Originally Posted By RoadTrip Today I made my FP+ reservations as well as a couple of Disney Dining reservations at the "My Disney Experience" website (I had make my hard-to-get dining reservations several months ago). Overall the website was intuitive and easy to use. Frankly, it functioned with far fewer glitches than what I had come to expect at Disney websites and it processed selections considerably faster. For each park, once you had chosen the three attractions you wanted to reserve you were presented with four choices of time selections. They really weren't bad. One was always geared to fairly early park arrival, a couple for mid-day park arrival, and one for late afternoon arrival. We always found one that matched our plans. Our only real problem was at Epcot, where both Soarin' and Test Track were in a separate category where you could only make one selection from that category. That left two selections and not much to use them on... where else are they needed at Epcot? We chose Spaceship Earth because we always experience it at least a couple of times, and Maelstrom because we usually bypass it because I think it is worth no more than a 5-minute wait. But we will have a first-time Epcot visitor with us this time so I figured it might be worthwhile. Now for my complaint... and maybe it is because I am an idiot. But the date defaults to the first day that it is possible to make a FP+ reservation for, NOT the first date we are in a Disney Resort (even though our resort reservation had been connected with the My Disney Experience site. Consequently I made FP+ reservations for Monday and Tuesday of NEXT WEEK instead of the first Monday and Tuesday we will be there in September. I kind of wondered what was going on when it showed the parks open far later than I figured they would be in September, and then I noticed the date displayed. Oh crap. Then the next thing that was rather confusing for me... you were not able to CANCEL a FP+ reservation on the screens where to me it would make sense to do it. It took a fair amount of screen hopping to find where I needed to go. But I was able to cancel them all and start over. This time I made sure I advanced the calendar to the proper date and proceeded to make my reservations. But then when I exited that screen to choose my next park did they display dates following what I had just entered. NO... back to next week in July. Really? I have a hotel reservation for September. I have dining reservations for September. I just made FP+ reservations for September. All of these appear in "My Disney Experience". Don't you MAYBE think they would anticipate that I want to continue making FP+ reservations for my September trip? So each time I started reserving a new park I had to again change dates. I know... overall a very minor quibble in what is truly an impressive system. I was involved with large scale systems implementations for 20 years and "My Disney Experience" is by far more well integrated than anything I've ever seen in my life. It is TRULY impressive. Overall experience: A- Next time will be an A+ because I will know what to watch for.
Originally Posted By LuvsDsnyTrips Sorry RT....sounds like that would be an easy mistake to make for anyone But, now I will remember to watch those dates
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Like I say... it is a minor quibble. I can see why they don't automatically default to hotel reservation dates... some people may spend part of the time in off-site hotels but still want to use FP+. Bur for folks where Disney Hotel reservations are in the system and displayed on "My Disney Experience" it would make sense to question at the start if you wanted to make a reservation for your "xx/xx/xx - xx-xx-xx" visit using the dates of your hotel reservation dates. If you had more than one hotel reservation in the system, it could ask which visit you were selecting for. If you were selecting for dates when you were not staying on-site, you would just indicate "no" and proceed through the current process. But as I said before, I was VERY satisfied with the system overall. As far as I'm concerned it was a good (if costly) investment for Disney to make.
Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub That "date" flaw in their system caught me off guard when I discovered I had booked as if I was arriving that day at Carthay for 10 people. I panicked thinking I would be charged the No Cancel Fees ( $10 per person). I had to call Disney directly and they allowed me to cancel with No Fee since it was new to their system last year. So Yes be very cautious about those dates automatically reverting back to current instead of future!!! Always double-check.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros The date thing is really dumb, especially since (for the time being) only on-site guests and APers can made advance FP reservations. Why does the current system even allow you to use a non-AP ticket to make a FP reservation that's not a part of your hotel stay? That's just dumb Did you check into park-hopping FPs at all? I know they were talking about adding that capability (along with the 4th FP that you can reserve after you use your first 3) but I'm not sure if it's been implemented yet As for the dining reservation cancellation fee, the WDW system only charges you if you cancel within 24 hours of your reservation time; I would guess it's the same at DL. Of course, if you call and talk to them and give a reasonable excuse (sick family member, etc) they will waive the fee for you. Also, as long as at least 1 person checks in at the restaurant (they don't even have to dine there if they decide the wait for a table is too long), the fee for the entire party is waived. The fee is designed to prevent guests from making multiple reservations for the same meal, not to inconvenience them and trick them into spending more
Originally Posted By RoadTrip No, I did not check into park-hopping FP's. I've found I rarely park hop at WDW... it is just too inconvenient. So I no longer buy park hopper passes... it is either one park per day or an annual pass. By the time you make it to the front of the park you are leaving, walk to the transit, wait for the transit, get to the next park, go through the whole front gate security thing and walk to the first attraction you want to visit; you've taken two hours out of your day. Since I'm at the point where after 25+ WDW visits and at 62 years of age I rarely want to spend more than 8 hours in the parks anyway, it just doesn't make sense to buy hopper passes. I do park hop at Disneyland, but it is far easier to do so there. I do like having AP's at WDW... I can hang out at my resort all day, head over to Epcot for a couple of glasses of wine and Illuminations, and not "waste a day" on my pass. But park hopping doesn't buy me much.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip My wife downloaded the "My Disney Experience" app to her smart phone tonight (I just have a dumb phone without internet - I'm cheap). Although problems had been reported with the mobile app previously, we had no problems whatsoever. Rather than creating a new login and having to link existing reservations to it, my wife just used my login and password... maybe that resulted in reduced problems.
Originally Posted By hopemax Just a word of warning. Don't change your reservation. A big problem guests have recently discovered, is that some changes to your reservation, require "on the backend" reservation CMs to delete your existing reservation and rebook everything. The problem is that once your tickets go away, even for the 20 seconds it takes the CM to rebook, all your FP+ reservations will go poof, with no way to get them back. A known problem is adding dining to your package because a room/ticket only is actually booked with one part of the company, and a package including dining is booked with another. People are getting caught out with their Anna & Elsa M&G and Mine Train FP's being deleted, and once they are gone, Disney will do nothing to bring them back, even if you have proof you had them booked. TDLFAN's crackdown is in effect for those rides. Everything else, if you spend enough time on the computer, which may be a lot, seems to show up. But the first person to really post details got caught out less than a week before their scheduled trip, all because they wanted to spend more money with Disney and add a Dining plan. Another "fun" part of the system, is if you wanted to swap the times of 2 of your FPs. Go ahead, since you seem to be a fan of the system. You have to set one of them to a fake time, then swap, otherwise you get a conflict. Then there's my fun situation. We're staying at French Quarter but no FP+ for us. It's not actually a "resort" benefit, despite what most people think. Since everything is tied to a ticket, and we use CM guest passes, can't get FP until we are in the park. 2nd class citizen despite how much we spend on the room, dining and souvenirs. Not to mention trying to arrange a trip where we can travel with 2 people staying on property with tickets, 2 people on property with guest passes, one local AP and one CM. As you might guess, I disagree with the "truly impressive system."
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Well, you are in an unusual situation with wanting to use CM passes with FP+. But of course Disney is not going to make FP+ reservations if they don't have a ticket to go with it. I had the room booked since last January, but could not make actual FP+ selections until I had purchased our park tickets. That is really the way it has to be... otherwise what would keep someone from making FP+ selections that the first day it was possible, and then waiting to buy their tickets when they actually arrive on property. It would be very unfair, holding prime FP+ reservations for someone who hadn't even bought a ticket yet. I would never attempt to add a dining plan after the fact. I would never add a dining plan (outside of Tables in Wonderland) in the first place. I looked at it once because I liked the idea of not having to worry about the cost of things and having it pre-paid. But when I looked at it I discovered I would have a hard time doing more than break even unless I was determined to order the most expensive thing on the menu in the most expensive restaurants I could find (while staying away from signature dining which uses two meals). I also don't like that you are required to purchase the dining package for every day you have a hotel reservation. I never arrive at WDW my first night until about 7 PM. I sure don't need a full day of Disney Dining Plan for a day I'm not even there!
