No new resort reservations can be made June 9

rob0519

rob0519

Well-Known Member
I've been in IT Operations for over 40 years, mostly large companies, and I have never seen a business shutdown a major part of their business for such a long period of time. I would guess Disney chose a Friday because most people are off work on weekends and bookings would be heavier on Saturday and Sunday. Based on the length of this outage it sounds like a much bigger upgrade/update than simply adding next years prices. There's probably much more going on behind the scenes for the business (hardware relocation, OS upgrades, etc.) than we need to care about.
 
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DisneyJoe

Well-Known Member
rob0519 said:
I've been in IT Operations for over 40 years, mostly large companies, and I have never seen a business shutdown a major part of their business for such a long period of time.
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I had over 28 years of experience in IT before changing careers.

IMHO, I don't believe that they put the priority on their IT systems that any company of their size should, and I also think that they don't consider this a major part of their business that cannot be down for days because people will just call or go online once the systems have returned. If you have your heart set on an onsite Disney vacation, you don't have many alternative options to book it.
 
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rob0519

rob0519

Well-Known Member
DisneyJoe said:
I've been the owner of a Disney focused travel agency since 2004, as well as having many years of experience in IT.

IMHO, I don't believe that they put the priority on their IT systems that any company of their size should, and I also think that they don't consider this a major part of their business that cannot be down for days because people will just call or go online once the systems have returned. If you have your heart set on an onsite Disney vacation, you don't have many alternative options to book it.
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I agree. Disney knows if you want their experience you can't go anywhere else and you will come back again and again and again, until the systems come back up. It's an incredibly non-customer friendly and arrogant way to run a business, but because of their uniqueness in the vacation space they can and do get away with it. For all the technology money that must be being spent at ABC and ESPN, it's amazing what they do not spend at Disney World. Can you imagine either of those two networks having scheduled down time for over 24 hours?

I heard the other day that if Golden State won in 4 games ESPN would lose 150 million in revenue for the remaining 3 games. Just imagine 24 hours of no revenue.
 
21stamps

21stamps

Well-Known Member
rob0519 said:
I agree. Disney knows if you want their experience you can't go anywhere else and you will come back again and again and again, until the systems come back up. It's an incredibly non-customer friendly and arrogant way to run a business, but because of their uniqueness in the vacation space they can and do get away with it. For all the technology money that must be being spent at ABC and ESPN, it's amazing what they do not spend at Disney World. Can you imagine either of those two networks having scheduled down time for over 24 hours?

I heard the other day that if Golden State won in 4 games ESPN would lose 150 million in revenue for the remaining 3 games. Just imagine 24 hours of no revenue.
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But they really aren't losing 24 hours of revenue. The same people who would have booked during those 24 hours will still book their vacations thru Disney or authorized travel agent when the system is back up.

In ESPN's case, the games would be made up for.
 
rob0519

rob0519

Well-Known Member
21stamps said:
But they really aren't losing 24 hours of revenue. The same people who would have booked during those 24 hours will still book their vacations thru Disney or authorized travel agent when the system is back up.

In ESPN's case, the games would be made up for.
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Ok, the revenue thing was a throw in. I know it's not a revenue loss at WDW. The point is none of their other business to my knowledge have similar technology challenges .

It's still amazing a company of this size has no problem with inconveniencing, angering and annoying their customers with system outages that they have the capital to correct over time and don't. Again, if the people can't get the product elsewhere, why spend any money before it becomes a critical issue. Unfortunately, it's a business model used my a lot of companies.
 
21stamps

21stamps

Well-Known Member
rob0519 said:
Ok, the revenue thing was a throw in. I know it's not a revenue loss at WDW. The point is none of their other business to my knowledge have similar technology challenges .

It's still amazing a company of this size has no problem with inconveniencing, angering and annoying their customers with system outages that they have the capital to correct over time and don't. Again, if the people can't get the product elsewhere, why spend any money before it becomes a critical issue. Unfortunately, it's a business model used my a lot of companies.
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I agree with that.
 
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DisneyJoe

Well-Known Member
rob0519 said:
It's still amazing a company of this size has no problem with inconveniencing, angering and annoying their customers with system outages that they have the capital to correct over time and don't.
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Agreed.

It is also frustrating for the many Disney-focused travel agents that work on a client's behalf when the systems aren't working properly.
 
CaptainAmerica

CaptainAmerica

Premium Member
rob0519 said:
Ok, the revenue thing was a throw in. I know it's not a revenue loss at WDW. The point is none of their other business to my knowledge have similar technology challenges.
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We'd never know, because customers don't really deal directly with any other segments. You don't interact directly with ESPN, you interact with your cable or satellite company. Any technical issues that ESPN has are between ESPN and Comcast, Time Warner, etc.
 
rob0519

rob0519

Well-Known Member
CaptainAmerica said:
We'd never know, because customers don't really deal directly with any other segments. You don't interact directly with ESPN, you interact with your cable or satellite company. Any technical issues that ESPN has are between ESPN and Comcast, Time Warner, etc.
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You're right. Internally we have no idea how internal IT works or doesn't work at those companies, but none of their "customer facing" systems seem to have as many issues as the Parks and Resorts.
 
21stamps

21stamps

Well-Known Member
I think Comcast had a note saved in their system with my first name starting with a B..and ending with an H... I had so many issues with them. I hate to look back on that time..lol
 

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