by Wishes Diva
Recently while planning my family’s November vacation to Disney World, I ran into several issues. Now typically when working with Disney in the past to book trips directly, everything has gone smoothly for me so I was definitely in a position that I had never found myself in before.
We had booked a trip for November 2020 as soon as packages became available. We used an awesome travel agent who helped make everything super easy, but also gave me the freedom to do some of the planning myself considering I can be a bit of an over-planner when it comes to Disney trips. Everything was booked and linked to My Disney Experience and we had even already ordered our Magic Bands and received them in the mail! All was well… until Disney World closed March 15. It was inevitable with the way the coronavirus was spreading that something had to be done, but I became very worried about what may happen to our trip. Much like everyone else, we sat and waited for news from the parks about when and how they would reopen.
Magic Bands we received for our trip!
After Disney finally announced their opening plans, I was skeptical, and remain that way to this day. We are 4 months out from our check-in date, and still unsure as to whether or not we will go. Cue the back- up plans. We decided to book two different backup trips in case we end up not going in November. You can read about how we went about doing that here!
So after booking our back up plans, we went to do our Park Reservations. This is a new system that Disney has implemented to help with crowd control at each park. You can read more about how that system works here. As we attempted to make the new reservation Park Pass reservations we ran into issues. Our tickets had gotten mixed up on the account, and so I was unable to make our Park Pass reservations until that got fixed. Typically with tickets, you can reassign if they have not been used, however, the one exception to that is when tickets are purchased as part of a package with a hotel stay. Of course, that is what ours were, so I would need to contact Disney to get them to help.
It just so happened that we booked our new reservations as soon as it became available again, so I knew that attempting to call into the Disney helplines was going to be pointless. Nevertheless, I tried anyway. Each number I called gave me the “all circuits are busy” response so I eventually gave up. I waited a day or two and tried again to no avail. While I was searching around on the Disney “help” site I came across a Chat option for help, so I figured I would give it a shot. Within 5 minutes I had a response and was corresponding with a live Cast Member who was able to help me with my issue!
The Cast Member I chatted with was fantastic. I didn’t even have to explain to them what my issue was; they were able to pull up my account and see it right away! Overall the entire chat session took around a half-hour, simply because I had 2 reservations with 5 people on each that needed to be adjusted. When our chat ended I was all set and was able to immediately go into my account and successfully make our Park Pass reservations with no other issue!
I was overall very pleased with the interaction that I had with the chat Cast Member. It truly does show how much Disney emphasizes and prioritizes their customer service! Below I have written down some helpful phone numbers and a step-by-step guide to find the Help Chat feature on the My Disney Experience page. Hopefully, it is as helpful to you as it was to me!
Phone Numbers for the Disney Help Desk:
- Disney Resort Hotel Reservations – 407.939.1936
- Ticket Reservations
- New Tickets – 407.939.7679
- Existing Tickets – 407.566.4985
- My Disney Experience – 407.939.4357
- Annual Passholder VIP – 407.939.7277
- Non-Reservations Questions for Resorts & Theme Parks – 407.939.2273
To find the Chat feature on My Disney Experience:
- In your browser go to www.disneyworld.go.com.
- Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, and under the Help section you will see an option that states “Contact Us“. Click that option.
- When you get to the next page on the right-hand column there should be icons at the top that say: Chat, Email, Call.
- Select the Chat option and you’ll be on your way!
There are also benefits to using a Travel Agent when booking your trip, you can read about those here.
Ready to book your next trip? Contact Patricia from All 4 Dreams travels to get started today!
