MDE App Update & Recent “Refresh” Changes Discussion (we’re not doomed!)

[M SH]

As I explained a short while earlier, it's very unlikely this is intentional, and those screens already existed. A typical workflow for something like this (it's actually very similar to some database operations my firm deals with) is that when the search returns a list of candidates, it puts a unique tag on that saying user XYZ has a short term hold on these. Once you complete your selection, the tag is converted to a firm booking, and the other items are untagged and released back in to the wild. However, if the user never makes a confirmation, or the app crashes, or their phone slips out of their hands because they're using it on Rock'n'roller coaster you don't want those times to be forever lost. So, after a short window of time, the tag becomes inactive and the times become selectable again. Due to this, there is a real possibility that the user might need to be shown the "Sorry this time is no longer available." screen, which is why it exists.

Example scenario from a prior trip:

1. I open the app and start searching for a fourth FP.
2. I find one for Test Track in half an hour, I click it, the confirmation comes up.
3. I mention it to my party, who is debating food, they say maybe.
4. I get a text message, and switch over to it while they're debating.
5. We decide on food while I'm in the message, I finish replying, lock my phone and we walk off.
6. A few minutes later I switch back to MDE and the pending confirmation and go "oops!"
7. I click the button, but by now the hold has timed out and someone else got the FP. I get the screen.

This makes far more sense then them intentionally making their app show times and then not allow them, that would be a horrifically bad UX design. Not that MDE is the best user experience known to man, but it's not that bad and Disney knows better than to pull a stunt like that. Making your product visibly work poorly is not the right avenue to solicit additional spending.

Matt

Ok I didn’t think this was there before. If it is, then I agree with you.
Gives me hope thanks.
Hopefully now it gets fixed soon, before my trip next month

 

[StacyStrong]

Here's hoping they change it back because this is pretty awful lol

 

[anomamatt]

As I explained a short while earlier, it's very unlikely this is intentional, and those screens already existed.

There was never a screen that offered another time.

at least not that I have ever seen.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I'm going to go against the grain here (and against my previous posts) and say that this update actually works better for me (if today is typical and of course there is no guarantee there). I spent some time with it today. I was able to get things like the mountains, EE, Soarin, etc very easily. Much more easily than previously. Like in 2 ish minutes to snag one and walk it into the next hour. Yes, I lost a lot of them and it is frustrating but less so than refreshing for 20 mins trying to get EE. I was also able to do it in the morning. I have never had that kind of luck before today (moving up FPs never worked well for me). I have refreshed my little fingers off, I have run all kinds of tests on different hardware, interfaces, etc trying to duplicate the success that others get. I never figured out why it didn't work as well for me as others.

I don't know if this change makes things worse for people who had that better luck before but actually improved things for people who didn't have that kind of luck, but that's my experience today. I don't want others to be in the boat of being frustrated and not having a good experience. I know what that feels like first hand and I don't want anyone here to have that experience. But if you didn't have the kind of luck previously talked about on this board, you may want to try again. Spend some time getting used to this new interface. This may actually be better for some people.

 

[DavidNYC]

As I explained a short while earlier, it's very unlikely this is intentional, and those screens already existed. A typical workflow for something like this (it's actually very similar to some database operations my firm deals with) is that when the search returns a list of candidates, it puts a unique tag on that saying user XYZ has a short term hold on these. Once you complete your selection, the tag is converted to a firm booking, and the other items are untagged and released back in to the wild. However, if the user never makes a confirmation, or the app crashes, or their phone slips out of their hands because they're using it on Rock'n'roller coaster you don't want those times to be forever lost. So, after a short window of time, the tag becomes inactive and the times become selectable again. Due to this, there is a real possibility that the user might need to be shown the "Sorry this time is no longer available." screen, which is why it exists.

Example scenario from a prior trip:

1. I open the app and start searching for a fourth FP.
2. I find one for Test Track in half an hour, I click it, the confirmation comes up.
3. I mention it to my party, who is debating food, they say maybe.
4. I get a text message, and switch over to it while they're debating.
5. We decide on food while I'm in the message, I finish replying, lock my phone and we walk off.
6. A few minutes later I switch back to MDE and the pending confirmation and go "oops!"
7. I click the button, but by now the hold has timed out and someone else got the FP. I get the screen.

