After a thirteen month shutdown, Disneyland is set to reopen on April 30th. California and Disney will finally follow Elsa’s command to “tell the guards to open up the gates!” But before the guards can open finally unlock the gates to the Happiest Place on Earth, fans have to navigate the true barrier to Disney’s parks, the dreaded technology department.
This morning Disneyland opened up their website to allow California residents to purchase tickets and reserve dates for this summer. Like clockwork, the website immediately ran into troubles due to an overwhelming flood of guests seeking to walk the streets of Main Street once again.
Throughout the day guests were finding themselves stuck in endless virtual lines and receiving error messages after hours of holding.
Disney stated that they were aware of the website issues and are working to address them.
By midday Disneyland had sold out of both opening day and second day tickets. We will monitor the availability of other dates as the system continues to roll out.
An important date that we are watching is June 4th, the opening date for Disney California Adventure’s newest land, the Marvel-themed Avengers Campus. So far there are still tickets available for that day, but that should change quickly.
Disneyland is not the only theme park that struggled with technical difficulties upon reopening. Universal Studios Hollywood saw their ticketing website shutdown once they made opening day tickets available.
While Disney has shown huge growth in their technology department with the massively successful streaming service Disney Plus, the company has a reputation among park fans for having an unreliable website and an app that is prone to crashing.
As the theme parks continue to rely on park reservations, mobile ordering, and contact-free hotel experiences, not to mention the infamous Rise of the Resistance virtual boarding group process, one would hope that Disney would address this issue with the same energy and focus they have put into their streaming services.
However, unless we see huge changes in Covid-19 cases in California that requires the parks to be closed again, there will likely not be such a condensed surge of guests for Disneyland’s website like they saw today.
While news of fans waiting for hours on hold and server errors are never good for a company, it does indicate that demand for Disneyland is high and that fans are eager to get back into the original Magic Kingdom. Which is news that is music to Mickey’s ears.
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