Month: June 2020

Floridadix

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

If nothing else, this pandemic and ensuing holiday destroying after-effects are giving me plenty of stuff to blog about. I know that many of you will be really missing those weeks when I’d squeeze out a few hundred words on walking the dogs or how great my commute was, but I’m sure there will be a time for that when some form of normality begins.

Speaking of normality, on Tuesday, clearly based on the science, ahem, the 2m rule was abandoned from the 4th of July and in surely unrelated news, pubs and restaurants would be able to open again from that date. You may have spotted an opinion or two from me on Twitter during this crisis that I do not feel the government have covered themselves in glory. Certainly, if the drop in my follower numbers is any judge, a good number of you did and decided you didn’t want to see any more. Each to their own of course.

Now, as much as there may be arguments and reasons to suggest that the entire exit from lockdown was driven by a reaction to, cover-up of and defence of a certain person driving to Barnard Castle rather than the science, I do recognise that at some point, the risks of further infections and deaths have to be balanced against the country being able to function and survive economically. I did hope that we would all be able to behave ourselves once in the pubs and restaurants so that they can earn some money but we could avoid a Florida style spike in cases as soon as they re-opened. But even before they open, the evidence of the beaches in Bournemouth and some football fans in Liverpool suggest we cannot.

Lots of news again this week. Virgin deferred their resumption of flights from the 20th of July to the 24th of August, still without any news on when international travel may be allowed again. Our original travel date was the 26th of August so you can only imagine the panic-stricken carnage this blog may have witnessed if we were still booked to travel then. Be thankful we moved stuff to next March as it would not have been pretty. Add to that the not unexpected horrors of folks trying to reserve their days in the theme parks and I may have combusted from a mixture of frustration, stress and wind.

TUI went a step further than Virgin and abandoned all plans for Orlando until November. A sign of things to come? Maybe and if so I fear for Virgin’s viability.

This huge spike in cases in Florida and other states is horrifying and weird. Not that I would suggest for a second that the stats may be doctored, but to see such record levels of infection have little or no effect on hospitalisations and deaths (yet) seems odd. I really do hope that we don’t see similar spikes in deaths and it might be possible, to some extent, to live with this thing just making people ill for a few days and not killing them. The way things developed as the week went on did not look promising. Now we are seeing re-openings reversed in some states and beaches being closed in places like Miami.

Seeing the depressing tales of woe from those trying to make park reservations on Monday and Friday did not fill me with glorious delight and anticipation. As I girded my loins for my turn I was both dreading and looking forward to 12pm today, being online and ready to go.

To make that a reality I would, of course, need our theme park tickets in my hands. To this end, I sent Floridatix a huge sum of money on the 19th of June so they could get them to me in good time. Their web site promises that once your balance is paid you have your tickets within 7 days.

By Thursday I was getting a little jumpy as I had not got any texts or emails with the promised tracking number so I called them. I was told that they had been posted that day and was given a tracking number for the 48-hour service they were using. They would be with me on Saturday they said. Jolly good.

I did try to use that tracking number to see where they were but the Royal Mail web site didn’t recognise it. Giving them the benefit of the doubt I thought it may take a while to come up there so I left it till Friday.

Earlier in the week, I think it was Monday, I had emailed them on a separate matter about being able to get a refund should my tickets be worthless if I could not reserve any parks. They replied within a day or two saying I could. I replied, thanked them and asked if they knew when my tickets would arrive. They hadn’t replied by the time I called on Thursday but, on Friday I did get a reply to that email saying they had been posted “today”.

I thought that was odd but took them at their word.

Saturday came, as did the postman. Sadly the tickets did not come with him. I tried to call Floridatix but they were closed. I tried their Facebook page, with no response and emailed them, expressing my “mild disappointment”. I had no reply to any of those methods but spookily, within half an hour I had a text and an email from Royal Mail telling me my package from Floridatix was on its way and would be with me on Monday.

Imagine my absolute rage. The tracking number was of course not the one I was given earlier in the week and when I did use that new tracking reference, it told me the sender sent the package at 7.28pm on Friday, using a 24-hour service, not the 48 hour one I was told they always use.

Now, I suspect I will still be able to book the parks we want a day after everyone else gets to have a go and I know of course that things go wrong from time to time, but what I cannot fathom or accept from a company I have just given a shit ton of money to, much earlier than I usually would, is being lied to, not once, but twice.

