DVC Moonlight Magic Registration Errors Make for a Frustrating Experience

I just tried (unsuccessfully) to register for the spring EPCOT Moonlight Magic event. I knew it was a longshot once I missed out on tickets during last week’s early registration. But as frustrating as it was to know we won’t be going to EPCOT on April 30, dealing with DVC’s registration platform was worse. I had minor issues last week, too, but decided not to share them here. But I experienced a much more critical error this week, one that could prevent people from booking.

First, let’s talk about what happened last week. EPCOT’s Moonlight Magic party must have sold out right after I moved from the waiting room to the registration site. I was allowed to fill out my information, but once I got to the “party size” screen, I hit a wall.

I received an error message that read “Please enter your party size to continue.” But I couldn’t do what they asked. The party size form input had been replaced with “Event Full.” I hit continue to see if there was anything else to be done, but the page simply reloaded with the same error.

Ideally at this point, the form elements should’ve been replaced with a large message stating that the event was full. Again, it’s a minor issue, but allowing users to click a useless “continue” button is never a good idea.

This week’s issue was much more significant. Users in the waiting room were given availability updates, so I knew that EPCOT’s tickets were gone 15 minutes before I was set to enter. I decided to book the May 20 Typhoon Lagoon instead. After filling out my information, I was greeted with this error:

“We have a question about your registration. Please phone or email the registration contact for this event.”

No phone number or email address was provided. When time is critical, including those details is vital. Like last week, a “continue” button was still shown, but once again did nothing. Luckily for me, I wasn’t fully invested in those Typhoon Lagoon tickets. But I still wanted to see this through. I didn’t call or email — the tickets would be gone by the time I got through to anyone. So I closed the window and rejoined the queue, which was mostly empty now that the EPCOT tickets were gone. Three minutes later, I had Typhoon Lagoon tickets. No errors. I guess they didn’t have any more questions for me.

But imagine if I had been in time to get those EPCOT tickets only to be greeted with that error? I wouldn’t have been able to rejoin the queue before they sold out. My only recourse would have been to take a screen shot and send it to DVC. Disney Vacation Club Cast Members are the best people, but I doubt they could do anything with a simple screen grab. So here’s hoping someone does a code review and updates those error messages before the next registration window opens.