How does Disney consider failure as an "Enhancement"?

[Billinaz]

The WDW website has been crippled for weeks. At first I could not access our reservation, and now the reservation shows up with no details. The cost, and balance due just isnt there.

Want to make a payment? Forget it.

I called and chatted several CSRs. I get told the same thing... that they are undergoing an enhancement.

If by enhancement they mean a broken and failed reservation system on the website then yes, they have achieved that.

How can a company as large as Disney not test their webpages and the links to the reservation system? When they realized it wasnt working, they should have reverted back to the working system until they finally got the bugs worked out of their "enhancement".

 

[evilqueenmindy]

I haven't had any problems with the website, but became a victim of its poor functionality when I wanted to add a night to my reservation at BWI and spent 2 hours on hold to get an agent. The CSR I got said that's been the norm recently. Got to be because the website is so glitchy.

 

[Billinaz]

You can see your balance and a payment page?

 

[chefmb]

Just got done sending an email to Photopass customer service because I have had one heck of a time trying to edit and add borders. My photos start to expire tomorrow, so I had to order what I've got (we're splitting with my brother who used the same Photopass a week after we got back-so it's not astronomically expensive--I can't figure out how I missed the preorder discount!!) Anyway, photopass is really slow, kept giving me errors--very frustrating!!

 

[sydneysmom]

I tried to go out today to make a payment and couldn't find where to go. So I did online chat and the person I got was really not at all friendly or helpful. It was a downer. All he said was "if you want to make a payment, you have to call, but while they're going through the enhancement, you can't pay online".. So I asked him when that would be available ...... he actually said " I don't have any idea". wow..... okey doke.

 

[alecshawn]

I have a Macintosh..(macbook pro).And havnt had any of these issues..Maybe WDW web site is designed to be used by us Apple folk.....

 

[CanadianGuy]

Well, it's not as simple as all that.. my version of the website on Safari.. blows chunks.. it's very unreliable.. flips back to the old site randomly.. which also doesn't work completely..

Disney crapped the bed with this new website. Big time.

For the poster looking to make a payment online -- I would not trust it.. not even a little bit. Call for the safety of your payment.

 

[Billinaz]

Well, it's not as simple as all that.. my version of the website on Safari.. blows chunks.. it's very unreliable.. flips back to the old site randomly.. which also doesn't work completely..

Disney crapped the bed with this new website. Big time.

For the poster looking to make a payment online -- I would not trust it.. not even a little bit. Call for the safety of your payment.

Dont have to worry about that.....there is no option to pay using any browser.

Then to try to call Disney is nuts due the hour and longer wait time.

My chat interaction was the same experience as others....less than helpful is an understatement. Very poor customer service. I think theyre sick of hearing the complaints......

The IT department blew this one big time!

 

[bumbershoot]

Well, as much as it bugs me that they didn't finish this before launching it, I do have to say that "undergoing" is a pretty strong verb to indicate "it's not done yet". I doubt that they think it's an enhancement *at this time*, but once it's all worked out I think it's going to be pretty neat.

Just got done sending an email to Photopass customer service because I have had one heck of a time trying to edit and add borders. My photos start to expire tomorrow, so I had to order what I've got (we're splitting with my brother who used the same Photopass a week after we got back-so it's not astronomically expensive--I can't figure out how I missed the preorder discount!!) Anyway, photopass is really slow, kept giving me errors--very frustrating!!

Photopass is always difficult. Why are you ordering anything? Just get an extension; they'll either do it for free or you can pay a little bit. If your'e going to get the CD, don't order anything yet! Contact them!

I have a Macintosh..(macbook pro).And havnt had any of these issues..Maybe WDW web site is designed to be used by us Apple folk.....

Nope, I have a MacBook and it's touchy for me, too. Now, I don't know about payments, since that isn't relevant for me, so I don't know if there's a pay screen, etc.

 

[Billinaz]

Well, as much as it bugs me that they didn't finish this before launching it, I do have to say that "undergoing" is a pretty strong verb to indicate "it's not done yet". I doubt that they think it's an enhancement *at this time*, but once it's all worked out I think it's going to be pretty neat.




