In what may come as a surprise to approximately nobody, Disney World’s website is once again STRUGGLING this morning.
Disney does a lot of things really well — they have thrilling roller coasters, delicious restaurants, and beautifully themed hotels. The movies are iconic, and the music is magical. However, Disney’s websites and apps often leave something to be desired.
We’ve experienced technical problems during Annual Pass sales, when tickets go on sale for major events, and now, when 2024 vacation packages opened for booking. If you’re trying to book a package for your 2024 vacation, you may run into the same problems!
Here at the Disney Food Blog, we were all ready to book our 2024 vacations this morning at 6AM EST (Disney didn’t announce an official time for when vacation packages would go on sale today — May 31st — but in our experience, these don’t usually open up before 6AM, so we were playing it safe). We hopped onto Disney World’s website and were greeted by a waiting room page.
We sat in that waiting room, which said our approximate wait time was “recalculating,” for about an hour until we finally saw progress around 7AM EST. At that time, our team members were given various wait times, likely depending on when they opened the webpage.
The time we actually waited to get in and start booking 2024 vacation packages was actually much shorter than expected for some people. For example, one team member was given an approximate wait time of 30 minutes and actually only waited about 10 minutes before she was admitted to the website and could start making reservations.
However, for other people, the waiting room never ended.
After waiting for about 30 minutes, the page was updated to say, “We have currently paused online bookings and will resume as soon as possible.”
Even though they’d previously seen an updated approximate wait time (ranging from 10 minutes to “more than an hour”), our team members reported that it was updated to say “Recalculating.” It’s possible that there were too many people attempting to book their 2024 vacations, so the website was at capacity and could not allow more people in.
Later, the message was updated to say, “We have currently paused bookings online and over the phone.” You can book packages and reservations by calling (407) 939-5277, but that line is currently closed as well. For now, the only thing to do is to stay in the online waiting room. Disney’s message says you should not leave that room: “To retain your place in the waiting room, please don’t refresh the page or select the back button.”
We’ll continue to watch for more updates on this situation, and we’ll be sure to let you know when bookings reopen!
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Have you experienced problems with Disney World’s website today? Let us know in the comments!
Terri says
I was down to a 12 min wait when the dreaded “recalculating” came up. I got in the queue at 5:55 am eastern. It’s now 8:37 and I’m still waiting for a time.
Marilyn says
I entered last night at 12am, then 1am without any possibility of booking. At 6am I entered the waiting line and at 7pm I booked my stay.
Todd says
After seeing this play out for years and years, I’ve reached the conclusion that everyone involved in a leadership capacity within Disney Parks IT needs removed from their positions. I don’t know if it is hardware, software or just poor staff, but ultimately IT management needs held accountable.
Mockingdragon says
Phew! I’m glad I didn’t try to get on too early. I woke up at 8:30, saw that it was on pause, and went back to bed . I was able to book around 3, and I ended up calling their line too and getting on there before it let me into the website! (The cast member was thrilled to chat about all my plans and how prepared I was with all my information)