This makes far more sense then them intentionally making their app show times and then not allow them, that would be a horrifically bad UX design. Not that MDE is the best user experience known to man, but it's not that bad and Disney knows better than to pull a stunt like that. Making your product visibly work poorly is not the right avenue to solicit additional spending.

Matt

Except the app already worked like that and they made the change today so that the time it is taken out of circulation is now zero or very close to that. I know it’s less than 3 seconds based on multiple tests of losing a FP. The only question is did they completely destroy the ability to take a FP out of circulation for any time or can they make an easy setting change and set it at 10 seconds, 15 seconds, whatever.... as I said before - I can think of few analogous reservation systems that don’t give you at least some time to complete a transaction. And the higher the traffic, the more important it is to do so.

 

[afan]

That being said, the fine print has always said that the FP reservation wasnt guaranteed until you reach the confirmation page, so my thought is that this is simply making the system work as it was always intended to work, truly making it first come, first served.

While the fine print is true, I don't agree that it's making it first come first served any more than the previous way. No one knows for sure that if the fp was there it was also on 10 other devices as available before, which to me doesn't make sense. It shouldn't be about who has the quickest finger to the confirm button, if it comes up as available it should be there when confirm is hit.

For people who think this is for the better, IMO you are mistaken. This will just cause more frustration especially for casual refreshers and people with slower phones and networks. This isn’t going to kill refresh but just make it more frustrating and increase standby times..

And this is part of why it just doesn't seem like they would purposely do it, though they've done crazy things before. If this happens to someone often enough they'll just stop trying to get another fp, which may be their intention with it.

To me getting a 4th or more fp should be like buying tickets to a concert or sporting event, they are in my cart and I have x amount of time to finish my transaction or they tickets go back into the pool for someone else to grab. Ticketmaster upsets enough people already (and I'm not getting into that) but could you imagine if they sold tickets like this, oh here's row 2 but opps sorry you didn't hit purchase soon enough so how about these nosebleeds because that's all that's left. I don't need the 15 min ticket sellers give but at least give me 30 seconds to hit confirm on my fp.

 

[JETSDAD]

While this is frustrating I wanted to give everyone some hope. With some playing around and getting used to how things work (in case this becomes the new norm) you can do quite well even with the changes. I played around off and on today (mostly this afternoon). Here are some results. In this bunch there are 5 unique, non-drop, FP's for FOP for 3 people as well as 8 for SDMT. Those were the main 2 that I was playing around with today. These are ones that I managed to get to the confirmation screen...I did miss a lot as well.

 

[pixiedust2u]

What was so wrong with the old system (meaning FP, not in regards to the MDE app) that they even had to consider changing it After lurking on here a while and some other sites it appears that there is SO much more they could spend time and money on to make people happier instead of frustrated.

It’s the if it ain’t broke why fix it mentality? The other system wasn’t as much of a loophole as it was do your homework and you have a good shot at extra FPS at reasonable times.

 

[Violetspider]

While this is frustrating I wanted to give everyone some hope. With some playing around and getting used to how things work (in case this becomes the new norm) you can do quite well even with the changes. I played around off and on today (mostly this afternoon). Here are some results. In this bunch there are 5 unique, non-drop, FP's for FOP for 3 people as well as 8 for SDMT. Those were the main 2 that I was playing around with today. These are ones that I managed to get to the confirmation screen...I did miss a lot as well.

View attachment 391977

Signs of hope, and you did it from home...quick call the CM that said this wasn't possible and say "nener nener nener."

 

[JETSDAD]

And you did it from home...quick call the CM that said this wasn't possible and say "nener nener nener."

I'm not even in the US so take that CM.

 

[Violetspider]

I'm not even in the US so take that CM.

Even better!!

