DVCers who may want to check out Sea World, Discovery Cove or Busch Gard on a bargain

[MiaSRN62]

I had no idea that this deal was so limited. So sorry. I saw it on Mousesavers and wanted to share.
I tried at exactly 11:00 CDT and immediately got the "try again" response. I kept clicking and was just about to give up when I got a "buy now" at about 11:06. I was so shocked that I thought I might have accidentally clicked on one of the other promo offers that kept showing up. But I ended up getting 6 tickets to Sea World, which will help our group of 20 next October. FWIW, my two DSis also tried. One got nothing. The other got a message after actually getting the "buy now" screen. The message said there was a problem and they were working on it, so guessing their site was overloaded and she got skunked also.
Once again, sorry to have caused a problem. I meant well! And congrats to the few of you who were successful.

NO APOLOGIES REQUIRED Jekjones ! It was SO nice of you to post it. Honestly I didn't "register" either ? I must have missed that part ??? I didn't see where it said to register---guess that was my problem ? Where was that notice by the way...just curious.
But, while it was very disappointing to me because I work the graveyard shift and set my alarm to wake up 2-3 hours earlier than I normally do. I had just gone to bed close to 9 am and set my alarm for 11:45 am. Now knowing that it is not a sure thing anyone will "win" these offers, I doubt I'd ever give up my sleep again for a hit-or-miss thing. I've literally had 2.5 hrs of sleep in the last 30 hrs......and I didn't even win anything

But in no way do you need to apologize. Thanks again for passing on some good information that thankfully benefited several DIS'ers here !

 

[ATCMickey]

FWIW...I had spoken to Discovery Cove yesterday about something unrelated. I mentioned the discoveramerica promotion to the supervisor I was speaking with and she said that they had only given 100 tickets to discoveramerica for this promotion. Yup, only 100 tickets. Now in fairness, their website does say quantities may be limited, but this ridiculously limited quantity does make one wonder whether this was more of a bait and switch to get folks to buy other passes. I would think that Discovery Cove could have offered 1000 tickets and, based on the fact that the redemption of those tickets would have been redeemed throughout the year, would not have been adversely affected. I'm glad to see some folks had success. I hope the OP didn't miss out on this offer as a result of letting all of us know about the opportunity

ATCMickey

 

[MiaSRN62]

No need to be sorry, not your fault. Same thing is happening on the Seaworld section of DisBoards.

Some said they registered before 12 noon so maybe that helped....don't know.

For those who still wants to go at cheaper price, the cheapest I found is $59.99 for adults and $51.99 kids at the Sea World website. Just enter promo code MCDONALDS2011.

Thanks Jane !

 

[arielrocks]

Well I got through to the payment page for the seaworld and busch tickets but it wouldn't take my cc because I am not in the USA!

Boooooooooo

 

[newyorkmike]

Add myself, two colleagues at work (one here in New York and one in Boston) and a relative in Ohio to the list of people who could not get the promotion. We all logged on at noon and experienced a variety of the same issues and error messages as previously described by other posters. Congrats to those who were able to get tickets through this promotion.

This promotion was terribly managed, or more likely a brilliantly conceived scam to drive up page traffic. They clearly didn't have adequate server capacity and I suspect the number of available tickets "based on availability" was a very low number. And that intentionally ambigous "availability" language is a known industry tactic to drive up page traffic for a nominal award that few will get. I'm sure they'll get a nice fee from Amex for the promotional plug based on the page traffic today.

When JetBlue did a one day sale a few months ago with limited availability, the small print at least disclosed that it was "this promotion expires at 11:59 p.m. EST and is limited to the first 1,000 bookings."

Oh well, I guess we'll be keeping our dollars at Disney this year again!

 

[n2mm]

OP, it's not your fault. We don't blame you at all. I felt ill-prepared as I had no idea it would be so cut-throat. Had I known, I would've visited the site at least an hour before just to be ready. I got on at 11:59 and never got through.

 

[ACDSNY]

I just was on the website right at noon and filled out that I needed 4 tickets and submitted the form. Received the purchase confirmation right away.

Sorry so many of you are having problems.

Ditto for me too! I figured it would sell out quick, but I didn't realize how lucky I was until now. It was a $275 savings for us. Thanks Jean for posting. Discovery Cove also posted it on their Facebook page.

