I recently started a post on the DVC Fan Facebook group about the strange occurrence we have deemed in the group as “ghost rooms”. Many members knew exactly what I was talking about, but some didn’t. If you don’t know what’s going on, allow me to share.
Recently, and only since the aftermath of the Disney Vacation Club website going down for a few days, there have been some weird glitches going on with the member booking tool. One noticeable glitch has been called “ghost rooms”. A ghost room is a room category that shows as available when you go to book. But, when you then click the room, it’s greyed out on the calendar. Instead, it should be blue. In the below example, you can see an Old Key West room reading as available from September 9-12th. However, on the calendar, the room looks like it’s all booked up. You can see a few other dates open (Sept. 1-4), but not the dates I have selected.
Some in the group have hypothesized that this meant another member had gotten to the reservation first. However, that’s not typically how that scenario has played out in the past. I also don’t believe this is the case. Upon further inspection, this same room continued to show this way for many hours. You can see the first photo was taken at 6:32pm and the one below again at 10:38pm. I checked it every hour between and there it was, available but not. I have been stalking for a resort change for the DIS Family Reunion. So, I’ve noticed this occurring with a lot of random rooms. I made the assumption that they were a non-bookable glitch and left it at that.
But randomly today at Boardwalk, the room I was looking for presented this way so I decided to take a chance. I was able to go all the way through the end of the booking sequence before I was stopped in my tracks by the ever popular Seven Dwarves- the unfortunate once fun loving Disney characters now tasked with disappointing DVC members around the globe. I mean, I know it’s not their fault, but I would be lying if I said the sight of them didn’t make me want to turn into my own version of a Disney villain.
Long story short, I gave up and headed back to my dashboard where low and behold, the booking had actually gone through. I know it wasn’t picked up by my waitlist because there the waitlist was still glaring back at me. But somehow, Dopey, Sneezy, and even Grumpy hadn’t let me down after all. So what gives?
I’ve asked members in the Facebook group about their experiences with the ghost rooms. Many didn’t realize they could try and book them. Some have tired and failed. Others are like me and preparing to check in soon hoping their ghost room reservation does exist.
I think the even better question here is what’s going on with the member site? It feels like it’s functionality is worse then ever. We still have the borrowing glitch in effect where some resale (and even some direct) contracts can’t borrow any points at all without calling. Aulani and Grand Californian aren’t even options to modify a stay to anymore. Now we have this where some of us are able to book these “maybe there, maybe not there” rooms and others are not.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my DVC. I love that we were able to work our way up to a fantastic room for the DIS Family Reunion when we didn’t decide to go until we were sitting on a plane heading home from Disney in June. A properly working website is a must for members and should be made a high priority. DVC, I’m thankful you fixed the hold music. However, I’m begging you, please fix the booking tool and eliminate these glitches.
Room availability strangeness within the 11 month booking window does not bother me so much. It is a multi-access system. What truly annoys me is when I book a villa at the edge of the 11 month window and following days are NOT available. This should not happen and no amount of gaslighting from Terry Schultz will make it right.
So, one thing I learned before the new site was that if you want to rebook across coasts so FL to CA or CA to FL you have to cancel first and then rebook. Apparently the systems for whatever IT reason are not connected. (I work in IT and told the member services person that after 3 CA reservation calendars last year due to COVID).
As for the ghost rooms, that is the strangest bug I’ve seen in a while.
My concern is that if there is a glitch and it shows as waitlist only, what happens at check in? Do they say sorry we overbooked and your room isn’t actually available even though it deducted the points? With so many extra points in the system right now and availability scarce, my paranoia kicks in 😱
While non-Disney technology tends to improve with time, DVC has had a consistent path during the past decade towards a worse user experience. Yes, Disney software is very complicated, but it seems like IT staff would actually have to attempt to put out as poor of a product as they consistently do. Of all the customer-facing interfaces I interact with, My Disney Experience and the DVC site are the two most problematic.
After seeing huge blocks of dates return in certain room categories it really made me wonder whether Disney is giving back huge chunks of expected breakage.