Very impressed with IT on Disney web site!!!

[Disneylover99]

Thats just not true.
Not even close.
The vast majority of visitors experience no issues and like the ability to plan some big things in advance.
And its working wonders, attendance is up, revenue is up, exposure is up.
There is an excitment about WDW that didnt exist in the earlier part of the decade.


The sky is not falling.

Well that's cold comfort for those of us who have experienced issues.

 

[JanaDee]

Yeah, I think every software developer can sympathize with buggy release rollouts

As much as I griped about the website last year, the CMs on the phone were extremely helpful.

How long are people going to use the excuse "buggy rollouts"? It's been at least two years, if not three and I'm sure it was in development for a couple years before that.

 

[Ambear]

How long are people going to use the excuse "buggy rollouts"? It's been at least two years, if not three and I'm sure it was in development for a couple years before that.

It's not an excuse. Websites are constantly under development. No company creates a website, fixes initial bugs, and says "yep! Done with that one!" So to say it was in development a couple years ago means nothing really. Cause again... Disney will constantly be creating new features, fixing new bugs that could be caused by anything recent like library updates, and cleaning up old code that once again could cause recent bugs.

 

[soniam]

But what if they can't fix your car for something seemingly easy, but they can fix everyone else's car who experiences the exact same problem. How would you feel then?

That car must be a 70s or 80s Jaguar

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

Looks to me like the Universal sales team has arrived

SNORT hardly - just someone who spent time working on a project powered by HP AND has dealt witht the frustration of trying to use the DVC website and My Disney experience

 

[Jennytoon]

But what if they can't fix your car for something seemingly easy, but they can fix everyone else's car who experiences the exact same problem. How would you feel then?

So here, at least, may be part of the issue. When we go to the doctor, we respect the ability of the doctor to tell us that even though we have the same symptom as the person after us in the waiting room, we actually have a different illness -- a different problem.

Many not in IT are quick to assume when using electronic systems that if they have the same symptom as several other people, that means they have the exact same problem. That is not necessarily a true statement.

It's not true about cars either. In fact, it is not necessarily true in any area of specialty. As a general statement not aimed at any single poster in this thread, I find in my personal experience that many people are unwilling to accept the answer that their problem is different. For whatever reason, some people are confident that even though they do not have the same knowledge, skill, or experience as the expert, the expert cannot be right if it disagrees with their expectation. In the context of the medical profession, these are the "armchair doctors".

 

[Disneylover99]

Many not in IT are quick to assume when using electronic systems that if they have the same symptom as several other people, that means they have the exact same problem. That is not necessarily a true statement.

I do have the exact same problem as many people. There may be different reasons for having this problem, but it's still the same problem. Bottom line.....I want it fixed.

 

[Jennasis]

I wonder how many calls are made to Royal Caribbean's IT department to fix vacation booking issues...or Sandals...or Universal?

It's just hilarious (in a sad, annoying way) that anyone has to involve a call to an IT professional to straighten out part of their vacation to a resort. I had to, last year. At the very least, the folks on the end of the line when I made this call were able to straighten out the problem....which is great. So I would say their customer service is more impressive than their IT infrastructure (which has sucked from the very first day they put up w website). it's ALWAYS been lousy. The fact that it has bloated to the immense, unwieldy juggernaut it is now with MDE is no excuse for the problems they have. They've always had problems.

IMO, I should never have had to make the call in the first place.

 

[Cormoran]

I had to call for help because the website was continually timing out on me. Yes, the customer service was fine, but I wanted to be able to use the website and I couldn't. This week alone, the website was down for a day. there were posts from people who couldn't book their FP's. When I checked on the website, the message said my account didn't exist. Why can't Disney just post a message stating their website is down?

Also, when the BOG ADR's opened, the entire website froze under the onslaught. I just think the website should be a lot better. As Jenasis said, I don't want to call customer support.

 

[Ambear]

There's obviously nothing wrong with thinking disney's site sucks. It's when people like to pretend they know what's going on behind the scenes that's ridiculous. I don't know exactly why it sucks. But I can understand that it's way more complicated than some want to admit. It was easy to find complaints about royal Caribbean's website. It's easy to find complaints about anything really. It's really not that weird that you need to call an IT person for a problem when using... IT. This happens for every single company with a Web presence including other theme parks. But ya know, keep pretending this is just a disney problem. Its clear now these attitudes are part of a bigger issue than just disliking their website.

 

[Jennasis]

There's obviously nothing wrong with thinking disney's site sucks. It's when people like to pretend they know what's going on behind the scenes that's ridiculous. I don't know exactly why it sucks. But I can understand that it's way more complicated than some want to admit. It was easy to find complaints about royal Caribbean's website. It's easy to find complaints about anything really. It's really not that weird that you need to call an IT person for a problem when using... IT. This happens for every single company with a Web presence including other theme parks. But ya know, keep pretending this is just a disney problem. Its clear now these attitudes are part of a bigger issue than just disliking their website.

