We had the worst time with MDE...

[JKalai]

Just came back from WDW and me and the GF had one of the most frustrating experiences with MDE and our stay. We booked through a major travel agency that booked us convention tickets as normal tickets with our room. We booked with the same TA in 2017 and had no problems with our stay.

- Showed up to Epcot on rope drop the first day, MB not working. CM directed us to the ticket booths, in which a manager got involved because either of the ticket booth agents could find our tickets on one system and not the other. Manager called IT, which took another 30 minutes so she comped us 1-day park hoppers for the day just to not waste any more of our time. Advised us to see guest relations later in the day. Saw guest relations and the CM seemed to know what exactly what was going on. She said we needed to go back to Pop because the hotel system and theme park system weren't communicating with each other because of a recent update. Supervisor at Pop couldn't find out what was going on with our tickets, but said they would comp us another 1 day park hopper and water park tickets to solve the problem. Both comp tickets showed up on MDE later that night.

- Showed up to Blizzard Beach the second day, MB is still not working. GR CM at the gate walked us over to the booth and took nearly 45 minutes with us on the phone with IT to try to solve the problem with our tickets. CM can see the park hopper and comp tickets, but neither is working. CM said that IT "reset" our accounts and it eventually worked. Headed back to the hotel after BB and both of our MB's would not work to get into our room . Headed back to the concierge at Pop, they gave us new MB's and we asked about the additional comp 1 day hopper for the next day. CM says they can see it on my account and everything is all set.

- Arrived at Magic Kingdom on the last day and guess what... MB's don't work. CM advised us to see guest relations, but the line was nearly 150 people long so we decided to head to Animal Kingdom instead. After another 45 minutes or so at GR, the CM fixed it for us again. Told us they have been having problems all week with the systems and it has been absolute hell for the CM's. We thought "great, today is the last day and we won't have any more problems since we are leaving tomorrow." Lunch time came and we headed to Satuli Canteen and guess what... MB won't let us charge anything to our room. THANK GOODNESS we had Apple Pay authorized on our phones because we usually leave our wallets in the safe to pack light for the day. CM at the restaurant also mentioned other guests having problems with charging MB's and the problems this week.

It sucked because the CM's were so nice about everything and they really tried to fix it, but it's so out of their control. It seemed like it was specifically the convention tickets that was giving our accounts so many issues and if I knew we were going to have so many problems, I would have bought them from Disney direct instead. At every ticket booth we had to go to, there was another guest who had the same exact problem we were having with not being able to access tickets!

Disney really needs to fix MDE as we spent a lot of our vacation either waiting at a ticket booth or hotel desk for them to fix whatever was wrong with our accounts!

 

[firefly_ris]

I doubt it was because of the source of the tickets... MDE has been an absolute nightmare for a week now for large amounts of people, including people who did everything directly through Disney. There is currently a 17 page long thread about it on this forum. I'm sorry to hear your trip was negatively effected, what a hassle on what is supposed to be a vacation. They have really goofed big time with this.

 

[AngiTN]

I doubt it was because of the source of the tickets... MDE has been an absolute nightmare for a week now for large amounts of people, including people who did everything directly through Disney. There is currently a 17 page long thread about it on this forum. I'm sorry to hear your trip was negatively effected, what a hassle on what is supposed to be a vacation. They have really goofed big time with this.

While you are likely correct as the source being the SOLE cause of the recent MDE issues I do wonder if the tickets are the sole cause for OP, and for large amounts of people simply because, large amounts of people do utilize that particular package from the agency. If there was a glitch and those tickets didn't properly update to MDE, through no fault of the agency or the guest, then it would, in turn, affect a large number of people with the same, or similar, problems.

I can actually see how it could play out and end up being a nightmare if Disney issued these tickets in a batch and then screwed up and "lost" the batch of numbers. Wouldn't put it past MDE and a recent update to lose an entire list like that.

 

[Kristin0713]

I'm so sorry that you were there during the MDE crash/glitch/fiasco. I really feel badly for those affected because all my info only disappeared momentarily, the day before my 60 day FP window opened. For those who were already on their vacation or those who couldn't get in all week to book their FP's, it absolutely stinks.

I have wondered too if it was a specific group of tickets, packages or a time frame in which they were purchased that was affected. I bought my park tickets just the night before the crash, and separately from booking the hotel. I only had my info disappear for a short time that first morning. Most others had a much harder time and it seemed to be people with packages or those who booked much farther in advance.

 

[JKalai]

I can actually see how it could play out and end up being a nightmare if Disney issued these tickets in a batch and then screwed up and "lost" the batch of numbers. Wouldn't put it past MDE and a recent update to lose an entire list like that.

The supervisors and managers were all definitely trying to find some "number" that was missing from the hotel side of the system that is usually associated with the tickets. The CM's seemed genuinely confused as it just disappeared and said that they have never seen this happen before.

The really weird thing is that when they couldn't find the cause of the problem, and they decided to just straight up comp us tickets on our Magicbands... those tickets couldn't even work at the gates. We were turned away every single time we tried to use any kind of ticket.

 

[AngiTN]

The supervisors and managers were all definitely trying to find some "number" that was missing from the hotel side of the system that is usually associated with the tickets. The CM's seemed genuinely confused as it just disappeared and said that they have never seen this happen before.

The really weird thing is that when they couldn't find the cause of the problem, and they decided to just straight up comp us tickets on our Magicbands... those tickets couldn't even work at the gates. We were turned away every single time we tried to use any kind of ticket.

