As I mentioned in my previous article, Disney announced that they are resuming sales of Walt Disney World Annual Passes. This was met with a loud cheer, but also some anxiousness. This was for two reasons. First, Disney explicitly stated that “[t]he quantity of passes will be limited and passes, or a pass type, may become unavailable for purchase at any time”. With all of the pent up demand for AP’s and the potential for getting shut out yet again, you know that people are going to be slamming Disney’s website as soon as they go on sale.
That brings us to the second reason to be scared. Disney’s website (and IT department in general) has a well earned reputation for being, shall we say, less than magical.
This past Thursday April 13th, the Sorcerer Pass went on sale exclusively for eligible Disney Vacation Club members. This provided Disney fans with a preview of what could happen on April 20th when passes go on sale to the general public. We were among those who attempted to purchase a Sorcerer Pass. We have been DVC members since 2015; however, we let our passes lapse during the height of the pandemic (for obvious reasons). When passes went back on sale in 2021 for a short period of time, we missed an opportunity purchase them. Therefore, we are among the thousands of pass-less DVC members. So with much anticipation, I staked out the Disney website on April 13th, determined to make our family Annual Passholders once again.
Here is my story….
Quick Introduction
Because we are eligible DVC members, we are able to access the Sorcerer Pass even though we are not Florida residents. This is a great perk since it allows us to save over $400/person on passes, which isn’t chump change by any means. While we are blacked out from visiting during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, we never visit at this time anyway, so it isn’t any loss. Therefore, it is perfect for our travel patterns.
However, we had already purchased 10 day park tickets a few months ago, since we did not know if and when passes would be available. Normally, you can upgrade your ticket to an Annual Pass at the Guest Services at the parks. However, not knowing whether passes would be available when we visit in June, we did not want to take a chance. The good news is that I had heard from several sources that Disney would allow ticket holders to upgrade their passes prior to their trip. Unfortunately, the process wasn’t clear to me, so I was winging it.
April 12th 11:00am: Sale Time Announced
One big question going into the sale was at what time would passes be available for purchase. Fortunately, Disney sent out an email on April 12th announcing that online sales would start “no earlier than 6 a.m. ET tomorrow”. As you can see, the language is a little vague. It could mean that they go on sale as 6am on the dot. It could mean that they go on sale at noon. Who knows? But better to prepare for the worst and set an alarm for 6am!
April 13th 6:00am: H-Hour!
6am rolls around. I am logged into my My Disney Experience account and was ready to go. The Sorcerer Pass is indeed available! [PRO TIP: If you are trying to purchase a pass that has a DVC or FL resident restriction, make sure you are logged into your My Disney Experience account so Disney knows that you are indeed eligible. Otherwise, it won’t give you the option to purchase a restricted pass].
I add four pass to my “cart” and go to check out. This was way too easy! Did Disney IT really get it right this time?
Of course they didn’t!
When I got to the checkout page, it says that there is an issue. It says that I either need to remove the passes from my cart and start over or refresh the page. After dozens of refreshes, it is clear that this isn’t going to happen. From peeking at social media, I was not alone as there were similar reports from across the web.
I decide to head to work and try again later in the morning. Hopefully by then things will have calmed down.
April 13th 10:00am: Second Attempt
I try again to initiate my purchase. When I go to the purchase page, instead of letting me add the passes to my cart, it throws me into a “virtual queue”. Basically, it says that I am “in line” to go the purchase page. Once it is my turn, I will have 10 minutes to complete my purchase. My estimated wait time was around 50 minutes.
It makes sense that Disney would do this, as it reduces the load on the Annual Pass purchase page. I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t start doing this at 6am!
April 13th 10:45am: Ready to Purchase… Or So I Thought…
At around 10:45am, it is my turn to purchase. I am redirected to the Annual Pass purchase page, I add the passes to my cart, and I go to checkout. However, I am not seeing any options to replace my current 10 day ticket with an Annual Pass. Normally, when you upgrade, you can get a credit for the amount that you already paid for your ticket. However, I don’t see that option.
I click on the “chat” feature, and I am immediately put into a chat with a very friendly Cast Member. They tell me that upgrading my pass is not a problem. However, in order to do that, I need to call DVC Member Services. They cannot do it through chat, as they are not set up to take credit card payment information.
April 13th 11:14am: On Hold Hell Begins!
I call Member Services and get to the obligatory “press X for this, press Y for that”. Fortunately, Disney had added an option for upgrading tickets to Annual Passes! So I make the selection, thinking I am good. Unfortunately, I am told that my wait time is “over two hours”. Fun… Of course, that can mean two hours, or it can mean two years!
At this point, I put my cell phone on speaker and went about my business. I can report that Disney on hold music is pretty decent, which you would expect. The music was interspersed with information messages (“if you need to make Park Reservations, did you know that you can do that online?” “Add Genie+ in order to skip the lines” etc).
April 13th 2:20pm: Finally, a Human!
After being on hold for over 3 hours, I finally was able to speak to an actual person. I explained what I wanted to do and the Cast Member was ready, willing, and able to assist with no issues.
Honestly, Cast Members are the best. While she was processing my order, we chatted about different random things. What was my favorite WDW Park? When was the last time we were there? It actually turns out that she used to live in our neck of the woods, which was pretty cool. I asked how her day was going, as she probably was doing these upgrades non-stop. She said that it was fine. She had to put in eight hours anyway, so she might as well be keeping busy, chatting up other Disney fans. Great attitude!
Anyway, I am glad to report that she upgraded our tickets, charged us only for the difference. She even said that we would be able to keep all of our existing Park Reservations! Sweet!!
From the time we were off hold to the time everything was done, it probably took about 15-20 minutes.
AAR (After Action Report)
Here are my take-aways from our Day 1 Annual Pass purchase extravaganza.
The Good
- Once I figured out the process of upgrading from tickets to Annual Passes and was able to get a hold of someone, the process was very smooth.
- I didn’t lose any of our existing Park Reservations in the upgrade process.
- Disney was smart to institute the virtual queue for online pass purchases, as this probably took some load off of their systems
The Bad
- By being so coy as to when pass sales might be cut off, there was mad dash right at 6am. As of today, Sorcerer Passes are still available to DVC members, so in hindsight there probably wasn’t a need for everyone to jump on the site right when it opened. However, at the time, nobody knew how long pass sales would last.
- Clearly, Disney’s IT systems were not up to the challenge of this rush that Disney created. It would have been better for them to institute a virtual queue right from the start if they didn’t think they could handle the crush of requests.
- I wish I would have known the process to upgrade tickets ahead of time. I partially blame myself, as I could have done that homework in advance. However, it would have been nice if Disney added this to their Annual Pass FAQ or something.
- Better yet, allow people to perform upgrades online!
For those of you who are planning to stake out the Disney website on April 20th, hopefully this gives you some insight into what to expect. If I could give you one piece of advice, it would be to bring your patience!
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