Did you find complaints about Royal C's website or complaints about people having to call RC's IT department to fix glitches or random shenanigans on their reservations?

I get "its complicated" on Disneys end behind the screen. But frankly my dear Disney...well ya know.

 

[Cormoran]

There's obviously nothing wrong with thinking disney's site sucks. It's when people like to pretend they know what's going on behind the scenes that's ridiculous. I don't know exactly why it sucks. But I can understand that it's way more complicated than some want to admit. It was easy to find complaints about royal Caribbean's website. It's easy to find complaints about anything really. It's really not that weird that you need to call an IT person for a problem when using... IT. This happens for every single company with a Web presence including other theme parks. But ya know, keep pretending this is just a disney problem. Its clear now these attitudes are part of a bigger issue than just disliking their website.

I've been using the Amazon website weekly for at least 10 years. But I have never had to call their customer service dept . I've never had a problem

 

[Ambear]

Did you find complaints about Royal C's website or complaints about people having to call RC's IT department to fix glitches or random shenanigans on their reservations?

I get "its complicated" on Disneys end behind the screen. But frankly my dear Disney...well ya know.

Yea there were forum posts much like can be seen on here about not being able to login, cruise history missing, Account numbers not matching and having to call tech support to fix them. No, I don't know how common this is, though it does seem easy to find complaints. And I will say I couldn't find many about universal... So rejoice! Just saying that this really isn't unique to Disney. They need to hire some usability people though.

 

[Planogirl]

I am very tolerant of technology's burps and miscues but I feel that after literally years of development that MDE should work much better than it does. As a consumer I'm not interested in being patient while a company seems to flounder around with a balky website.

However I am glad that the OP seemed to get such good service. That is excellent news.

 

[TheDisGuy]

There's obviously nothing wrong with thinking disney's site sucks. It's when people like to pretend they know what's going on behind the scenes that's ridiculous. I don't know exactly why it sucks. But I can understand that it's way more complicated than some want to admit. It was easy to find complaints about royal Caribbean's website. It's easy to find complaints about anything really. It's really not that weird that you need to call an IT person for a problem when using... IT. This happens for every single company with a Web presence including other theme parks. But ya know, keep pretending this is just a disney problem. Its clear now these attitudes are part of a bigger issue than just disliking their website.

I don't think anyone is pretending this is just a Disney Problem. Disney IT was INFAMOUS, before FP+ and MM+ were even launched. From their website to their wifi, major problems. The introduction of MM+ has only exasperated these issues.

No one is arguing its not complicated, I didn't see that anywhere here, no one is saying even well running sites don't have problems, they do. IT infrastructure that has been working solidly for weeks, months, years can have issues, the IT realm is constantly developing. That's to be expected.

What's not to be expected is the number of issues that Disney IT seems to have, particularly when they are making people more and more dependent on their IT infrastructure. If you are going to force more and more people through your IT, you had better make sure the IT is as solid as it can be. Its pretty apparent from anyone who has had trouble, and has spoken with front line CMs, who then direct you to the IT CMs, and then those CMs complain that they have seen a LOT of this over the last couple years. When you call and explain your situation and you get an exasperated CM who says something to the effect of "we are hearing a lot of that", when you talk to IT and they mention how crazy things are... that's a system that was not properly tested. There is nothing like really going live to test a system, of course, but the level of issues this system has had is really inexcusable. This isn't a dinky little company, its a Fortune 500 multi-billion dollar institution, if they don't have the capacity to do it, get Cisco, or IBM, or Microsoft or someone else to do.

I mean look at some of the defences of Disney in this thread:

Disney could do it, but its really complicated .... um yea ? How is that an excuse. If its too complicated, you don't do it. If you can do it properly, you do it.
Young Talent like people from Facebook and google don't want to work for Disney .... Seriously ? The excuse is that disney can't attract smart enough talent to get this done ? Again, then hire someone else to do it, or don't do it.
Denial ... Just insistence that this isn't happening, that everything is great and revenue and attendance are up and that's a sign that the IT is great. I just don't even know how to respond to this other that how I did, that attendance was up thoughout the 2000s ... but FP+ and the IT weren't the reasons then.
That All websites and IT have issues .... they do to one extent or another, but there is a level which is acceptable and one that is not, and this doesn't seem to the the acceptable level. Would any of these people just say it was OK if their IT services lost all their email ? Or if their Bank lost a couple thousand of their Dollars ? Just an IT error right ? It happens and its complicated ? That doesn't make it ok. And if it happened regularly to people, it would be a very big problem, like it is at WDW right now.

 

[Ambear]

I don't think anyone is pretending this is just a Disney Problem.

I was responding to a different post comparing Disney to other travel and vacation companies.

No one is arguing its not complicated, I didn't see that anywhere here, no one is saying even well running sites don't have problems, they do. IT infrastructure that has been working solidly for weeks, months, years can have issues, the IT realm is constantly developing. That's to be expected.

