Looks like the park reservation system is here to stay.

[AnnaS]

Do you have tickets for those dates? A few weeks ago I tried to make park reservations for our June trip and couldn't, because although we had just renewed my AP (our APs expired in early March), we hadn't renewed DH's AP yet, so he didn't have a valid ticket for June.

Yes, our APs expire 11/2.

 

[CarolynFH]

Yes, our APs expire 11/2.

Well, I had to investigate. I have some onsite and some offsite resort reservations. When I went to make park reservations for July, when we're onsite and therefore choosing from the AP with onsite resort stay bucket, it showed me the park reservation calendars from now to the end of July. It wouldn't show August or later. Then I made some park reservations for our offsite visit in December, using the AP with no resort reservation bucket, and the park reservation calendar opened up from now through February. So maybe it has to do with which bucket you're looking at, since an AP has to specify whether they have an onsite stay or not?

If that's not it, then I guess a call is in order - sorry!

 

[AnnaS]

Well, I had to investigate. I have some onsite and some offsite resort reservations. When I went to make park reservations for July, when we're onsite and therefore choosing from the AP with onsite resort stay bucket, it showed me the park reservation calendars from now to the end of July. It wouldn't show August or later. Then I made some park reservations for our offsite visit in December, using the AP with no resort reservation bucket, and the park reservation calendar opened up from now through February. So maybe it has to do with which bucket you're looking at, since an AP has to specify whether they have an onsite stay or not?

If that's not it, then I guess a call is in order - sorry!

Thank you!!! I have some time later today. Might make that call.

Okay - You just made me go back to my disney experience.

I see the two different links....

Book Park Reservation for Guests with Annual Pass and then on the bottom

Park Reservation for Annual Pass with a Disney Resort Reservation or Select Hotel Stay

I don't remember making my first 4 park reservations with the Second link/bucket......perhaps that is why it did not let me go further. I used the top.

I just finalized my last 3 park reservations using the bottom link/bucket with Hotel Stay. When I did this, my Beach Club reservation popped up - so I can bet I did not do this the first time.

Thank you again so much. Did not pay enough attention to this/the difference the first time. Since it allowed me to make the reservations, I just kept making them until I could not

 

[Alicefan]

100% THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! It isn't just WDW it is DLR too. We were at DLR in October. DL was absolutely packed on morning and the lines were ridiculous (60 minutes for Small World) and we kept looking at the wait times and they were extremely short over in CA (like 15 minutes for Toy Story Mania, and 30 minutes for RSR short). Any other trip, we would have immediately walked out of DL and over to CA and had a great morning. This time, we were stuck in DL being miserable and that was before Genie + so there was NO fast pass for anything. We despised the park reservation system- not only for that, but for the inability to hop for lunch. I think it is even worse at DLR because hopping has no time commitment there- it takes 5 minutes to be out of one park and in the other.

Aww man I hate to hear that they are doing it at DLR as well. We've been talking about going back and knowing that makes me hesitant. I don't understand their thinking on trapping people. What you just said is proof that they aren't dispersing the crowds at all. I just don't get what they are getting out of this system?

 

[CarolynFH]

Thank you!!! I have some time later today. Might make that call.

Okay - You just made me go back to my disney experience.

I see the two different links....

Book Park Reservation for Guests with Annual Pass and then on the bottom

Park Reservation for Annual Pass with a Disney Resort Reservation or Select Hotel Stay

I don't remember making my first 4 park reservations with the Second link/bucket......perhaps that is why it did not let me go further. I used the top.

I just finalized my last 3 park reservations using the bottom link/bucket with Hotel Stay. When I did this, my Beach Club reservation popped up - so I can bet I did not do this the first time.

Thank you again so much. Did not pay enough attention to this/the difference the first time. Since it allowed me to make the reservations, I just kept making them until I could not

It’s an exceedingly confusing system! Took me a while to figure it out, especially when they changed the system last year between my making some park reservations before the system changed and then wanting to switch some after the system changed.

 

[jpeterson]

Thank you!!! I have some time later today. Might make that call.

Okay - You just made me go back to my disney experience.

I see the two different links....

Book Park Reservation for Guests with Annual Pass and then on the bottom

Park Reservation for Annual Pass with a Disney Resort Reservation or Select Hotel Stay

I don't remember making my first 4 park reservations with the Second link/bucket......perhaps that is why it did not let me go further. I used the top.

I just finalized my last 3 park reservations using the bottom link/bucket with Hotel Stay. When I did this, my Beach Club reservation popped up - so I can bet I did not do this the first time.