I have been a “happy” customer of theirs for a few years now. By happy I mean they have done what they were meant to and provide me with something I wanted when I wanted it at a price I was willing to pay. Now, they have shit the bed, pissed me right off and not only lost my future business but led me to moan about it to a few people who may at some point be in the market for theme park tickets.

I am by no means a “Karen” (google it if you don’t get the reference) and I am not inclined to “ask to speak to the manager” or moan about stuff (outside of my weekly blogging, but you know what I mean) but I’m afraid lying is beyond incompetence or human error and I need to passively aggressively shout into the void to make myself feel better. My first world problem rage grows by the hour as the 12pm milestone grows closer and I can only imagine thousands of others piling on to the website to book up all the slots I want, but due to shit service and dishonesty, I cannot.

I will admit that the completion of my self-assessment tax return early on Saturday morning, right around the time that I realised I had been shafted by Floridatix, had not helped my mood for several thousand reasons, but regardless of external factors ticking me off this is, whichever way you look at it, a bit shit and it needs calling out.

Although I do genuinely think there will still be slots to be had tomorrow (although I can’t possibly be sure) if there are not then the actions of Floridatix could potentially have ruined the entire trip and made the huge sums being paid for it null and void should we not be able to reserve entry to any theme parks at any point during our trip. I am, as you may be picking up, absolutely furious.

Anyway, after another post which confirms this blog as first-world problem central, I shall go and silently seethe for the rest of the day watching social media fill up with tales of everyone booking the theme parks I want to go to.

Till the next time……

Reservation Reservations

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

It’s time to retire the cliche that a week is a long time in politics. What has happened in the last seven days in the small world (see what I did there?) of WDW holidays has dwarfed anything that has ever happened in Westminster.

It’s been an odd week for sure. Away from WDW, work has been off the scale busy, with me barely having time to knock another day of our countdown on the fridge each morning. There was also all sorts of COVID crap going on too. Having just read through this post before publishing it, the scattergun, all over the place nature of it reflects the nature of the week just gone quite well, so I’ll leave it as it is.

Florida seems to be trying to become the new global centre for infections, leading to the Mayor of Orlando issuing a mandatory mask executive order from yesterday for the “Disney” counties. No doubt the same folks who think they need to take an AR-15 to Taco Bell just in case shit goes down and they need to lay down some covering fire will find a piece of cloth across their mouth too much to bear.

Disney, although understandably busy getting their act together did not cover themselves in glory either. Early in the week, Floridatix posted a since-deleted blog post with all sorts of odd stuff in it. There was talk of reservations for the parks being required right through 2021, the removal of the 7 and 14-day park tickets from September 2021 and some other bizarre stuff around 21-day tickets that my brain couldn’t take on board. Displaying all of my customary wrongness I, of course, dismissed it as nonsense.

It does appear that Floridatix jumped the gun as did a couple of other ticket companies, but despite me originally thinking it was all bollocks, as the week progressed it became clear that something along those lines was in the planning. The fact the information was published and then removed and that there was no immediate communication from Disney itself was if you looked at any of the WDW related Facebook groups, causing some angst among Disney fans.

It was a bit poor in my view. Disney knows that a lot of the fun of going there is the planning and anticipation and the current chaos and random communications have killed all of that. Now, I recognise there’s a pandemic going on and they are busy reinventing their entire operations, but this death by a thousand cuts approach to their communication isn’t good. It’s a stressful time for the planners in the party.

So by the middle of the week, it did look to be the case that park reservations would be in place going into next year. By I think Wednesday, the Disney website had been updated to show those bookable dates for park entry for AP holders through June 2021.

The ticket companies, when they prematurely communicated this stuff were suggesting everyone pay their balance asap so that they could link their tickets to My Disney Experience and make their park bookings. The one bit of missing info at that stage was what the window might be to do that. If there was no window and you can literally book your days as soon as you have your tickets then I figured I’d likely cough up the balance to give us the best chance of getting into our parks of choice. If they said you can book from say, 60 days out, then, of course, we’d pay up just before that. It would just have been nice to know what the hell was going on.

Well, on Friday, it became a little clearer with the following info being released this time by Disney.

Booking Dates for Park Reservations

The Disney Park Pass system will be available soon to select Guests. Booking dates vary based on your plans.

Beginning June 22, 2020, Disney Resort and other select hotel Guests with a valid theme park admission can make reservations.
Beginning June 26, 2020, Annual Passholders without a Resort stay can make reservations.
Beginning June 28, 2020, existing ticket holders can make reservations.

Park reservations will be available through September 26, 2021, based on your Resort stay and ticket eligibility or ticket eligibility window.

