Disneyland and DCA really need to rethink their mobile ordering / cashless system. It's now counter effective

[Tedwash]

Yeah, and add Boarding Groups of unknown return time into the mix - oh, I can FINALLY get that burger - oh, they just called my group to ROTR. It's deeply problematic.

That was us Saturday. Thought we could grab food while waiting 25 mins for ROTR boarding time. Ronto wraps are the only food choice at GE. No walk ups. Next available is 2hrs away. Ok. what if we try to pick up food from Tomorrowland? Galactic Grill has food available now . But wait, that's a hike to get there, eat and come back. Never mind. Hey did anyone pack that bag of Doritos from the hotel room? I still have some bottled water.

 

[BrianL]

That was us Saturday. Thought we could grab food while waiting 25 mins for ROTR boarding time. Ronto wraps are the only food choice at GE. No walk ups. Next available is 2hrs away. Ok. what if we try to pick up food from Tomorrowland? Galactic Grill has food available now . But wait, that's a hike to get there, eat and come back. Soda's and chips anyone?

We did ROTR on our first day, got a BG that wasn't called until after 3 PM. We had planned to Park Hop at 2. The next day we had HS planned but lunch in Epcot at 3ish, so if it happened again we would either miss lunch or rise. We decided that it just wasn't worth the stress or hassle and changed our morning to AK. The thing is, guests should NOT be having to make decisions like that! Someone somewhere thinks this is a brilliant idea, but it really isn't.

One of the positives was that without FP, the lines all moved really fast. I'd say never bring it back! If they could run Rise at full capacity without FP, it would eat the line constantly and wouldn't be so bad. I hope they realize that.

 

[KPeterso]

You have Stage Coach Door as one of your good ones. But when I was there on 5/11, it was terrible. I clicked that I was there as I was walking over and then waited another 20-25 minutes for my food. And then probably another 7-8 minutes in the pick up line. It was an order of chicken fingers and fries. Can't tell me it took more than 30 seconds to toss the items into the container and put it on the tray. Not even a drink! And I was not the only one there frustrated. I was chatting with 2 other guests and we were wondering if they were out plucking feathers off the chickens and catching the fish for the fish and chips.

And then this past Saturday, we got the swirl ice cream at the Cozy Cone with an immediate window. I ordered and as we were walking over to Carsland from over by Playhouse Disney, and about 30 seconds later, I got the notification it was ready. No line to pick it up and cones made while I was there. Much better and easier than Stage Door the week before.

 

[DLgal]

You have Stage Coach Door as one of your good ones. But when I was there on 5/11, it was terrible. I clicked that I was there as I was walking over and then waited another 20-25 minutes for my food. And then probably another 7-8 minutes in the pick up line. It was an order of chicken fingers and fries. Can't tell me it took more than 30 seconds to toss the items into the container and put it on the tray. Not even a drink! And I was not the only one there frustrated. I was chatting with 2 other guests and we were wondering if they were out plucking feathers off the chickens and catching the fish for the fish and chips.

And then this past Saturday, we got the swirl ice cream at the Cozy Cone with an immediate window. I ordered and as we were walking over to Carsland from over by Playhouse Disney, and about 30 seconds later, I got the notification it was ready. No line to pick it up and cones made while I was there. Much better and easier than Stage Door the week before.

My sister waited almost 45 minutes for chicken strips and fries at Stage Door on May 15. They had had a lunch reservation at Naples that they decided to cancel and figured quick service would give them more time for rides. Not quite.

 

[upritbass]

Even DTD is hit-and-miss. Some places will let you just walk up and order to-go (Corn Dog Cart, Black and Tan, Tortilla Joe's), other places require mobile order. And the software sucks. It doesn't access Apple Wallet so I had to type in all 58 (or however many) numbers by hand and expiration date and secret code and hope I didn't mistype one. If anything was wrong, it kicks you all the way back to the beginning, i.e. the menu. If the input is interrupted by, say, a phone call, it kicks you all the way back to the beginning. If you get "Thank you for your order" (yay!) followed by, "Sorry, there was an error" (boo!), it kicks you all the way back to the beginning.

 

[Iceman93]

What frustrated me most was the inconsistency. Every location had a different process for where to go and what to do after the app said your food was ready, and we ran into a couple of CM's who were downright snippy that we didn't know things like you're not supposed to go to the window that says "mobile order pickup" after the app says "proceed to the window that says mobile order pickup".

Decades ago, Disney was benchmarked as handling crowd control better than any other company out there. They have really lost that ability, and the reopening woes with mobile ordering and queues spilling out all over the place are just symptoms of a deeper problem.

 

[DLgal]

What frustrated me most was the inconsistency. Every location had a different process for where to go and what to do after the app said your food was ready, and we ran into a couple of CM's who were downright snippy that we didn't know things like you're not supposed to go to the window that says "mobile order pickup" after the app says "proceed to the window that says mobile order pickup".