Thank you again so much. Did not pay enough attention to this/the difference the first time. Since it allowed me to make the reservations, I just kept making them until I could not

I pause on that screen everytime. I eventually hit the right button but I have to stop and think.

 

[Jrb1979]

Aww man I hate to hear that they are doing it at DLR as well. We've been talking about going back and knowing that makes me hesitant. I don't understand their thinking on trapping people. What you just said is proof that they aren't dispersing the crowds at all. I just don't get what they are getting out of this system?

What they are getting out of this system is a way to control labor costs. Since they know roughly how many people will be in each park each day Disney then knows how many CMs they need. It's all about money and not about the guest.

 

[DL1WDW2]

How does this alert them to the park hopping capacity for resort staffing. After 2:00 ?
It doesn’t!

 

[Brocktoon]

What they are getting out of this system is a way to control labor costs. Since they know roughly how many people will be in each park each day Disney then knows how many CMs they need. It's all about money and not about the guest.

Exactly. If they allowed park hopping earlier they would have trouble understanding the optimized (based on cost) staffing for the parks with guests jumping to a less crowded park that does not have proper staffing. They probably figure by 2 PM they have a better metric of where crowds may move based on G+ and reservation data. Too much movement in the morning would cause them to 'overstaff' the parks. Disney must have seen enough cost savings with this plan that they said ... 'yep this isn't going away for any of our parks'

 

[CarolynFH]

They probably figure by 2 PM they have a better metric of where crowds may move based on G+ and reservation data.

That’s what I think, too.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

What they are getting out of this system is a way to control labor costs. Since they know roughly how many people will be in each park each day Disney then knows how many CMs they need. It's all about money and not about the guest.

FastPass+ already gave them that information, which... RIP.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

How does this alert them to the park hopping capacity for resort staffing. After 2:00 ?
It doesn’t!

Park hopping behavior is extremely predictable.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Exactly. If they allowed park hopping earlier they would have trouble understanding the optimized (based on cost) staffing for the parks with guests jumping to a less crowded park that does not have proper staffing. They probably figure by 2 PM they have a better metric of where crowds may move based on G+ and reservation data. Too much movement in the morning would cause them to 'overstaff' the parks. Disney must have seen enough cost savings with this plan that they said ... 'yep this isn't going away for any of our parks'

Agreed. Plus they'll know on any given day how many park hopper/annual pass tickets have scanned in for park entry. Not all people can park hop. Perhaps a reason they might continue not only with park reservations, but the 2pm park hopping with the requirement you must scan into your 'original' park first. They have pretty decent control over the numbers for each park during the day.

 

[Dis Dragon]

I'm not sure how often this happens, but we were there the first week of March and totally decided to change our plans the night before to a different park except it said passes were sold out. I went through MDE and tried to change them anyway and it switched our party to the park that was unavailable. I'm not sure if that was a bug but was extremely glad we didn't have to go to our other park to scan in to go to the park we wanted to go to that next afternoon. It did make me wonder how well the reservation system worked though.

I agree with most of the sentiment on this board, we went expecting lower crowds and met with bigger crowds then what we saw in December (and those crowds were larger than we had seen before). We strategically plan our visits to be at low crowd times and those don't seem to exist anymore.

I would even appreciate the hopping to move to 12pm... We're usually done with whatever morning park at that time - at first I thought they kept it at 2 because of the battle groups for ROTR, but that's no longer a reason...

 

[Illinois76]

Because smart business has a long term strategy that isn't built on milking the profits to the extreme.

Just making sure you actually meant to say that smart business is not maximizing profits?

 

[wdw4rfam]

I love the reservation system. Then again we are passholders that always stay onsite and book many months out.

 

[Missyrose]

I'm not sure how often this happens, but we were there the first week of March and totally decided to change our plans the night before to a different park except it said passes were sold out. I went through MDE and tried to change them anyway and it switched our party to the park that was unavailable.

How did you do modify?

 

[DduzDis]

I love the reservation system. Then again we are passholders that always stay onsite and book many months out.

We are too but I despise the reservation system. Do you not park hop? I am curious what you love about it.

 

[Dis Dragon]

How did you do modify?

You have to cancel and try to rebook. I would not suggest this if everywhere is solidly booked up, when I did this the original pass we were holding was available.

 

[Douglas Dubh]

You have to cancel and try to rebook. I would not suggest this if everywhere is solidly booked up, when I did this the original pass we were holding was available.

It would be nice if they had a “modify” button, so you could make sure your new reservation worked before you cancelled the old one. Cast members were really frustrated with this. They couldn’t see availability for cast members and couldn‘t tell if a park was open. There’s supposed to be a new system for them now so hopefully it works better.