By saying that disney should do this and that and make these changes and it should be done now and not have problems... that's not appreciating how complex the system is. It's not acknowledging how complex the website is in keeping track of everything it needs to. You don't know what it looks like under the hood. I don't either. So making claims that disney just sucks at their IT is baseless pretty much. Especially when there are so many reports of positive interactions with IT CMs. Cause seriously that's where companies usually go wrong it IT. lol

Young Talent like people from Facebook and google don't want to work for Disney .... Seriously ? The excuse is that disney can't attract smart enough talent to get this done ? Again, then hire someone else to do it, or don't do it.

Hey, you're the one who compared them in the first place . Annnd yea, never heard someone fresh outta CS school say, "I'm going to work for DISNEYWORLD!" So why doesn't Disney have the talent comparable to Google? Is that not obvious?

 

[goofy4tink]

Well, IT was able to fix both my issues. And they did it cheerfully and patiently. It was pretty much my fault, not the fault of the website.
I know that many here feel that Disney IT dept is a mess. But I've had only a few issues...and like I said, they were my fault. And once in the parks, I've had few issues with the system. Just one and that was quickly resolved.
Is it perfect? No, of course not. I just don't need to get on the 'it's the most miserable thing in the world and should be shut down' bandwagon.

 

[goofy4tink]

Thats just not true. ------ you actually have no idea if its true, of course they don't really know either
Not even close. -----See Above
The vast majority of visitors experience no issues and like the ability to plan some big things in advance. ----- We have NO idea if this is true, none, zero. No data that supports this. What percentage of visitors are having issues exactly ? What percentage say they like to plan things in advance ???

And its working wonders, attendance is up, revenue is up, exposure is up. ----- Numbers and attendance were up in 2005, and 2006, and 2007. Was that because of FP+ too ? We have NO idea why attendance is up, we have heard that revenue is up due to increased spending per customer though, but we also know prices have gone up quite a bit, exposure is up ? Not sure what this means exactly, if it means they are running commercials sure. But if you are referring to the articles on the internet about FP+, its pretty important to note that a lot of those articles have negative elements about the system.

There is an excitment about WDW that didnt exist in the earlier part of the decade. ----- Ummmm ... Based on their IT system? I really just don't know where you get this from. There was plenty of excitement about WDW throughout the decade and plenty of excitement about FL2, and Frozen, and stuff like that, but I haven't heard anyway saying "I can't wait to go to WDW to use MM+" ... ??? I mean if you have some information about this that we don't, please share it, would be great to see it.

And you have specific info to the contrary? I know a ton of people that go to WDW and use their system. Probably more than the average person knows. The vast majority of those people have had no issues. The economy is better so more people are traveling. Not so hard to understand.

As for other company websites and IT depts? Well....I doubt Sandals or Amazon have the number of hits that Disney gets.....just look at the dismay when the CP pkgs open. People continually complain about wait times and system crashes. But....they all just 'have' to get that particular time slot. Same for FP+...it's like a feeding frenzy. There are only a few FPs that have to be booked asap. But the whole getting up at midnight? Seriously....I got every single one of my FPs at a normal time, 60 days out. And I've been able to move most of them around to different times.

It's not a perfect system. But it's really not 'that' awful. Geez.

 

[JanaDee]

There's obviously nothing wrong with thinking disney's site sucks. It's when people like to pretend they know what's going on behind the scenes that's ridiculous. I don't know exactly why it sucks. But I can understand that it's way more complicated than some want to admit. It was easy to find complaints about royal Caribbean's website. It's easy to find complaints about anything really. It's really not that weird that you need to call an IT person for a problem when using... IT. This happens for every single company with a Web presence including other theme parks. But ya know, keep pretending this is just a disney problem. Its clear now these attitudes are part of a bigger issue than just disliking their website.

I have never had to call a company's IT department when using a website. Disney's IT has always sucked, even before MDE and FP+ was a glimmer in anyone's eye. My opinion is based on years of experience using various forms of disney IT.

 

[Jennasis]

And you have specific info to the contrary? I know a ton of people that go to WDW and use their system. Probably more than the average person knows. The vast majority of those people have had no issues. The economy is better so more people are traveling. Not so hard to understand.

As for other company websites and IT depts? Well....I doubt Sandals or Amazon have the number of hits that Disney gets.....just look at the dismay when the CP pkgs open. People continually complain about wait times and system crashes. But....they all just 'have' to get that particular time slot. Same for FP+...it's like a feeding frenzy. There are only a few FPs that have to be booked asap. But the whole getting up at midnight? Seriously....I got every single one of my FPs at a normal time, 60 days out. And I've been able to move most of them around to different times.

It's not a perfect system. But it's really not 'that' awful. Geez.

Huh? You honestly think Disney's MDE site gets more hits than Amazon?? I would truly be shocked if that were true.


The bottom line for me, is that Disney has impressive "IT CUSTOMER SERVICE" (most of the time). If they had truly impressive "IT" (as in the infrastructure) then nobody would ever need to call the IT Department .