Mini Rant - searching for a room

[ClarabelleCow]

Why when I put in a specific date can't I search to see all that is available, not just three possbile locations? Seems it would make more sense to allow a search of all available room during the time you are looking into. Even when I called, (I'm trying to book a last minute New Years trip), they can't just tell me whats available, they need to search all resorts? Seems like its more work. If I put in my dates for say a 1 bedroom unit, why won't it list all the resorts with all the rooms available. Am I missing something as to why they only give you a few alternatives?

 

[drusba]

You are not missing anything. They just set the system up to do what it does, search for a specific request and tell you if that is available and provide some possible alternatives. Obviously they would not do it differently if trying at 11 months out because you are limited to home resorts but I do not know whether it would have been easy to set up the system to allow a member to search for any available studio (or 1BR or 2BR) at any resort when trying at 7 months out. The CMs on the phone are using the same system we are. This is Disney and websites and the two seldom mix well.

 

[ClarabelleCow]

You are not missing anything. They just set the system up to do what it does, search for a specific request and tell you if that is available and provide some possible alternatives. Obviously they would not do it differently if trying at 11 months out because you are limited to home resorts but I do not know whether it would have been easy to set up the system to allow a member to search for any available studio (or 1BR or 2BR) at any resort when trying at 7 months out. The CMs on the phone are using the same system we are. This is Disney and websites and the two seldom mix well.

Thanks - when I search say RCI, I can find everything and then decide. DVC system just seems so antiquated in that way.

 

[DenLo]

Well the DVC system is much smaller. And when you do a search it is holding those accommodations for you to decide. So no one else can see those rooms. So if it was a system wide search that means one person could hold all of the rooms for 20 minutes and no one else could access them.

 

[ClarabelleCow]

Well the DVC system is much smaller. And when you do a search it is holding those accommodations for you to decide. So no one else can see those rooms. So if it was a system wide search that means one person could hold all of the rooms for 20 minutes and no one else could access them.

That makes sense. I think!!! Why wouldn't they program it so until you click on the property it doesnt hold. Oh well, I think I may just pay cash for two nights and not worry about it just waitlist with my fingers crossed!!!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Well the DVC system is much smaller. And when you do a search it is holding those accommodations for you to decide. So no one else can see those rooms. So if it was a system wide search that means one person could hold all of the rooms for 20 minutes and no one else could access them.

I don't think it does place a hold until you actually select the resort so it shouldn't make a difference in how many results it returns. I say this because I've had a room come up as available but when I've clicked on it to select I've gotten a response that it was no longer available.

I really don't know who comes up with these ideas for search results. Two nights ago I got on to CRO for the first time in a few months and it would only returns the results for the single resort I selected. Really?!?!?? And if the selected resort had no rooms available that's all it said. And there were rooms available at other resorts but I couldn't find that out until I went thru and checked each one. At least in the past it would offer a couple of options. I'm not certain about the DVC side but it also seems to be restricting more than it did initially. I did not think it would be possible for the reservation system to get worse but I think it has.

 

[michelleiada]

Why when I put in a specific date can't I search to see all that is available, not just three possbile locations? Seems it would make more sense to allow a search of all available room during the time you are looking into. Even when I called, (I'm trying to book a last minute New Years trip), they can't just tell me whats available, they need to search all resorts? Seems like its more work. If I put in my dates for say a 1 bedroom unit, why won't it list all the resorts with all the rooms available. Am I missing something as to why they only give you a few alternatives?

I have often wondered the same thing. Disney's websites are awful in my opinion! I have a reservation for a week in December. I want to add one more night 60 days prior to arrival (have some points in holding status) and I know I there will be very little, if any availability. Disney's website will make it even more challenging.

 

[Breyean]

Well the DVC system is much smaller. And when you do a search it is holding those accommodations for you to decide. So no one else can see those rooms. So if it was a system wide search that means one person could hold all of the rooms for 20 minutes and no one else could access them.

The hold is only placed once you actually select the room and start the booking process. That's when you get the message that the room is going to be held for up to 60 minutes, or 20 minutes of inactivity.

Up to that point you are just browsing and you don't have any holds on anything displayed as available.

 

[wrighter]

Totally agree with you, OP. This makes me crazy!

 

[DebbieB]

Keep in mind the DVC online system only came out last year. Before that - nothing online! It's worked better than I thought it would.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Have you found something?

 

[rcchello]

DVC probably went to IT and asked the cost of the perfect system and what date it would be available and choked on the response, considering it would have to be paid out of member dues. They then asked what can you do for us for a reasonable amount of money - and' the answer is what we have today. They took the current non-DVC reservation system with the minimum number of changes to make it work for us.

 

[tjkraz]

Anytime a web page is created, design decisions need to be made which balance things like the usefulness of screen real estate, page load time and back-end server resources.

