MDE App was horrible this trip

[Nikciburd]

I am new to Disney so I have only been using any of their technology for about 8 months. However, I have definitely noticed that the phone app is much less reliable than MDE online. Most of the time the app says I have to call to cancel a reservation or even make a new one. Then I login through the website and it goes through no problem. I also have issues where my changes don’t refresh for days even after I manually hit the refresh button. It’s almost useless to me at this point. I always use the browser on my phone or tablet. I was hoping to use the app for maps and food ordering when we are there next week. We will see.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

It seems like the system became more unstable than usual when they made the update for digital rider swap. There were a lot of complaints after that update. I'm guessing this update was mainly to fix that but clearly they didn't get it right. You see that a lot, and not just with Disney. A company pushes a big update and finds bugs that break things and they have to follow up with additional smaller updates over the next couple months. We go in May and that seems to be a time that Disney often pushes updates. I'm often debating whether to update or keep the older version. I hate updating to a new version right before my trips. Sometimes you have to though. And in this case the older version was not good either.

As to removing the feature to easily see your remaining dining credits, my guess would be that's a feature not a bug. If you can't easily see how many credits you have it's more likely that you will go over or under. Both are wins for Disney. It's in the same vein as how when you pay with the dining plan they usually give you a receipt that shows the dollar amount zeroed. It makes it harder to collect receipts and know what you would have spent.

 

[kuhltiffany]

If the app is being awful, is this something I can use the kiosks to do? Or are they too busy/don't work the same?

 

[5DisneyNuts]

That had not been my experience.
When you can't get the app to display updated plan info I found the website works fine
Total collapse of both platforms are rare if you want to total it based on percentage of hours in the year that it works vs the hours they are both totally down

It seems like the system became more unstable than usual when they made the update for digital rider swap. There were a lot of complaints after that update. I'm guessing this update was mainly to fix that but clearly they didn't get it right. You see that a lot, and not just with Disney. A company pushes a big update and finds bugs that break things and they have to follow up with additional smaller updates over the next couple months. We go in May and that seems to be a time that Disney often pushes updates. I'm often debating whether to update or keep the older version. I hate updating to a new version right before my trips. Sometimes you have to though. And in this case the older version was not good either.

As to removing the feature to easily see your remaining dining credits, my guess would be that's a feature not a bug. If you can't easily see how many credits you have it's more likely that you will go over or under. Both are wins for Disney. It's in the same vein as how when you pay with the dining plan they usually give you a receipt that shows the dollar amount zeroed. It makes it harder to collect receipts and know what you would have spent.

Totally unacceptable experience for the guest any way you want to say it. A company that builds it's entire experience around an app and website needs to have a better goal than "eh, it works most of the time".

I don't see that a lot with companies this size. Maybe Disney should stop the updates to push for a higher revenue stream and work on stabilizing the platforms first.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I've had terrible luck with MDE since March, so I am expecting it to be horrible in 2 weeks. I'll probably use my phone browser and all of my data while in the parks. Their wifi is terrible.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I don't think it's a good thing and it's not my intent to excuse them. My point was more that this is why I try to avoid updating most apps until they've been out for a little while. Apple is always pushing out fixes after major iOS updates. Although not to this degree of bugginess, typically. Disney should do a better job of testing their updates. I agree about that.

But bugs will happen. Each and every time. They just shouldn't be this big.

 

[Lilsia]

Well I am 6 weeks out from my trip and my apps seem to be working fine from home. But I uninstalled and reinstalled them just in case. They are showing all of my FPs and reservations fine. So hopefully by the time I get there they will have the kinks worked out. On one of my past trips a few years ago they did a major overhaul on the whole system mid way through my trip and made it so the older phone that I was using was no longer one of the ones that could support the app. It was a PITA. I had to go to the website and view MDE that way the rest of the trip. Think I went over my data usage that month. LOL

 

[DrFacilier]

We leave tomorrow morning. This is not what I wanted to hear. Yikes!

