FP+ today: what a cluster

[megs1313]

my booking window opened this morning and about a quarter of the way through, the website quit working. Thankfully, I'd already snagged my FOP and Navi, but I had to switch over to mobile to do the rest of my bookings. Why can't Disney get a website that works? It's so weird for an organization their size that relies SO heavily on their web capabilities. /rant

 

[chris benton]

Counterpoint:
You booked what you wanted, and through the miracle of technology, you only had to switch to your mobile device while you were doing it? And, you can afford to go to DW, by the way? For a vacation?

I'm pretty sure your day started off better than most people on the planet.

 

[bhartman]

OP, just jumping in here to say that you’re allowed to be frustrated without being made to feel guilty for it.

 

[dreiwhit]

OP, its not unreasonable to expect that a website from a major corporation will work. You should not have had to use two different devices to do what you needed to do.

Being in IT, IMHO, it actually reflects poorly on Disney that their website stops working, moves slowly, etc.

 

[hllb]

Glad you were able to make it work. I too wonder why they have so many issues.

 

[TIS Grandma]

Same thing happened to me this morning!

 

[emmabelle]

I can only get my Safari browser to work and even with that I have to keep clearing my history otherwise the site gets hung up. I never had these problems before? Idk....

 

[anomamatt]

Counterpoint:
You booked what you wanted, and through the miracle of technology, you only had to switch to your mobile device while you were doing it? And, you can afford to go to DW, by the way? For a vacation?

I'm pretty sure your day started off better than most people on the planet.

Almost every single thing posted here is a 1st world (or even top-50% of 1st world) problem. It doesn't make it any less frustrating to pay what WDW charges and have to use a website and IT infrastructure that just plain sucks.

It boggles the mind (mine at least) why Disney's IT is so dreadful and has been for so long. Their budgets are huge and IT is integral to their guest experience...

 

[chris benton]

I'm guessing there's some flip side of the coin (no matter how misconstrued the numbers are - we all know how data can be twisted to fit someone's agenda) that says a high - or acceptable percentage of users are highly satisfied with their experience of the MDE app.

I went on a serious rampage when I kept getting the Stitch error when trying to book an emm. I'm not sure how I determined that tickets were clearly available for that am, but I was positive I was correct. I spoke with 5 cm's over the course of three days in-between trying to purchase tickets on the app myself. I finally got to a cm who told me, "sometimes, you have to plug in the exact start time of emm to buy it for some reason, and not just enter the "breakfast" time-slot." She purchased the tix for me in like 3 seconds - grrr. I should have tested her theory on my mde after, but I didn't. Everyone gets amped up about fp's and adr's (I do too, TRUST me.) But, in the end, at least for me, it's a better thing to take a step back, and be thankful for however you got to this place to be able to treat yourself and your family like this. Most of the time, I'd hope ppl aren't getting royally screwed by the site. I thought I was, but, in the end, I just had to put in some extra effort - and yes, it shouldn't have been that hard for me to give them my money (you can tell I get mad when I start using that phrase,) but it seems in this world, these days, sometimes you have to put in extra effort to just pay someone for the services they claim to offer. I'm guessing most of us are able to afford vacations because we put in extra effort, so this is nothing new - just frustrating. I say look at the glass as half full, because, well, WDW probably has data (even though it might be twisted,) to say their site is excellent for the most part.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Disney's website is a piece of junk. I had to use internet explorer instead of chrome for a few weeks because nothing would load on chrome. It is always crashing or not working correctly. It does boggle the mind. Pretty sure amazon receives more traffic than Disney and I don't think I've ever had a website issue with them.

 

[chris benton]

Buckeye - on the surface, that seems like a fair thing to say that AMZN has more traffic, however, DIS might have more ppl trying to get the same exact last item, whereas, AMZN might have far less instances of two or more ppl trying to get the same exact last item. I'm thinking like reservations for 4 on an adr, or a fastpass for 2 ppl for a time window. I have no idea at all if that is true or not, just thinking that may have something to do with their issues. And don't get me wrong, I'm not defending their issues, but they may have a decent site for what it has to - or can do. The technology might currently be some of the best stuff available when you weigh in everything it has to do to make most ppl "happy."

It might just be garbage, too.

The site mgiht not have been happy with Chrome because of something with Chrome itself, or because the dis didn't fully test some update they made - or a combination of both.

 

[megs1313]

Counterpoint:
You booked what you wanted, and through the miracle of technology, you only had to switch to your mobile device while you were doing it? And, you can afford to go to DW, by the way? For a vacation?

I'm pretty sure your day started off better than most people on the planet.

While I was annoyed, my point really wasn't "my day was rough!" My thought was, "why can't they get this figured out?" my DH is actually a user experience expert and web developer, so it's a hot topic at my house.