There are 12 different DVC resorts, each with up to 5 different villa sizes--more if you consider lockoffs and dedicated separately, not to mention the 2 Queen, 2B at BCV. Then you add views, which number up to 4 per resort. AKL even has two different buildings.

AKL alone has over two dozen combinations given:

- Jambo / Kidani
- Studio, 1B, Dedicated 2B, Lockoff 2B, Grand Villa
- Value, Standard, Savanna & Concierge views

Displaying all possible results on the screen would be confusing to readers. It would also require significantly more server resources to render the page--instead of just showing results for 4 possible combinations, it would have to run the calculations on dozens more. And it would take more time and bandwidth to push all of that info to a user's desktop / tablet.

While some members may want a (figurative) bible of information with every search, I suspect the vast majority are satisfied with a fast, limited response. There's no reason to complicate every single search in the interest of a few who may wish for full disclosure.

Disney IT may be a target for much criticism but the online points booking has worked pretty much flawlessly since Day One. With regard to design decisions that were made, there's simply no "one size fits all" solution for webpage layout.

 

[deedisneydream97]

So pick up the phone and call the toll free number on your membership card. I seriously doubt that the DVC reservation specialists are using the same system we are. I have always found it to be so much easier to just CALL when I have too many questions and/or requests. They find things out much faster when it comes to availability....whether it be points, banking, cash, etc. And they can actually "hold" a room while I continue with my numerous questions (as long as I give them my info).

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Anytime a web page is created, design decisions need to be made which balance things like the usefulness of screen real estate, page load time and back-end server resources.

There are 12 different DVC resorts, each with up to 5 different villa sizes--more if you consider lockoffs and dedicated separately, not to mention the 2 Queen, 2B at BCV. Then you add views, which number up to 4 per resort. AKL even has two different buildings.

AKL alone has over two dozen combinations given:

- Jambo / Kidani
- Studio, 1B, Dedicated 2B, Lockoff 2B, Grand Villa
- Value, Standard, Savanna & Concierge views

Displaying all possible results on the screen would be confusing to readers. It would also require significantly more server resources to render the page--instead of just showing results for 4 possible combinations, it would have to run the calculations on dozens more. And it would take more time and bandwidth to push all of that info to a user's desktop / tablet.

While some members may want a (figurative) bible of information with every search, I suspect the vast majority are satisfied with a fast, limited response. There's no reason to complicate every single search in the interest of a few who may wish for full disclosure.

Disney IT may be a target for much criticism but the online points booking has worked pretty much flawlessly since Day One. With regard to design decisions that were made, there's simply no "one size fits all" solution for webpage layout.

Expedia etc. have all done this pretty well for quite a few years now.

Disney IT has never created a user friendly room booking system including for CRO. It doesn't have to be reinventing the wheel and they could do a whole lot better to skip all the "magic" on their web pages and consider functionality for the end user.

 

[cwdefouw]

Expedia etc. have all done this pretty well for quite a few years now.

Disney IT has never created a user friendly room booking system including for CRO. It doesn't have to be reinventing the wheel and they could do a whole lot better to skip all the "magic" on their web pages and consider functionality for the end user.

Unfortunately Expedia and Disney Parks are in different corners of the the Travel Industry...

Expedia is a Travel Booking provider and as such their focus is on providing the best Booking experience. Consequently their website technology has to be one of the best in their corner of the travel industry.

Disney Parks is Travel Entertainment provider who happens to also provide on-site accomodations. Their focus is on providing top quality Travel Entertainment and their websites do a pretty good job of staying true to that focus. Booking rooms is sort of an "if we have to, we will" area for them. DVC is more of an accomodations provider but they are still part of Disney, so providing Travel Entertainment is still sitting at the high end of their focus. IMHO it is wrong to expect Disney/DVC to provide an accomodation booking experience that is tops in the "Travel Booking" industry, if they did provide that, we probably would not have the new Fantasyland or the other expansions at WDW / DL and/or DVC

They also cannot just take what another Travel Booking provider has created and modify that to their needs as most of these Booking providers are using proprietary systems to generate results. It would be nice if there was an off-the-shelf system that provided everything, that everyone could possibly want, but that is not how it works in that corner of the travel industry.

I am personally very happy that we have any kind of on-line booking engine for DVC.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Unfortunately Expedia and Disney Parks are in different corners of the the Travel Industry...

Expedia is a Travel Booking provider and as such their focus is on providing the best Booking experience. Consequently their website technology has to be one of the best in their corner of the travel industry.