So that made it clear(ish) that we would need to have our tickets paid for and linked up asap so that on June 28th we could attempt to secure the parks we want. Hopefully, we will be able to get them sorted. Thankfully, when I booked our theme park tickets I included cancellation cover so should we find there is not enough availability during our stay then we will be able to return them and sack the whole thing off.

I do wonder if Disney have not put a booking window in to help themselves and their ticket company partners. It is clear they have all had a torrid time, taking in very little new revenue and no doubt refunding a lot of people. With this new system many folks will be encouraged to pay for their 2021 park tickets now, helping the cash flow of those selling tickets. I have some sympathy for that, if that is the case, as we all need those companies to stick around.

Overall though, this is just a whole heap of stress and uncertainty that should not be the case with an expensive holiday. It still seems odd to me that Disney is announcing so many changes so far into the future. To be releasing policy changes up until the end of 2021 when nobody knows what the end of next week looks like seems premature to me. I do hope they are not using the current situation to make some changes they ideally would have liked to anyway, but feared the backlash. The termination of the 7 and 14-day tickets from September 2021 seems especially weird. If that persists beyond the 50th celebrations that will have a material effect on UK visitors. I understand that many of you will be more outraged by the withdrawal of the dining plan. We’ve never used it so that doesn’t really affect me, but I shall be angry on your behalf.

In all of this, I am clinging on to the hope that they are going for the worst-case scenario and it can all be taken away as things improve with something like a vaccine. My naive yearning for normal is never-ending.

In other news, Canada and the US extended their border lockdown until July 21st. Now, this may be a coincidence, but Virgin have been saying for a while that they are planning to start flights again from July 20th. Virgin this week also said they would start up again from early August from Manchester. This is a total guess, and please bear in mind my very poor track record on this sort of thing, but maybe Virgin know something, and that is the date that the US will open up to international visitors. Not that this affects us anymore. Trump got bored with COVID about three weeks ago and is instead concentrating on infecting lots a few of his supporters at rallies so who knows. When he remembers the ban exists on international visitors he may just lift it.

As this traumatic week came to an end, cases across Florida spiked above 4,000 in a day and the whole country’s stats look like they are on the rise. There’s some chatter about this being OK as hospitalisation and death rates are flat. I want to buy into this theory, but there is a few weeks lag between infections and those then needing to go to the hospital and/or dying so I think it’s too early to tell. The thinking that the increased testing in Florida was driving the spike in cases seems to be largely incorrect. The positive case rate is up above 12% compared to around 5% for recent weeks in early June. It’s not good.

So ahead of me is another week of stress as I watch the front door waiting for our tickets to arrive. This time next week I need them in my sweaty mitts so that I can be online booking our park reservations. We’ll be fine, right?

Till the next time…….

The Post Postponement Post

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Welcome to the first blog post after the big reschedule. This shall be an attempt to embrace the “new normal”. A normal in which my countdown went from a very lovely 80ish days to around 270. It will take some adjusting to, but try I shall.

One thing that this whole debacle has taught me, or should I say reminded me of, is that there is no bad time to take that holiday. I of course specifically mean one to WDW but I guess it goes for those who do holidays wrong too.

I was about to try and count all the years that we went despite probably thinking we shouldn’t for all sorts of financial reasons. The truth, however, is that was probably the case every year. We could always have spent the money on something else. The fact that we didn’t and instead blew all our disposable income on these trips is something I never regret. Now, later in life, with probably more disposable income and options, the fact that we have been prevented from going is ironic at best and a complete shower of shit at worst. So I am very glad we were “silly” in the past.

Just to complete the loop on my reschedule planning, I was correct for a second time last week when I predicted that the car hire folks would suddenly need a load more money. To move our booking required a 20% increase in the fee. I did a quick comparison on a few sites to see if a fresh booking and losing my £50 deposit would be cheaper but it wasn’t worth the hassle. I swallowed the ridiculous increase and just got on with my life, only pausing briefly to moan about it in my weekly blog that nobody reads. It is news to me that March is somehow more “high season” than the end of August but what do I know about trips to WDW?

I have rebuilt “the plan” around our new dates, retaining the bulk of all the theme park days and eateries, but they may get a little tweaking over time just to cater for the weekends falling on different days of the trip for us now.

It appears that the Flower & Garden Festival is scheduled to start on our first day too. Louise, Emily and I have experienced this before, but it will be a first for everyone else on the trip. As nice as it is to get to see different things like this, I still would very much have preferred to go in bloody August.

