Dear travel agents...I'm sorry.

[Pookles]

I know I'm not the first or last person to complain about this issue but I have to get it off my chest. WE, the people of the world of Disney, throw billions of dollars at them every year. Are we to believe that their website and booking system was the best they had to offer? Is it to prove a point, that people will just put up with it, or is it just utter lack of caring?

At one point I was actually yelling at the site yesterday to "Take my money". That was exasperating. I don't appreciate the mind games Disney. I already want what you're selling. Don't make me beg for it.

During the course of 5 phone calls now to WDW, I've spent a cumulative 6+ hours on the phone now with their customer service and tech support line trying to get a few issues settled. (Two people in the party have the same name, trouble ensued.) Have you ever tried coordinating a dinner reservation for 14 people? I haven't, and certainly not ever with Disney. How about fast passes? Nope, me neither.

I can't imagine how hard this would be if I didn't have months of planning under my belt. Or family members who'd done this already. But now we're in this. I just got off the phone after 100 minutes, fixing an issue that ended up being created after my 90 minute call was dropped with Disney yesterday and they called my mother back.

I really should have gotten a professional on this.

 

[j2thomason]

I know I'm not the first or last person to complain about this issue but I have to get it off my chest. WE, the people of the world of Disney, throw billions of dollars at them every year. Are we to believe that their website and booking system was the best they had to offer? Is it to prove a point, that people will just put up with it, or is it just utter lack of caring?

At one point I was actually yelling at the site yesterday to "Take my money". That was exasperating. I don't appreciate the mind games Disney. I already want what you're selling. Don't make me beg for it.

During the course of 5 phone calls now to WDW, I've spent a cumulative 6+ hours on the phone now with their customer service and tech support line trying to get a few issues settled. (Two people in the party have the same name, trouble ensued.) Have you ever tried coordinating a dinner reservation for 14 people? I haven't, and certainly not ever with Disney. How about fast passes? Nope, me neither.

I can't imagine how hard this would be if I didn't have months of planning under my belt. Or family members who'd done this already. But now we're in this. I just got off the phone after 100 minutes, fixing an issue that ended up being created after my 90 minute call was dropped with Disney yesterday and they called my mother back.

I really should have gotten a professional on this.

Well, that can be a hit or miss, too. I'm a WDW vet and normally book my own trips, but I have a friend who quit a good paying job to be a Disney planner. I decided to help him out a book a trip through him. He totally botched it up. I really only had one big request for our room...a roll-in shower for my mom, and he booked a standard. It was a nightmare trying to get it fixed. I book those rooms through Disney all the time with no problem, but he wanted me to book an additional room and pay more than double what he had quoted. He didn't bother to double check the room status before he paid my deposit using my credit card. It was a fiasco. I used another agent for my Disneyland trip earlier this year and they could never get my address correct. Thank goodness Disney caught it and called me about it. I'm completely done using travel agents and "official Disney planners". If anyone is going to make mistakes with my vacation, I would rather be the one responsible and fix my own mistakes instead of waiting for someone to fix mistakes they have made about my trip. Never again will I book through someone who doesn't really care about my vacation. No one else will care about your trip, and the money you have invested into it, other than you! .......Just my opinion

 

[Halloweenqueen]

Travel agents usually do not assume the responsibility of your My Disney Experience. Only a handful will tackle ADRs either.

 

[ChrisnKim913]

Speaking as someone who is a Disney Destination Specialist and uses the Disney travel agent site to book vacations for clients, it is down all the time. It is beyond frustrating. You would think as one of the largest companies in the world, they could get their website right.

 

[MillauFr]

Does anyone know if Disney runs their website on their own servers? They really need to wise up and outsource the whole thing to Amazon Web Services.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Does anyone know if Disney runs their website on their own servers? They really need to wise up and outsource the whole thing to Amazon Web Services.

HP is their technology partner.