Disney Parks is Travel Entertainment provider who happens to also provide on-site accomodations. Their focus is on providing top quality Travel Entertainment and their websites do a pretty good job of staying true to that focus. Booking rooms is sort of an "if we have to, we will" area for them. DVC is more of an accomodations provider but they are still part of Disney, so providing Travel Entertainment is still sitting at the high end of their focus. IMHO it is wrong to expect Disney/DVC to provide an accomodation booking experience that is tops in the "Travel Booking" industry, if they did provide that, we probably would not have the new Fantasyland or the other expansions at WDW / DL and/or DVC

They also cannot just take what another Travel Booking provider has created and modify that to their needs as most of these Booking providers are using proprietary systems to generate results. It would be nice if there was an off-the-shelf system that provided everything, that everyone could possibly want, but that is not how it works in that corner of the travel industry.

I am personally very happy that we have any kind of on-line booking engine for DVC.

By reinventing the wheel I was referring to the concept - not the actual software. Tim was suggesting that it was very difficult to show as many options as DVC has for rooms because of website considerations but there are multiple examples of just the opposite.

Regarding Disney being an entertainment company who shouldn't devote resources towards booking software is giving Disney a pass that there is no reason for them to have. They have the backbone but for the most part it's simply the presentation. To use another expression since they keep coming to mind when I think of Disney IT - It's not Rocket Science. In that regard we can survive because it isn't rocket science and we're not astronauts but consideration of the purpose for the existence of the room booking site seems minimal. Frustration is not a good start to a "magical" vacation.

I think I mentioned above - or might have been on another thread - but I was very surprised to see that they managed to make the CRO side even less helpful than it was before. When I was looking last week I only had access to inventory at a single resort and if I wanted to look at something else I had to completely back out (because if I selected the button to try a different resort it then removed me from the room special). I finally decided to skip it and was even giving consideration to off site. And I've been a die hard onsite person for many years now.

Disney has all these onsite hotels/timeshares. They ought to make it easy to book them and at this point most of it is about the website display.

 

[tjkraz]

Tim was suggesting that it was very difficult to show as many options as DVC has for rooms because of website considerations ...

Not at all. I did use the word "confusing" and tried to illustrate how each and every search would require more computing resources throughout the pipeline.

Certainly it's technologically do-able. But there would also be drawbacks to presenting such information. Right now it takes 4-5 seconds of "processing" in order to return results for 4 different combinations. This is a bit of an oversimplification but if the underlying database queries are instead performed for 8 different combinations, it would instead take 8-10 seconds. 12 combinations could take 12-15 seconds.

One possible solution is having more server resources available--to process the queries faster--but that comes at a cost, as well.

Personally I find the searches on sites like Expedia and Travelocity to be extremely overwhelming much of the time. But it's something of a necessary evil when you're unfamiliar with the area and trying to find a hotel that best suits the business or personal travel needs.

I don't think that model should be replicated for DVC where most owners know the resorts, room sizes and views and can immediately drill down to what they want. It makes no sense to use resources to show me availability for dozens of 2B or Grand Villa units if I'm trying to book a Studio, or to show me WDW results when I'm trying to book Aulani.

If I could make one change, it might be to put a checkbox asking how alternatives should be presented, with options like "same resort, different view", "same resort, different villa size" or "different resort, same villa size". But that's what the current setup tries to do now intuitively.

Personally, I would say that upward of 75% of my searches give me exactly what I want the first time out. Doesn't really make sense (IMO) to make each and every search more resource-intensive than it is now.

 

[rcchello]

1) If you are not happy with Expedia you can go to some other online travel agent - that is a huge incentive to meet as many peoples wants as possible. If you don't like the DVC system your only choice is to call MS , not a competitor.

2) If the call volume gets sufficient or they get enough complaints Disney will improve their system, they do have member satisfaction and cost containment goals.

I personally believe the current system probably has a high satisfaction level and if it does not Disney knows it. They constantly collect satisfaction data and complaints and work hard to raise their satisfaction numbers.

There will always be complaints and some people will never be satisfied as these boards prove over and over, but I think they are doing a commendable job.

 

[LisaS]

If I could make one change, it might be to put a checkbox asking how alternatives should be presented, with options like "same resort, different view", "same resort, different villa size" or "different resort, same villa size". But that's what the current setup tries to do now intuitively.

I was thinking along the same lines that they could add some check boxes for those times when someone wants to conduct a broader search. I suspect that for most of the members most of the time, the current system works great -- results are returned quickly and time isn't wasted searching for and displaying lots of other options. When someone is looking for last minute availability or just wants to know all of their options, the check boxes you suggest would be very helpful. If looking for any studio or 1BR available anywhere at WDW, it would be helpful to have a "different resort, same villa size" check box so that at most, the user must do two searches, one for a studio, one for a 1BR. That raises the issue of whether you show offsite resorts as well, otherwise you need another check box to either include or exclude them.