I have been keeping a close eye on how things are shaping up in Florida. Having done so previously to desperately look for reasons that we may still be able to go, now, it’s more to check that we made the right call. I, like probably both of you reading this, watched the Tim Tracker video of him going to Universal, face mask and all. It looked OK to be fair, but there did seem to be very few people about and he only did a couple of hours. How that would be for a full-on park day with capacity crowds (whatever they may be) I don’t know. Look, I know I’m trying to subliminally convince myself we made the right call, just play along.

I’ve also been continuing to enjoy and appreciate the daily updates from Lionel over at Hit The Theme Parks. He’s been doing some useful and welcome analysis (in a spreadsheet and everything) about what the recent spikes in Florida cases are all about. It does seem to be linked to some more tests being done, but there is an increase in cases, which is to be expected when re-opening up everything, but whether it is the catastrophe the headline figures suggest, we don’t yet know. If case numbers rise rapidly but hospitalisation and death rates don’t then this might be tolerable. Let’s hope things can be kept open and under control until that vaccine arrives just in time for our trip in March to be just like the good old days!

So with all the kerfuffle of making the decision not to go finally behind us, now we need to settle into the reality of the longer countdown, so much more work and the prospect of a glorious UK winter to endure. If I moan about that from time to time, forgive me. It’s not like me to do that, as you know, but I can’t make any promises.

Till the next time…….

Virgin On The Ridiculous

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

We have a lot to get through so let’s not waste time. Take it as read that I’m a first world problem, holiday obsessed idiot with no awareness of the real problems going on around me.

The week began in a maelstrom of self-doubt and second-guessing. As soon as I pressed the button (metaphorically) to change our trip everything suddenly seemed to be getting a lot better very quickly.

This, of course, was just my perception and a reaction to having made the call, but it did not stop me persecuting myself. I’m not often right in my predictions but my spider-sense was absolutely spot on with regards to Virgin. Their website promises a joyously seamless experience should you wish to move your booking to a new date. I feared this was bollocks and I was very correct.

I emailed them and got no response within the 48 hours promised so I resorted to messaging them. What followed was a text message conversation that lasted longer than a 13-year-old talking to his first crush.

It may well have been that I just struck unlucky with my agent, but I don’t know what happened. It was a mess. I understand many agents are working from home and they may be worried about their jobs and long term future with Virgin of course, but it won’t stop me moaning about it like a man-baby.

It didn’t start well as their first reply to my initial message confirmed that my booking had been moved to the 26th of August. I pointed out those were my original dates and could they move it to the 1st of March as I’d requested. I was then told to go online and do that. If the agent knew anything about me at all they would have known that I would do almost anything to avoid dealing with a human being if an online alternative exists, but I patiently explained there was no option to change my booking to new dates online, or else, I would have done that before emailing and texting them.

Having run a dummy booking on their site for our new dates I saw that I could get Premium both ways for a few hundred quid more so I requested that. Apparently, when booking that via a person it comes with a slight surcharge of £425 each. Not wanting to prolong this agony I told them to just move the thing as it was to the new dates. This was just the beginning of the longest run of changing facts since the Vote Leave campaign.

Next, I was told there were no seats in the cabin we had booked on our outbound flight and there would be a price difference to pay as we’d have to go “Economy Delight” rather than “Classic”. I asked how much that would be and/or if the next day’s flight had better availability.

Some time passed and I was then told I’d be better off getting back to them “later” as they’d know more then what might be available. “Later” seemed to mean closer to our original departure date. How unavailable seats become available “later” wasn’t clearly explained. I explained I could not do that as I had a million other moving parts of this trip, some of which were holding dates for me and I just wanted to move the booking as promised on their web site.

I was getting tetchy at this point and having run that dummy booking on their web site, I could see a load of empty “Classic” seats. When I pointed this out, suggesting several rows that I’d be happy with, suddenly they miraculously found some too and, good news, they could be mine for just £145 extra…each. I declined, questioning why I needed to pay extra for the same cabin I had on my existing booking.

Amazingly, now they went back to insisting there were no “equivalent” seats on the outbound again and I would need to pay them lots of money. I asked about a refund. All I got was a standard reply saying I had to email another address and refunds would take a lot longer then the 90-day rule says it should. Confused? So was I.