Just running the site on AWS won't help Disney, as their real problem isn't capacity. It's the software stability. A good server doesn't fix poor software.

 

[MillauFr]

HP is their technology partner.

Just running the site on AWS won't help Disney, as their real problem isn't capacity. It's the software stability. A good server doesn't fix poor software.

They should outsource that as well then. I agree with others here that the website is terrible. It also seems like people have to call a live person way too often. You should be able to do everything online.

 

[minnie mum]

They should outsource that as well then. I agree with others here that the website is terrible. It also seems like people have to call a live person way too often. You should be able to do everything online.

Calling a live person is a gamble, too. There was a time when the reservations CMs were solidly trained, and you could depend on their knowledge. Those days are gone. I recently had a 10 minute (polite) argument with a CM who kept trying to upsell me on a preferred room.........at POFQ.

The website sucks. The CMs are more and more frequently ill trained. TAs ( when it comes to Disney vacations) are a gamble, even when they tag the Disney Specialist after their names. I figure that I can only trust my own research, and then pray that their system doesn't glitch.

I just planned a 3 week trip to New Zealand ( a place I've never been before), in less time than it took to plan our last week long trip to WDW ( a place we've visited more than 2 dozen times).

 

[_auroraborealis_]

The CMs don't get a special version of the software to use, really. They're connecting to the same reservations systems.

 

[Micca]

Disney needs to shed their IT division, poach employees of Amazon and Apple/iTunes and re-build from the ground up.

 

[bumbershoot]

Disney needs to shed their IT division, poach employees of Amazon and Apple/iTunes and re-build from the ground up.

From conversations with people in my area, their it is up in Seattle, so they could. But the people they hire to do the work are 19 year old interns who just do what they are told.

The least they could do is to poach the idea of having a non live site to work on then seamlessly make that site live as they go.

 

[Jadyreen1282]

Disney already outsourced. That's the issue. IT people got replaced a year ago.

 

[nkereina]

Travel agents usually do not assume the responsibility of your My Disney Experience. Only a handful will tackle ADRs either.

This. Travel agents ONLY make money on the commission if your booking. And Disney commission is minimal. Some Disney-only agencies will offer to set up MDE and book your ADRs, but it's a courtesy and a way to earn repeat business. TA's experience the same frustrations because the TA site isn't any better, and they login into MDE and book ADRs the same way you and I would.

 

[AngiTN]

Disney already outsourced. That's the issue. IT people got replaced a year ago.

That wasn't the problem then because the website sucked way before that

 

[mmmears]

From what I have heard, they outsourced most of this stuff many years ago, and it's been awful ever since.

 

[Micca]

I'm certainly not a proponent of out-sourcing. The demands of Disney's IT division will only be met by getting the brightest people in the business. If Disney wants a crew of 19 year old interns to run it, they first have to have the infrastructure in place. Disney doesn''t have scientists running theme park attractions, but you can bet they had plenty of top-flight talent to create & develop them.

My hunch is that they've tried to do all the add-on stuff like MBs, and MDE on a system that was already near obsolescence. They were too cheap to start from scratch to create a robust infrastructure that could handle all the additional traffic. Do Hilton or Hyatt have these issues with booking a room? They must have thousands more locations and inventory to deal with. Seems like Amazon is pretty efficient making various transactions including running a music and video streaming division. I'd add chain restaurants around the U.S. with hundreds of locations that must fill an enormous amount of seatings on a daily basis.

Having said all that, I personally haven''t had too much difficulty with the system, but I've come to expect things like disappearing/re-appearing ADRs and FP+.
so I don't panic. More than anything, to me it''s just kind of disappointing that the Disney that always seemed to work so well have so many miss-steps over the past few years. I'm still going after nearly 40 years and dozens of trips, and I plan to take my granddaughters along for the experience. It'd sure be nice if they could grow up with a higher quality experience than what's currently available.

Please excuse me, I need to return my soapbox to the rental place now.