing an RFID chip and a 2.4gHz wifi transmitter. To use the system, the guest simply aligns the Mickey head on the wristband with a Mickey head on the receiving antenna. These antenna are dispersed throughout the park; for example: rides, souvenir shops, restaurants, and on-property hotel rooms. Rather than having to pull out a wallet to pay for something, one simply uses the Magicband and, upon a good read of the RFID tag, your associated credit card gets charged accordingly. It is even used by their FastPass system which allows you to schedule getting on rides.
When everything works, the reader flashes green and emits a pleasing tone; if something goes wrong, it glows blue, never red. Red lights are forbidden at Disney, as they imply something bad happened. Nothing bad can happen at Disney World.
In early 2014, "atdisneyagain.com" did an actual dissection of a Magicband to get a look at the components, complete with FCC look ups to see exactly what was going on inside.
[Update: corrected grammar and phrasing.]
(Score: 1) by skater on Monday March 23 2015, @03:42PM
Very interesting. When were you there? We used them at Disney World back in early December and had zero problems with them. It was really interesting to think that I could walk around all day at the parks without even my wallet/credit cards/keys. My parents (who are cast members) said that the last time they used it before our visit with other family members they had all kinds of problems, but from our experience it had all been straightened out. It was also very handy to be able to open the Disney World app and reschedule our FastPasses for different times as our plans changed.
To answer the original post: My wife lost hers in Orlando airport on the way home (security put her bag back through the scanner, and laid it on its side, and we think the Magic Band fell out at that point). We were able to deactivate it as soon as we realized it was missing, no fishy charges or problem at all. In other words, they thought of this issue - shocking, I know - and had a plan in place for it. Cruise lines have been doing something similar for years. For that matter so have credit card companies.
(Score: 1) by TK-421 on Monday March 23 2015, @04:56PM
I was there a few months before you.
I totally get the wallet/credit cards/keys things. There are items I ALWAYS keep on my immediate person and they include all three of these. Not having them feels wierd, except for when at a theme park. The only time I ever lost my wallet was at a theme park over two decades ago. I am happy to no longer have to carry any of those items around in that situation.
I did eventually get that wallet back, minus the cash it contained.
We also had problems with the FP app due to the size of my group. It took the app a few days to understand exactly who was in my group so we could schedule all of us for a ride. The first results were that one or two kids couldn't be scheduled. Some of the ride operators were cool about it, some went full Unikitty.