I was also thinking...."if I wasn't knowledgable about this (thanks DIS!) what would I have done this morning?" How does the average guest make it through all of these hiccups with the website? Does *everyone* know that you can make FPs on MDE? I know that I didn't always know that. I feel bad for people that don't know what else to do. I'm very lucky that I'd made my "critical" FPs first before the website crapped out on me and I had to spend the extra time grabbing my phone and getting logged into MDE there. Those minutes ticking away while you've set your alarm to an ungodly hour (feel REAL sorry for west coasters!) so you can try to snag that FOP or Navi or FEA...

The website spit out a survey at me earlier this week and I was VERY honest. Hopefully, this indicates that Disney's going to invest some in improving things on their end.

 

[chris benton]

While I was annoyed, my point really wasn't "my day was rough!" My thought was, "why can't they get this figured out?" my DH is actually a user experience expert and web developer, so it's a hot topic at my house.

I was also thinking...."if I wasn't knowledgable about this (thanks DIS!) what would I have done this morning?" How does the average guest make it through all of these hiccups with the website? Does *everyone* know that you can make FPs on MDE? I know that I didn't always know that. I feel bad for people that don't know what else to do. I'm very lucky that I'd made my "critical" FPs first before the website crapped out on me and I had to spend the extra time grabbing my phone and getting logged into MDE there. Those minutes ticking away while you've set your alarm to an ungodly hour (feel REAL sorry for west coasters!) so you can try to snag that FOP or Navi or FEA...

The website spit out a survey at me earlier this week and I was VERY honest. Hopefully, this indicates that Disney's going to invest some in improving things on their end.

Ask your husband if my thought about the site have any merit. Maybe he has some ideas on why it could be wonky like it is in certain situations. I am only making rudimentary guesses. As for the "average" guest - I think it was The Unofficial Guide that had a line in it that said something like, "no matter how much info is available to everyone, most ppl do not do enough research on how to plan their vacation at DW." You and I, and probably close to 100% of the posters / lurkers here are not the average WDW guest. I put in a lot of work planning, and I can't tell you how many ppl we saw unfolding maps, and asking what the fastpass entrance was for, or saying weird things like (this is an actual quote I heard at dhs) "Fantasmic is a parade that goes down Hollywood blvd at night."

 

[Dakota731]

What’s fastpass cluster?

 

[TIS Grandma]

I was also thinking...."if I wasn't knowledgable about this (thanks DIS!) what would I have done this morning?" How does the average guest make it through all of these hiccups with the website? Does *everyone* know that you can make FPs on MDE? I know that I didn't always know that. I feel bad for people that don't know what else to do. I'm very lucky that I'd made my "critical" FPs first before the website crapped out on me and I had to spend the extra time grabbing my phone and getting logged into MDE there. Those minutes ticking away while you've set your alarm to an ungodly hour (feel REAL sorry for west coasters!) so you can try to snag that FOP or Navi or FEA....

I agree with you. If I hadn't read here about the wonky website and to use your phone, I would have been in a panic this morning at 7am! This is my first experience with FP+ I wasn't even sure if the FPs I made before the glitch would be saved or if I'd have to start from scratch. Luckily they were there.

 

[revdon64]

my booking window opened this morning and about a quarter of the way through, the website quit working. Thankfully, I'd already snagged my FOP and Navi, but I had to switch over to mobile to do the rest of my bookings. Why can't Disney get a website that works? It's so weird for an organization their size that relies SO heavily on their web capabilities. /rant

So your trip starts on January 7th? What did you find easily and what was tougher? Wondering because my trip starts on the 8th and I'm trying to line up FP priorities for the morning.

 

[TIS Grandma]

My trip starts Jan 6 -- today was 60 days out. Honestly I had no trouble getting everything I wanted including FoP and FEA.

 

[Disflyer226]

So your trip starts on January 7th? What did you find easily and what was tougher? Wondering because my trip starts on the 8th and I'm trying to line up FP priorities for the morning.

Her trip starts January 6. Your fastpass window opens Thursday, not tomorrow.

 

[TNGirlwCamera]

I work in IT and this is a huge complaint of mine. Like others have said, why/how is this possible? Did the quality go down when they laid off so many people in the States and moved over seas? Or has it literally always been this bad? They definitely do not have good architects for their database when they implemented the magic bands to begin with.

Glad you managed to get what you wanted!

 

[megs1313]

So your trip starts on January 7th? What did you find easily and what was tougher? Wondering because my trip starts on the 8th and I'm trying to line up FP priorities for the morning.

I got everything I wanted, BUT I did have to adjust my times a smidgen on these rides:
FOP
FEA
SDMT

I was surprised that SDMT wasn't as available as I'd expected. I had prioritized it last behind: FOP, FEA, Navi. Also, I did my Pandora rides at 60+6 so I am guessing that's why SDMT was tougher because that was 60+1 for me.