 

[jekjones1558]

Ditto for me too! I figured it would sell out quick, but I didn't realize how lucky I was until now. It was a $275 savings for us. Thanks Jean for posting. Discovery Cove also posted it on their Facebook page.

For those wondering whether pre-registering made a difference: I did not pre-register (the site said you only needed to pre-register for auction items) and I did get tickets after clicking about 50 times.

 

[bobbiwoz]

We didn't get the tickets. Thank you for the opportunity to try!

 

[kid-at-heart]

Thanks Jane. I think it was great you shared the information with us and gave us the opportunity to save money. I did not even try to buy tickets as but I am glad to learn about the site. I am really glad you were able to buy tickets. It would have been dreadful if you had alerted us to the discount and then you not be able to buy tickets.


Kate

 

[MiaSRN62]

For those wondering whether pre-registering made a difference: I did not pre-register (the site said you only needed to pre-register for auction items) and I did get tickets after clicking about 50 times.

Thanks Jean....good to know it's not anything I did wrong. I clicked "submit" at least 50 times in a 30 min time period. Just wasn't in the stars for me......

 

[delmar411]

OP I wanted to say thanks so much for the heads up on this deal! I was able to get 6 tickets no problem right at noon (like 12:00:00 on the nose! LOL). I guess I got in and out right in time.

 

[ACDSNY]

This was posted on Facebook by Discovery Cove...

"We hear you! We recently partnered with Discover America to offer really hot deals on admission to Discovery Cove in Orlando, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens. The promotion was so popular, all tickets sold out in just minutes. Taking care of you matters to us, and we want our fans to have another opportunity to experience our parks at such a great value. Very soon we’ll have more hot deals for a limited quantity of park admissions. Stay tuned for details."

I'll post again if I see anything else posted.

 

[MiaSRN62]

This was posted on Facebook by Discovery Cove...

"We hear you! We recently partnered with Discover America to offer really hot deals on admission to Discovery Cove in Orlando, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens. The promotion was so popular, all tickets sold out in just minutes. Taking care of you matters to us, and we want our fans to have another opportunity to experience our parks at such a great value. Very soon we’ll have more hot deals for a limited quantity of park admissions. Stay tuned for details."

I'll post again if I see anything else posted.

Thank you !

 

[loveswdw]

This was posted on Facebook by Discovery Cove...

"We hear you! We recently partnered with Discover America to offer really hot deals on admission to Discovery Cove in Orlando, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens. The promotion was so popular, all tickets sold out in just minutes. Taking care of you matters to us, and we want our fans to have another opportunity to experience our parks at such a great value. Very soon we’ll have more hot deals for a limited quantity of park admissions. Stay tuned for details."

I'll post again if I see anything else posted.

That's awesome! I hope everyone who couldn't get the Discover America tix will be able to score some cheap tickets soon.

 

[n2mm]

Thanks. I actually signed up for a reminder, but never got it. Did anyone else?

I leave for WDW on May 2, so the next time will probably be on May 3rd. I hope we all do better next time. But at least we all had our "trial run", so we should be prepared if the offer comes up again.

 

[loveswdw]

I actually signed up for a reminder, but never got it. Did anyone else?

Nope. I signed up for the alerts too but never received one. Even made sure to check my spam folder. NADA.

 

[5forDiz]

So thoughtful of you to post this, many thanks for sharing Jean will give it a try when Universal sale comes up & maybe we will be lucky and score some tickets; it is definitely worth trying

 

[buzz5985]

Thanks. I actually signed up for a reminder, but never got it. Did anyone else?

No I didn't get a reminder. Also wasn't one of the lucky ones. I figured in the first 30 seconds that the tickets were very limited. I have never seen a message like - tickets are in someone else's cart, try back in a couple of minutes.

Thanks to the OP for the heads up.

 

[loveswdw]

They must've been getting a lot of flack over this. Now when you click on the offer, it says in red letters how many will be available. Like tomorrow for the Hyatt offer, the top one says only 15 available. The Universal offer on the 26th (3 days for $87) says only 60 available.Seriously?! I would think there will be A LOT of people competing for those. You can buy up to 6. So basically, they could sell all of them and only 10 people get the deal.

And there's only 8 of the US package deals--which is a pretty dang good deal if it falls when you need it (it doesn't work for us).

WOW.