I enquired why they were inventing extra charges. They said they were not, and they just had no equivalent cabin seats and I would need to upgrade. Pointing out that the dummy booking I was looking at was actually cheaper than the price I paid for our original dates they said they could not price match to the web site as it gave a discount. I do love a consistent brand experience across their various channels. You can’t beat a company’s website competing against their own call centre agents to give customers a warm glow. I said I did not want a price match, I wanted them to book us some of the available Classic seats I had already paid for and I could see lots of online.

Then I was told that I didn’t have Classic on my original booking (even though I could see it on their website that I did).

Apparently, they suddenly decided to tell me that I had OSCAR reservations which were promotional and funnily enough my new dates did not qualify for that promotion so I would need to pay another £900 if I changed to the new dates.

So the only option I now seemed to have was to apply for an open ticket as apparently then I could make my own new booking on their website. I abandoned the text conversation at that point and I filled out the form on their web site requesting that my booking be converted into an open ticket. This was Tuesday, four days after we decided to move the flight and we were still no further forward. Those who know me at all will understand that this would not be good for my planning obsessed, uncertainty allergic state of mind.

Much time passed and nothing happened. The form told me that I could relax now and, although it may take a few days they would sort it all out and come back to me.

They did not come back to me.

By Saturday I was stressed out, anxious and angry. I’d already moved the theme park tickets to next year, investing in a new one for Freddie who will be three next March and I had the villa holding our new dates, now, for over a week. I had a Frankenstein of a trip, made up of two different sets of dates and nobody at Virgin cared one jot.

On Saturday afternoon I decided enough was enough and I did something I never do. I phoned them. I had to wait 90 minutes listening to Bitter Suite Symphony by the Verve, before getting through to someone. Melanie, the agent I was connected to was Welsh, lovely, professional, efficient and understanding.

Not that I have anywhere else to take my Trans Atlantic business in future, but she restored my faith in the company I have to fly with.

Within ten minutes the dates were changed. Did I have to pay the extra £900? Nope. There was no charge to amend the booking of course, but there was, for reasons I didn’t understand or care enough to get into at this stage, a £30 per person fare difference. This would be more than compensated for by the £210 refund I was due for the bubble seats we’d upgraded to that no longer existed. I did have to pay the extra there and then and wait about six months for the refund, but all in all, after the angst of the week just gone, I took that as a victory. I did have one last concern.

With the dates now moved, I had a fear that my request to convert my booking into an open ticket (remember that?) would still be carried out. Melanie assured me she would add notes to my booking so that would not happen. As much as I want to believe my new friend Melanie, I hope that works out.

Immediately I could see the new details on their web site and I was able to book seats and meals. It was a relief.

With that in place, I could now move through the other required changes like a virus at a protest. Of course, everyone wanted their extra pound of flesh. I could change the villa booking online as that was with Airbnb. I had been messaging the owner and I did again to query whether the chunky extra fee I was being shown was valid and they really would charge me that. It was and they did.

I booked the Hard Rock for our new dates and again, the prices now quoted were significantly higher than the ones for this August. I also requested our original booking was cancelled. Travel Republic allows you to book with a very low deposit with free cancellation right up until the booking, so surely that will all be straightforward. Right?

I have messaged USRentaCar to move our booking to March. The same intuition that told me Virgin would be a shit show also tells me there will be more money heading their way for the privilege. I will, of course, let you know.

I emailed our airport taxi, and that change was the least painful of them all with an immediate reply saying that was all OK with no mention of extra costs. There’s time for that I suppose. I even messaged my nephew Jack who house and dogs sits for us and booked him for the new dates.

So I think we’re all sorted now, or as sorted as we need to be at this stage.

Having found it so hard to make the change, I did feel an unexpected sense of relief at having done so. I did get a cold shiver after seeing the new dates for the flights on the My Booking part of Virgin’s site. It was a sudden horrific confirmation that I wouldn’t be there this August, but overall, I feel it’s probably the right thing to do.

This view has been confirmed slightly by the case numbers in Florida spiking over the last few days of course. They do seem to be rising quite dramatically and were we still planning to go at the end of August that would be stressing me right out.

There’s some suggestion that the extra positive cases are a result of increased testing, but that, from the Republican Governor hell-bent on re-opening seems like a bit of a stretch.

Disney is publishing more detail on resort and park rules and I’m more convinced than ever that we wouldn’t be getting into a Disney park every time we might want to so I suppose that is some consolation.

Now, I can concentrate on stressing about what things will be like next March of course. I just pray there is a vaccine between now and then.

It’s been a week I wouldn’t wish to repeat and now you just have to endure me papping on about this trip for the next 267 days or so. Enjoy!

Till the next time……