Hello,

Is it just me or is central reservations with Walt Disney World becoming harder and harder to deal with. For example I thought their new daily pricing system, or whatever you want to call it which allows for each night of your stay to have a different rate, was supposed to simplify things a bit (and of course make Disney more money but that's another topic...). Well for an upcoming trip this new system, plus some other completely odd new rules have meant over 6 hours on the phone with Central Reservations over the past several weeks, just to handle the room requests. It all started a about a month ago. We were calling about another reservation and asked if rates were out for the spring annual passholder discounts. They were not and the CM said we could reserve the room then have it converted when they came out. So we booked two rooms at Pop Century for 7 nights. No problems here.

Then the rates came out a couple of weeks ago so we called back and asked to be converted. After nearly an hour on the phone they ended up taking the one single reservation and splitting it into 3 reservations. One for two rooms for the first 4 nights and then 2 for the last three nights (one room on each). They said they could only get the AP rate on the last three nights (which were the weekend, so that was odd that I am paying less for the weekend than midweek), so they split it 4nights/3nights. Then they insisted that since all four guests were over 18 they had to split the reservation in two for the second three nights. I had never heard of this. If all four guests are over 18 and from the same household paying with the same credit card (and all are Annual Passholders) this seemed odd.

I called back a couple days later after check out some pricing online and I asked why they did this and the CM put me on hold several times and then came back saying it was all fixed. He read the confirmation numbers back to me and now I had grown to four numbers. He read off the prices fairly quickly and moved on. I was running out of battery on the cell phone so said ok and hung up. I looked at the numbers and realized they didn't do anything except take the first 4 nights and split that to two reservations one for each room. I spent over an hour on the phone and did nothing except go from 3 confirmation/reservation numbers up to 4.

I was frustrated so I waited a day and then called back again for an explanation. The CM was shocked and a bit surprised as I read off all the numbers to her. She called guests services and was fed the same line about not being able to have the rooms on the same reservation since we are all over 18. I asked if this was new and no one knew.. I said for years we have done this (and all been over 18) so not sure the difference this time around. Also I found online that the first night was now available for the discount. In order to book that we had to split the reservation again.

So after this nearly 90 minute phone call I now have 6 confirmation numbers, 4 different rates all for a simple 7 night 4 person resort only reservation. Then to top it all off the online system where you can check on your reservation is having problems and reports our reservations as canceled so I called back and was assured they were not. Then I started receiving all the email confirmations and realized that my deposits were not showing properly so I had to call back and go through the entire story again checking all the deposits, dates, room requests (adjoining rooms and continuing reservation notes), and then the Magical Express information.

All I know is I spent hours on the phone and it was a real hassle... I would have used the online system except the cancellation/deposit policy is terrible (why its not the same as the phone one is beyond me) and it kept trying to put me in a different resort.

So how is this new system easier/better?


Same is true when booking recreation, now you can call a central number and book everything, only problem is most people you get know very little about the programs and the booking (especially if you ask about discounts) takes forever!


Is it just me or are others having similar experiences with what should be straightforward requests taking forever to get booked and things ending up much more complicated than they should be.


FYI: One side note here, I was talking to some family members who are going in March and they have a single room that spans a weekend and has some nights on a discount and some not and they have a single reservation with the three rates (regular weekday, discount weekday, and regular weekend) so it is possible... but seems the handful of CMs I have gotten on the phone have not been able to accomplish this for some reason.

I haven't had an experience like that, anywhere. However, after it is all over, the story is very funny. I got a real good chuckle out of it.

Thanks for sharing!

I wanted to share a follow-up on this. I sent an email (basically containing the post above) to Disney explaining my frustration/disappointment with situation and what had happened. I just wanted to share the experience. Well a few days later I received a voicemail message from some at Disney saying a guest relations CM from reservations will be contacting me in the near future. A few weeks went by and I did not think anything of it. Then we received another phone call as promised and the CM talked through the issues with us and apologized several times and said she would get back to us. Later that day we received another call from WDW Reservations offering to upgrade/move us to a different resort. I thought this was above and beyond what I had intended with my email and we are looking forward to seeing how things pan out, but its nice to see that Disney still does read and work through guest comments.



Jason