Photopass is always difficult. Why are you ordering anything? Just get an extension; they'll either do it for free or you can pay a little bit. If your'e going to get the CD, don't order anything yet! Contact them!




Nope, I have a MacBook and it's touchy for me, too. Now, I don't know about payments, since that isn't relevant for me, so I don't know if there's a pay screen, etc.

The direct quote from 2 different chat sessions said that very thing.....undergoing enhancements.

Most likely a scripted response to the complaints.

 

[StrwLady]

I went online to make a payment the other day and I was lost too. But after clicking on stuff and reading everything I found small print that said if you booked before X date click this link to old site reservation page. I did and it had all the same reservation as the old site did. I made my payment and got an email showing payment applied.

Of course now that I am trying to find it to post it here I cant

I will keep digging and if I see the statement and link I will post how to get to it.

Good Luck

 

[brucerob62]

i had no problem i linked my old reservations (dining and resort info) to the new and worked liked a charm, i used firefox seemed to work.. its a better browser. I checked in today at the 60 day mark. Asked for CC information and time of arrival and departure and room request.

 

[Jasperann]

I have a Macintosh..(macbook pro).And havnt had any of these issues..Maybe WDW web site is designed to be used by us Apple folk.....

I have a MacBook Pro as well and it still doesn't work...

 

[lsenquiz]

I agree with OP. I have worked in IT for the past 25 years for a large national corporation. If we deployed something this gitchy it would make the national news. We would also have people(clear up to our CIO) working around the clock to fix it or we would revert back to the old system. The problems would never be allowed to linger for weeks.

I have heard stories of people holding anywhere from 2 - 6 hours and that is just incredible to me.

I have some changes I need to make to an existing reservation and I am just waiting and praying that things are fixed soon. I can not imagine holding for more than 30 minutes before I lost my patience and hung up.

 

[lsenquiz]

i had no problem i linked my old reservations (dining and resort info) to the new and worked liked a charm, i used firefox seemed to work.. its a better browser. I checked in today at the 60 day mark. Asked for CC information and time of arrival and departure and room request.

I think the problems now revolve around making changes, payments or balance inquiries on existing reservations. It seems that functionality was left completely out of the new website or at least I have not found it.

 

[bumbershoot]

The direct quote from 2 different chat sessions said that very thing.....undergoing enhancements.

Most likely a scripted response to the complaints.

Right. Using the word "undergoing". As in, they are still working on it. It's not enhancED, it's *being* enhanced.

i had no problem i linked my old reservations (dining and resort info) to the new and worked liked a charm, i used firefox seemed to work.. its a better browser. I checked in today at the 60 day mark. Asked for CC information and time of arrival and departure and room request.

My firefox doesn't make any difference. It's really not one type of computer, one type of browser, nothing like that. It's very random to the user, because others using the same things will experience different things.

I was able to do one 60 day checkin weeks ago. I haven't been able to do another yet. I'll try now.

Well now that's interesting. Was basically able to check in to our first resort, which was actually booked through hotels.com (and it was like pulling teeth to get hotels. to give us our proper confirmation number), but they have DS and DH as "unknown my-last-name" which will be amusing if that's how the keycards are printed.

And now I get this message:

We are in the process of updating our systems and need to migrate any reservations you had on our previous site to our new site.

Let's get started and move your resort and dining reservations to My Disney Experience.

This may take several minutes.

That's new.

We've Moved Most of Your Reservations!

We've already moved over any dining reservations and have also located this resort reservations.

Before we can securely move your resort reservation, we need to confirm your travel party. Please continue and confirm the information to add this reservation to your account.

Bwa ha ha...they have a one-night reservation on there from LAST year.


It's so fun to watch them work on the accounts as we try to use them...

 

[TXMalecifent]

Wow am I so very glad our payoff date was PRIOR to the new website going up!

Luckily we aren't doing any massive pre-planning (ADRs and whatnot) for our trip in 3 weeks, since I can't even get the site to run on my work computer, home computer or laptop.

This has to be one of the buggiest go lives that I have ever seen by this scale of a company.