8/17/08 Captain Jack's Repossession Repo Cruise to PC thru TPC #8

[LITTLEKID58]

Not here And we need it. This is a picture I took this am to show DS how they cleaned out the palms outside (and took away my privacy )and you can see how burnt the grass is. This is the Ladies 11th tee on the golf course. Pretty bad. Off to work in a few

[/IMG]

Arlene

It was raining here hard and with thunderstorms.. now the sun is trying to come out...:-(

 

[Celestine]

Didn't even attempt to read the remains the last of the old thread after I logged off this morning at 0600 GMT.

I'll be joining you all in the queue to book a Palo brunch, but will check daily on the off chance, especially around the 75 & 30 day mark.

Still no cabin #

Couldn't book my parents. Even though they are linked it was done in a way that DCL (amazingly) know that they're DCL virgins, so I get a repeat performance in another 15 days (great joy), but at least I can go in the night before & see what is still available

Please slow down on the posts - I'm drowning along with scuba Mickey

Off to the pirate zone to post our excursions

Celestine

 

[A Litle Pixie Dust]

Keep reading, you have just joined the mediocre

Great..now I have joined the mediocre and the shunned and the locked out ressies and the...oh yeah..no luck at anything groups!

 

[GoofyontheHiSeas]

Ok, so here was my "story" that lead to us cancelling the cruise and getting 100% back before tomorrow. Went in at 12:00:01 and hit Cartegena for the Mangrove Tour and Lunch and Show or whatever it was called and then (not listening to Stace/not seeing it in the 2,500 posts this weekend) went to Acapulco and did Divers and City tour (wasn't paying extra to shop) and then hit (not submit) but Palo, got in, dinner for Friday Acapulco night 7:30 all fine, hit the button to take me back to the main menu where I need to hit submit and I watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming, then BOOM!!! some thief has stolen my ressie number and is in my ressie preventing me from accessing it (clearly it can't be a DCL computer problem, they were aware, fixing, it was to be "hassle free"). Keep trying to get back in, watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming, switch computers and try a non-cookied computer and still this thief is in my ressie. But wait, the message keeps changing ever so slightly. Watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming. Can it be? NOOOOOO!!!! DCL is having a computer issue. They must have lied to us!! Finally, after 1/2 hour, back in and everything is gone. So I go for brunch on Sunday first off, 10:30 is available, back to main menu, this time I hit "submit" watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming and BOOM!!! the system locks me out again! So tons more of watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming, BOOM!!! watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming, BOOM!!! watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming, BOOM!!! watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming, BOOM!!!... you get it. Get back in, go to Cartegena, get my excursion, HIT SUBMIT and finally after nearly 2 hours, I have something. Next Acapulco. Another success. Now off to Palo try dinner first, snag one for Saturday the 23 at 7:00 pm, hit "submit" and I'm in. Now off to brunch. 10:30 Sunday still on board watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming, BOOM!!! watch Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming Mickey swimming. Just can't get back in. Finally send off a nasty gram to Bob Iger demanding a phone call and off to bed. This a.m., catch up on thread, try to get into brunch, its greyed out. One thing I wanted to try was brunch.... figures. So I go to CC page and login to get my #. Did you know that once you log into the CC page on the website, you can no longer see theh "exclusive booking # for CC members"? So I log out, get # log in..... get a poor woman whose name I don't know and she advises I'm not first to call but she would look. Oh, you have a TA, sorry can't talk to you. I protest and she offers up her supervisor. They must have had an awful day. Supervisor "Dennis" gives me the "no way of knowing" line and I got test with him. Call regular DCL #, get a helpful agent "Jeanne" who says she will check into it and call me back. About 2 pm I'm out and about running errands and get txt of phone message at home. Its DCL headquarters (ok, Inventory Control) who is calling me on behalf of Bob Iger. I decide to put this return call off until I'm home. Next, Jeanne calls my cell and advises that Palo Brunch is back on board and they took first available and scheduled it for me. So we have brunch scheduled for the 18th... no cabin tour, no kids postcard thing.... "If you don't like it you can ..." no wait it was "if you don't like the time, keep logging in and see if something better comes available." Ok, she was quite helpful. Then I call IC person "Kay" who was friendly and began the "so sorry, who would have expected..." when I informed her that they are taking a huge PR hit with the CC crowd and she became more friendly and will see what she can do to help. She is "passing my comments along to the IT dept." .....


Oh, BTW, we didn't cancel. But I'm in that kind of mood, so I thought I would play.....

Pretty much the same story, except I was screaming obscenities at the screen that was telling me that I was not paid in full.

 

[Stepht5]

I got Palo dinner on the 23rd!!! What time are people going?

We'll be eating at 7:30 that night.

 

[A Litle Pixie Dust]

We'll be eating at 7:30 that night.

Ours is on the 24th but my mom's is on the 23rd at 6.

