Disney Prices

[John]

It is always a madhouse when Disney announces 'big' discounts on rooms and/or packages. I have never heard of the queue for rate quotes, but it's not a bad idea to give people an understanding of how busy they are.

I’m a bit unclear of why the website has a wait time when you are simply looking to book a room. Expedia doesn’t do that. Hotels.com doesn’t do that. No major hotel chain does that.

Is Disney’s infrastructure so bad that this was needed?

[PopPhan]

I’m a bit unclear of why the website has a wait time when you are simply looking to book a room. Expedia doesn’t do that. Hotels.com doesn’t do that. No major hotel chain does that.

Is Disney’s infrastructure so bad that this was needed?

You make a good point. I still don't think it is an infrastructure problem, per se, but more of how they use the infrastructure they have. The other sites you mentioned are primarily hotel booking sites, but Disney is not a hotelier and, as such, do not put their emphasis on hotel bookings. Is this wrong? Yeah, it probably is, especially when they are announcing discounts at such regular intervals. Should they 'beef up' their reservation server farm? Most definitely. BUT, from what 1disneynut's comment stated, at least you are not getting the old 404 Page Not Found (or Stitch ate this page) message and are getting in a virtual queue.

[1DisneyNut]

You make a good point. I still don't think it is an infrastructure problem, per se, but more of how they use the infrastructure they have. The other sites you mentioned are primarily hotel booking sites, but Disney is not a hotelier and, as such, do not put their emphasis on hotel bookings. Is this wrong? Yeah, it probably is, especially when they are announcing discounts at such regular intervals. Should they 'beef up' their reservation server farm? Most definitely. BUT, from what 1disneynut's comment stated, at least you are not getting the old 404 Page Not Found (or Stitch ate this page) message and are getting in a virtual queue.

I would almost rather get the 404 or Stitch ate the page than be smacked with a virtual que telling me I have to wait 25 minutes just to see pricing. I still haven't seen the pricing because after getting the virtual que on two days with a day in between them, I haven't even tried again. Maybe I am in the minority but I simply do not have the patience to wait 25 minutes just to look at rates. I especially do not have the patience for it when my degree is in this field and I know it is just them being cheap on their systems. If they have everything running on the same servers and do not have enough bandwidth to properly serve the reservation system that is just poor IT infrastructure and they should have dedicated servers for reservations. I mean seriously, an inefficient reservation system turns people off before they even get going on planning a trip there and eventually need the other services on the system.

[Cinderelley]

I would almost rather get the 404 or Stitch ate the page than be smacked with a virtual que telling me I have to wait 25 minutes just to see pricing. I still haven't seen the pricing because after getting the virtual que on two days with a day in between them, I haven't even tried again. Maybe I am in the minority but I simply do not have the patience to wait 25 minutes just to look at rates. I especially do not have the patience for it when my degree is in this field and I know it is just them being cheap on their systems. If they have everything running on the same servers and do not have enough bandwidth to properly serve the reservation system that is just poor IT infrastructure and they should have dedicated servers for reservations. I mean seriously, an inefficient reservation system turns people off before they even get going on planning a trip there and eventually need the other services on the system.

It doesn't get any better after you have your reservations either. Look at the debacle with reservations opening for Space 220 and the "virtual queue" not even working when I was there a couple of months ago. I still don't understand why they thought putting up a paper code for you to use on your phone was a good idea. Created a very potentially dangerous situation and what of those who don't have/can't use that type of tech. It would have been better to just use an old fashioned line.
Disney's tech has been a problem for quite a while. With it being such a giant company, they shouldn't have many problems at all, much less on the scale that they do.

[Wayne]

I'm sorry, but as an old computer systems guy dating back to the 70's, this is utter BS. With a properly designed system, there should be minimal delays, but nothing at the levels that are being reported. Disney has designed this in a way to pull people's chains and they should be ashamed.