I wonder then if the issue wasn't that your band itself. Rather hard to explain what's rolling around in my brain but the band more or less is a "key" to allow the scanners to access all the info in your MDE account. If it failed every time the system tried to read the info when you "inserted the key" then it sure sounds like a "key" problem, doesn't it? And the "key" in this case, is your MB.

 

[JKalai]

I wonder then if the issue wasn't that your band itself. Rather hard to explain what's rolling around in my brain but the band more or less is a "key" to allow the scanners to access all the info in your MDE account. If it failed every time the system tried to read the info when you "inserted the key" then it sure sounds like a "key" problem, doesn't it? And the "key" in this case, is your MB.

The Supervisor at Pop issued me and my GF new Magicbands on the second day and the comp tickets they put on my MDE still didn't work on the last day. The only thing that was consistent on working when tapping Mickey to Mickey was fastpasses on attractions. Worked every single time.

 

[StacyStrong]

Oh man. I would have had a reallyyyyyyyy hard time not losing it at a poor CM.

 

[JKalai]

Oh man. I would have had a reallyyyyyyyy hard time not losing it at a poor CM.

THANKFULLY we had MNSSHP tickets on the second night that worked, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to see MK at all. The guest relation lines were just too long for us to wait in line on the last day in which we were planning to visit MK. At that point, we have already been waiting too long to get into parks every day. GF was about to lose it as she wanted to take pictures in front of the castle in the morning.

 

[AngiTN]

What a mess. In the future, note to yourself, request they give you plastic ticket media.

 

[StacyStrong]

THANKFULLY we had MNSSHP tickets on the second night that worked, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to see MK at all. The guest relation lines were just too long for us to wait in line on the last day in which we were planning to visit MK. At that point, we have already been waiting too long to get into parks every day. GF was about to lose it as she wanted to take pictures in front of the castle in the morning.

Did they do anything else for you? That seems almost like a complete loss.

 

[JKalai]

Did they do anything else for you? That seems almost like a complete loss.

On the second day we weren't able to get into BB, the plaid comped us lunch and drinks since we had been at the ticket booth for about a hour and a half. On the last morning we tried to get into MK, and we headed to AK instead... the plaid gave us FP to NRJ and Rivers of Light since we already had FOP and Everest.

They were nice gestures by the CM's but I would easily give up both, just to have our access into the park we paid for.

What a mess. In the future, note to yourself, request they give you plastic ticket media.

Definitely. In fact, me and GF were joking that next time we are going to purchase tickets upon arrival at the gate, haha.

 

[StacyStrong]

Oh DEFINITELY agree. But I'm glad they did something for you at least.

 

[Kristin0713]

Why didn't they just give you tickets on cards??

 

[JKalai]

Why didn't they just give you tickets on cards??

Supposedly from what I understand, there are two systems on the ipads/computers that the CM's use to check tickets. The tickets were showing on the hotel system (from where I purchased the tickets), but not on the theme park system (which gives you the green light at the gate). The number they use to activate the tickets on the hotel side was missing, so they had no way to activate the tickets on the theme park system. They needed the missing number to activate the ticket from what I understood when they explained it to us. I think we lucked out on getting a Manager on the first day that was willing to comp us tickets right away. Us and the tourists next to us were having the same problem, we were holding up both ticket booths and the line was getting pretty long.

Every morning after waiting we were getting told that everything was okay and fixed, only for it to fail the next day.

 

[Kristin0713]

Supposedly from what I understand, there are two systems on the ipads/computers that the CM's use to check tickets. The tickets were showing on the hotel system (from where I purchased the tickets), but not on the theme park system (which gives you the green light at the gate). The number they use to activate the tickets on the hotel side was missing, so they had no way to activate the tickets on the theme park system. They needed the missing number to activate the ticket from what I understood when they explained it to us. I think we lucked out on getting a Manager on the first day that was willing to comp us tickets right away. Us and the tourists next to us were having the same problem, we were holding up both ticket booths and the line was getting pretty long.

Every morning after waiting we were getting told that everything was okay and fixed, only for it to fail the next day.

Interesting! What if you had brought with you a printed itinerary with the ticket numbers? I'm planning on bringing a printout of everything with me, but I'm wondering if that would even matter if this scenario happens again?

 

[Grammy4Lizzy]

How do you get convention tickets? Did you attend a convention or is this some kind of TA thing?

 

[robinb]

What a nightmare!

On a related note, how did Apple Pay work? Do they have a way to scan your phone?

 

[DisneyWishes14]

Wow, what an awful experience. It sounded like you handled it more gracefully than I would have! I don't know if it was a ticket batch issue or not, but I can tell you that I have a ticket that was purchased in February from a reputable third-party seller that has disappeared from my account. So, who knows what happened with that system update and why some tickets were affected and others weren't. In my case, I purchased two tickets from UT in Feb., linked them, never used them, and one has disappeared. I've called IT three times about it, gave them all the documentation for the ticket, and my ticket still hasn't appeared. What's odd in your situation is that the tickets didn't link properly, but your FP+ were still intact which means the system recognized you had valid tickets. In any case, I'm so sorry that happened. I know you handled it while you were there, but I would consider e-mailing Disney guest services regarding your experience. I know IT is getting swamped with calls, but I think guest services needs to know that the current IT debacle is really beyond the pale.

 

[AngiTN]

How do you get convention tickets? Did you attend a convention or is this some kind of TA thing?

In this particular case it's a TA thing