 

[Esteri]

Hear, Hear Crew​

If'n ye be wonderin' 'bout our soft good orders, this here's what's happenin'. Pre-orders be closed. The crew stepped up for 290 items, which be close to our next discount point of 301. So, we be using pricing at the 301 discount level. The Quartermaster is confident that 11 more pirates will pop out of the woodwork lookin' for crew shirts or other good of some sort.

The Quartermaster'll be openin' up the shoppin' cart later this week. Don' be loggin into it now, it's not completely configured, so there's nuthin' to bye. You'll be gettin' notice when it's time. It may or may not work better than the DCL site when it come up. (Sorry, couldn't resist. )

That'll be all. Now back to yer duties!

Argh!
The Quartermaster

 

[Stepht5]

DCL refused to talk to me, told me I must go through TA. Then a quite rude supervisor got somewhat nasty with me (guess I shouldn't have told him to stop with the corporate lies when he tried to tell me they didn't expect this).

That sounds liek something I would do. DH is the diplomat in our house!
Once at the Electric company (back when we only had 1 to choose from.....) dh stepped between me and the Electric Co employee -- he told me that he prefers to live in a house WITH electricity.

 

[cruisin'Mike]

not if the printer is not connected to the computer that i was logged in on

Touche!

 

[AndyR]

I just hit print, was easier

I tried that, but the 'print friendly' output was more like 'fiendly' and I only got half a page.

I then emailed my rezzie to myself, and printed from that

Maybe we can start a 'Friends of "Hassle Free" opossum' club onboard.

Andy

 

[disneyjunkie]

18 pages ​

Off to ketchup, be back later

 

[AndyR]

Pretty much the same story, except I was screaming obscenities at the screen that was telling me that I was not paid in full.

X2, I was on the speakerphone with DMIL, and we both were when we saw that.

Andy

 

[tom31b]

Possums? Uh. Never mind, I don't think I want to know.
.

And a whole lot of posts dedicated to a certain unnamed sk8ingmom stirring up trouble with people on other threads and here and....

 

[Stepht5]

Tom -
Brunch for me is showing for tables of 3-4 only. 1-2 is not available...

The only time I get is Sat Aug 30 at 10:30 which happens to be the day and time of our own ressie. Everything else is full. This makes me think that the brunches are, indeed gone, and the only reason I can see anything is to allow me to manage my own ressie.

That's the day & time that we have for Brunch!

 

[tom31b]

Pretty much the same story, except I was screaming obscenities at the screen that was telling me that I was not paid in full.

FAmily board, left that out!

 

[Esteri]

That's the day & time that we have for Brunch!

See you there!
.

 

[tom31b]

That sounds liek something I would do. DH is the diplomat in our house!
Once at the Electric company (back when we only had 1 to choose from.....) dh stepped between me and the Electric Co employee -- he told me that he prefers to live in a house WITH electricity.

That was strategic diplomacy, put him on notice I wasn't putting up with fresh water fish and let him get all defensive.

 

[Esteri]

And a whole lot of posts dedicated to a certain unnamed sk8ingmom stirring up trouble with people on other threads and here and....

M? Sweet Lil' M? Nah...

She's the second most INNOCENT person here.

 

[danfromca]

Then eliminate the on-line carp and do it via phone.

The bottom line is DCL has cheaped this. They are aware of the problem and have been since 2005 at least and refuse to improve the system either from an IT or customer service perspective. We are money in the bank to them and they don't care!

Rant over!

Reminds me of one time many years ago I was at the comedy club at Pleasure Island - and they did a song number all about Disney as a sinkhole for your money.

Now I'm rather fond of Disney and DCL, and I think they are particularly good at spending money effectively to help us have a good time, and at getting us to enjoy them picking our pockets. But no matter how much fun I'm having, I'm not ignorant of the underlying financial issues....

So I would tend to look at it this way. There are three possibilities:
1. They were not succesful at building the site they wanted (by most statistics some 50% of software projects fail to meet their goals, so this is not at all unlikely).
2. They made a calculated decision that to build a site able to handle the sudden surges would cost more than the benefit of good PR and good user experience.
3. Some combination of the two.

Personally, I'd pick #1 because in my experience one should never assign to malice or lack of caring what can be explained through chaos, incompetence or lack of foresight. The latter are far more common.

Here is another novel idea.
At some point at say 120 days out allow access to an online list of excursions with times for each port. You get to pick, and set your priority 1st,2nd & 3rd choice. When you pay in full or at say 90 day mark, they activate your choices and whatever you chose that is available gets booked. This way there is no strain on the computer system. They could then open the system up for changes or add-ons.

This is an excellent idea. I'd modify it slightly to say that you have to get your choices in 24-48 hours before the deadline (to give them time to do the assignments). It would go a long way to solving the problem. I suggest that anyone who knows anyone at DCL should forward this suggestion to them.

 

[bellelinus]

18 pages ​

Off to ketchup, be back later

I tried to PM you but your box is full . . . see if you can clear out some of your space . . .