Seriously - what is the DEAL with their website?

[osugal]

I can't believe how awful the website has been lately! How can they have such high standards for so many things and be dropping the ball so badly with their website? In this day and age you can't be behind the times with your website. I can barely navigate it anymore, I'm continually putting the same information back in over and over, and you can have a cup of coffee while you're waiting for each page to load up. It's ridiculous.

 

[carly chloe]

I know!! I hate it!! Just trying to get quotes is hard- in fact I didnt even get any because it kept freezing on me. I was getting so frustrated I wanted to cry. half hour and I got nothing!! I contacted them and they apologized and told me to call. IF I wanted to call- I would've called!!! I wanted stuff I could print out. The old way was SO much better!!!

 

[gwynne]

Why Disney seems happy to approve such a poorly done website is beyond me. There have to be professional website designers that would jump at the chance to make the Disney website a quality (and actually reliable) product. Maybe it is time to hire some new people who understand the value of user friendly reliability.

 

[OklahomaTourist]

Why Disney seems happy to approve such a poorly done website is beyond me. There have to be professional website designers that would jump at the chance to make the Disney website a quality (and actually reliable) product. Maybe it is time to hire some new people who understand the value of user friendly reliability.

There are two kinds of technology and design issues at hand here. A website designer deals with its appearance, graphics, and user interface. They typically have much less to do with the "back end" plumbing that wires you up to your ADR's, tickets, and resort reservations. That back end is where Disney is having 99% of the problems with this new system.

There is a massive amount of data being thrown back and forth on this site, on a 24x7 basis, and the systems/software necessary to coordinate the kind of systems Disney needs are miles beyond the scope of just a website designer.

The problems seen during this rollout are occurring primarily because there's simply no software development lab in the world capable of providing even a remotely realistic "real time" load of data, users, and transactions such that adequate testing can be performed before rollout. You can simulate certain levels of input, certain volumes of traffic, but at some point, those simulations are rather "sanitized" models of real world conditions. The only way to assess a system of this size, unfortunately, is to start rolling it out for real on real people with real reservations. And I have to believe some poor IT soul or souls is presently on their 9th gallon of Pepto dealing (on probably a 24x7 basis) with all the issues this system has had and will continue to have until they get the kinks worked out. Mind you, every second of downtime is also lost revenue for Disney, so they have every incentive to get this thing fixed, too.

As a dev myself, I wouldn't want to be within five miles of the team tasked with rolling this out. It would be a world-scope effort with every minor glitch and hiccup magnified 1,000 times over.

 

[fozziepitysthefool]

I know!!! Every page is down for ''maintenance'', but if you use the nav at the bottom of the page it usually works, (I say usually...) The search for activities is crap. I keep waiting for one of those surveys for feedback to pop up, but now that I actually want to complete it, it is nowhere to be found. I may use the contact us button to provide feedback...

However if the old site couldn't remember a reservation to save its life... Still this ''new'' version is way worse.

 

[OThopeful35]

The pictures for the resorts will not load

 

[Sue M]

There are two kinds of technology and design issues at hand here. A website designer deals with its appearance, graphics, and user interface. They typically have much less to do with the "back end" plumbing that wires you up to your ADR's, tickets, and resort reservations. That back end is where Disney is having 99% of the problems with this new system.

There is a massive amount of data being thrown back and forth on this site, on a 24x7 basis, and the systems/software necessary to coordinate the kind of systems Disney needs are miles beyond the scope of just a website designer.

The problems seen during this rollout are occurring primarily because there's simply no software development lab in the world capable of providing even a remotely realistic "real time" load of data, users, and transactions such that adequate testing can be performed before rollout. You can simulate certain levels of input, certain volumes of traffic, but at some point, those simulations are rather "sanitized" models of real world conditions. The only way to assess a system of this size, unfortunately, is to start rolling it out for real on real people with real reservations. And I have to believe some poor IT soul or souls is presently on their 9th gallon of Pepto dealing (on probably a 24x7 basis) with all the issues this system has had and will continue to have until they get the kinks worked out. Mind you, every second of downtime is also lost revenue for Disney, so they have every incentive to get this thing fixed, too.

As a dev myself, I wouldn't want to be within five miles of the team tasked with rolling this out. It would be a world-scope effort with every minor glitch and hiccup magnified 1,000 times over.

Thank you for the insight We don't even have the new web site in Canada. i don't think they've rolled out any inter nation version yet. I think I may be happy about it, but even the Canadian site is having problems as well I couldn't make my ADRs, had to phone. And my reservations keep on disappearing

 

[Ilivetogo]

I haven't had any luck with the new site either. Not a fan.

.

 

[Robbi]

Yesterday when I was trying to book ADRs, the top of the page would say something like "Sorry, table service reservations cannot be made right now." Then, I scrolled down the page and sure enough, all of the times I wanted were listed along side the restaurants and I was able to book everything. Just had to ignore the "sorry" message.

 

[squirrel4569]

Admittedly it has to be tough to work on a system that large. I work in IT for a living so I'm well aware of the backend needs for a system like that. Getting 100% uptime with 100% functionality is a major challenge and expense.

But enough about that.

When it works, which it has and has not for me in the past week, it's actually very informative for booking the trip. I spent the better part of two weeks going through different options and was able to break down my costs on a finite level. That was something I wasn't able to do before easily. Saturday it wasn't working at all which was frustrating because I was trying to coordinate plans with some other people and we couldn't price anything out at the time.

The next challenge is making the booking site mobile friendly. Now that I'm booked I can see my reservation on the My Disney Experience app, but I can't book vacation reservations or make changes to my trip via mobile. I can make dining reservations, so I know it's just a matter of time before it's capable on the mobile app or a mobile version of the site. I just need to be patient. It just blows my mind sometimes that some places don't have better mobile sites, especially Disney who has one for ABC and ESPN already.

One other great feature is the chat function. In the past I had to hope that a chat button would magically appear if I had a question. Now I just go to the help page and click chat and boom I'm connected to a live person who can answer my question quickly. I've used that quite a bit recently as well.

Definitely room for improvement but I think the future looks bright. I'm a bit more forgiving since I do work in that field and understand it a bit more I think.

 

[coluk003]

I know!!! Every page is down for ''maintenance'', but if you use the nav at the bottom of the page it usually works, (I say usually...) The search for activities is crap. I keep waiting for one of those surveys for feedback to pop up, but now that I actually want to complete it, it is nowhere to be found. I may use the contact us button to provide feedback...

However if the old site couldn't remember a reservation to save its life... Still this ''new'' version is way worse.

So when things only go bad you wish to do the survey? Why not do it all the time?

 

[Sammie]

Haven't had any problems with the site, and it loads quickly. Photos of the rooms, loaded for me in 5 seconds. Maybe some of these problems are not all Disney's fault.

If it was, wouldn't everyone have the same problems.

I have windows 7 and use the most recent version of Google chrome.

 

[patclairesmom]

I hate it. Hopefully when they will realize less people can self serve and need to call to make reservations which is costing them money, they will do something about it.

 

[ibrokeitmommy]

It was very frustrating when trying to compare rates and packages when I had to re-enter my dining and park tickets every time I changed the date. I finally figured out to change dining first before tickets or it would error. I'm sure it's a mess on their end but it doesn't make it less maddening to me!

Another thing that is bugging me is that my BBB and Pirates League reservations don't show up. I made notes on my App but it would be nice if the actual reservation would show.