 

[fractalpotato]

Except the app already worked like that and they made the change today so that the time it is taken out of circulation is now zero or very close to that. I know it’s less than 3 seconds based on multiple tests of losing a FP. The only question is did they completely destroy the ability to take a FP out of circulation for any time or can they make an easy setting change and set it at 10 seconds, 15 seconds, whatever.... as I said before - I can think of few analogous reservation systems that don’t give you at least some time to complete a transaction. And the higher the traffic, the more important it is to do so.

Right, it used to work like that, and that behavior makes a lot of sense, the fine print saying it's not confirmed til it's confirmed is for the scenarios I described where a confirmation attempt comes far later. I'm suggesting the current behavior is in fact a bug recently introduced. I don't dispute that it's happening (on the contrary, it doesn't surprise me at all, databases are a pain!), I merely dispute that it's intentional.

Matt

 

[fractalpotato]

There was never a screen that offered another time.

at least not that I have ever seen.

I thought I had seen one, but I may have been thinking about something else. I am absolutely positive (and have definitely seen) the screen indicating the time you're attempting to confirm is no longer available and that was mostly the one I was referring to.

Matt

 

[cmwade77]

As to over-distributing fast passes I just watched a Tim Tracker where he and Adam The Woo rode all mountains presumedly yesterday. The FP line for thunder mtn went almost to Country Bears. How is that possible unless there were a bunch of anytime passes d/t ride closures. I have seen a long FP line for that but nothing that completely left that area! I also am scratching my head because they somehow had passes for the 3 mtns in MK and Everest and returned to MK to FP 7D. That’s some serious good luck for the crowd level they had (unless Adam was staying club level and had the extra ones to book or possibly they don’t have to announce if someone gives them stuff that is normally free even if they got it for being who they are)

I am more wondering how did they get FPs for all of the following during spring break:

• Space Mountain
• Splash Mountain
• Big Thunder
• Expedition Everest
• 7DMT

I don't believe either are staying on-site, so three of them could have been booked at 30 days, but that means two of these very popular attractions would have had to have had same day FP availability no matter what. Something seems off on that to me.

 

[JETSDAD]

I thought I had seen one, but I may have been thinking about something else. I am absolutely positive (and have definitely seen) the screen indicating the time you're attempting to confirm is no longer available and that was mostly the one I was referring to.

Matt

Previously if you waited too long (random length of time but beyond 5 minutes) it simply gave you an error if you tried to select/confirm it.

 

[FigmentSpark]

I don't buy in to the "paid FP" theory, but after hearing ideas about how the software works, what if this is a glitch, but the glitch was showing people who have not paid for a special FP the coveted times? If you've made the miracle purchase, you get to confirm. My point is they could have been putting in code that will be usable after such a product is introduced, but was supposed to be bypassed for now. Yes, some coder forgot the period at the end of the subroutine (yeah, showing my age, lol), and their future plans are now visible.

 

[anomamatt]

I thought I had seen one, but I may have been thinking about something else. I am absolutely positive (and have definitely seen) the screen indicating the time you're attempting to confirm is no longer available and that was mostly the one I was referring to.

Matt

My main concern is the "that time is taken, here's another time" (which is also likely gone) screen... that is incongruent with the way the system used to work.

That coupled with all the MDE changes over the past few weeks. And a couple CMs claiming these changes are intentional (not worth much of anything, I recognize)...

I guess we will see with time.

 

[JETSDAD]

I am more wondering how did they get FPs for all of the following during spring break:

• Space Mountain
• Splash Mountain
• Big Thunder
• Expedition Everest
• 7DMT

I don't believe either are staying on-site, so three of them could have been booked at 30 days, but that means two of these very popular attractions would have had to have had same day FP availability no matter what. Something seems off on that to me.

Not very hard to do for all of them day of to be honest.

 

[anomamatt]

Previously if you waited too long (random length of time but beyond 5 minutes) it simply gave you an error if you tried to select/confirm it.

Yes, there is a KtP video where we shows how long the "reservation" is. It's like something under 5 mins and then you would get an error upon clicking.

 

[Runnsally]

I'm not even in the US so take that CM.

Winnipeg?