 

[SaintsManiac]

I don't think it's a good thing and it's not my intent to excuse them. My point was more that this is why I try to avoid updating most apps until they've been out for a little while. Apple is always pushing out fixes after major iOS updates. Although not to this degree of bugginess, typically. Disney should do a better job of testing their updates. I agree about that.

But bugs will happen. Each and every time. They just shouldn't be this big.

I hear what you're saying, but their IT issues are just insane now. It is constant and sometimes detrimental to people's planning.

My husband is in IT and I know it's such a tough job. I just think a company of this size and wealth needs to get it together and SOON before Galaxy's Edge brings it to its knees.

 

[rileyz]

Same here, on day 5 of 12 and my fastpasses don’t show up 75% of the time. Not on dp so I don’t know about that.

 

[DisneySwede]

I am recently back from a two week trip and agree this was the worst trip for using the app. If I alternated between the app and web browser I could access and make fast passes....Very frustrating!

 

[FortWildernessLoopy]

I can say that the MDE on the web page has not been faring much better. It takes me at least a half an hour to schedule 3 fast passes. I think that I, personally, have decapitated Olaf 40 times. I am becoming a master at refresh and the back button

 

[caitycaity]

I have been having a ton of issues with the website as well. :/

 

[PA Princess]

We were at WDW August 7 - 14, and I was anticipating issues based on recent experiences with Disney tech side overall. However, we really did not experience any real problems (occasional glitches, but small).

I know for a fact we could view all dining credits on the app, because, frankly, my husband was a wee bit obsessed with using up all of those dang snack credits LOL I wish I could tell you exactly how we could view the dining credits (I think it was under our hotel area), but as with some many features of the app, that is not viewable once you leave property.

I do wonder if this is a platform/browser issue to some degree. There were 5 of us n our family group, and we all had phones, but not an Apple in the group.

 

[greg9x]

On Android phone...

Been here for week.. The app had been mostly ok for showing FP's and reservations. Have had a lot of connection issues though... sometimes seems the WiFi, sometimes the app itself. Pain when modifying FP's.
Also the pictures have been very slow to load/, show up.

Be very careful about the Play app... Phone was draining very quickly last night... Ran Maintenance and the Play App was running in background even though I didn't start it... Thinking something in MDE did. It was the culprit for battery drain.

 

[kuhltiffany]

I phoned in my room requests this morning and CM reported that it's a known issue with Apple right now...

 

[Earningmywings]

I haven’t been able to see FP+ routinely in my app in over a week (website works ok just slow). One may randomly show up, but usually just ADRs. We go in 3 weeks, hope it gets fixed. I have an Apple with the newest IOS update (I think).

 

[AngiTN]

I am new to Disney so I have only been using any of their technology for about 8 months. However, I have definitely noticed that the phone app is much less reliable than MDE online. Most of the time the app says I have to call to cancel a reservation or even make a new one. Then I login through the website and it goes through no problem. I also have issues where my changes don’t refresh for days even after I manually hit the refresh button. It’s almost useless to me at this point. I always use the browser on my phone or tablet. I was hoping to use the app for maps and food ordering when we are there next week. We will see.

I've had no problems with online ordering via the app, if it helps any

 

[AngiTN]

Just got back from a 12-day trip and had many of the same app issues as OP. A few times I went through Safari to MDE to see FPs reserved which were not showing in the app even after multiple manual refreshes.

We've never had these issues with it before -- hoping it's a temporary issue, but I wonder if it has to do with them trying to make it a one-stop-shop with links to the Play app and Shopping now"? Hopefully it will all settle in before our W&D trip in Nov!

I don't think so because we've always had issues with the app. Surprised you hadn't actually. I've used the website more than the app ever since MDE has been created.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

I don't think so because we've always had issues with the app. Surprised you hadn't actually. I've used the website more than the app ever since MDE has been created.

Nope. Never had the issues that we have on this trip.