Decades ago, Disney was benchmarked as handling crowd control better than any other company out there. They have really lost that ability, and the reopening woes with mobile ordering and queues spilling out all over the place are just symptoms of a deeper problem.

YES! So much inconsistency. Why didn't they just establish a process and streamline it so it is the same everywhere? And why on earth is there any need to line up AGAIN after your order is allegedly ready for pickup? Wasn't the whole point of this system to eliminate people standing in lines?

 

[Disney0010]

What I’m reading here sounds like WDW two weeks ago. No where near enough places open for dining versus the capacity in the Florida parks. When we were in AK and tried to order at Flame Tree BBQ we were told that there was approximately 150 orders ahead of us. Disney has some work to do but I have my doubts that they really care. There are people standing by to take any cancellations and they know it.

 

[gensym]

Yeah, and add Boarding Groups of unknown return time into the mix - oh, I can FINALLY get that burger - oh, they just called my group to ROTR. It's deeply problematic.

Yeah, this is exactly what happened to us on Saturday. Got a ROTR BG at noon with an estimated wait of 150 minutes. Placed an Award Weiners order with an 80 minute lead time. Rode a couple rides and then saw that our BG was already called (about 90 minutes earlier than the original estimate), so we had to cancel the mobile order. Ended up going to DTD to find a place where we could get lunch at 3pm.

We had an enjoyable time at DL last weekend, but the food situation is really stressful.

 

[cruisehopeful]

This just reinforces my decision not to be in a hurry to visit. Anytime I've gone to something new or different, it's been a cluster. Hopefully, they will be able to go back to the prior way of handling things soon.

 

[China Expat]

We are waiting until the fall to hit the parks. I am not interested in this type of experience!

 

[MillauFr]

Decades ago, Disney was benchmarked as handling crowd control better than any other company out there. They have really lost that ability, and the reopening woes with mobile ordering and queues spilling out all over the place are just symptoms of a deeper problem.

I'm sure the root of the problem is staffing issues. When they are only offering $20 / hour to work food service they aren't getting a ton of applicants. My daughter works at a wine tasting room in suburban Seattle and even offering $17 to start plus about $10 an hour in tips they are struggling to attract applicants. I was shocked they can't get applicants when paying $27 an hour. We like going to a neighborhood Italian restaurant and they had 1 server and 1 food runner trying to take care of 12 tables. It was madness. We got there at 6:30p and didn't leave until 9:30p.

I'm sure Disney is the same way. They are going to have to bump their pay to $25 an hour if they are going to expect getting enough applicants.

 

[TikiTikiFan]

Really hoping this mess calms down by the time we come in August! I'm sure Disney realizes this can't be going on long term. Offer higher pay and do some hiring fairs.

This worker shortage issue is everywhere though- my sons school doesn't even have enough bus drivers to run all their routes next year so they're not offering school busing to everyone. Reading it's an issue in Florida too and will likely impact our upcoming WDW trip. Hopefully Disney can offer some incentives to get workers back....Whole situation is frustrating.

 

[PirateBrigade]

It wasn’t so bad for me this past weekend, but I agree that juggling boarding groups and food pick up times was something I could do without. I miss spontaneously grabbing food, but I did enjoy the fact that I was able to find an open table 100% of the time and not have to desperately stalk, either.

 

[nursemelis374]

Totally agree!

Yesterday we ordered Smokejumpers around 0930 for a 1230 pickup. Arrived at 1235 and waited about 30 minutes for food.

The lack of options, need to order hours before, lack of seating, partly because everyone is waiting so long in the first place and wait for actual food are terrible.

Otherwise we have loved mobile order in the past!

 

[BrianL]

Otherwise we have loved mobile order in the past!

Yeah, Mobile Order was great - when not eveyone was using it. It's like Fast Passes - if everybody has a fast pass, then nobody has a fast pass!

 

[rowan1813]

This was a problem during A Touch of Disney and it sounds like it hasn't gotten better. My friend wanted a soda and every place had multiple hour waits. She finally got Award Weiners with a 30 minute wait but then we had to wait an additional 20 minutes in line - just for a Coke!

It was also super warm that day (90+) and while we had brought water bottles filled with water and ice, we went through them very fast and were running into the dehydrated zone. You used to be able to ask for cups of ice water (or even just cups of ice) at any QS location whether you were ordering anything else or not (or even fill up your water bottle - Pizza Port) and it wouldn't be a problem but now with Mobile Order, you can't get near a QS place to do so which is awful and something that I am going to have to figure out when we go in June.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

This was a problem during A Touch of Disney and it sounds like it hasn't gotten better. My friend wanted a soda and every place had multiple hour waits. She finally got Award Weiners with a 30 minute wait but then we had to wait an additional 20 minutes in line - just for a Coke!

It was also super warm that day (90+) and while we had brought water bottles filled with water and ice, we went through them very fast and were running into the dehydrated zone. You used to be able to ask for cups of ice water (or even just cups of ice) at any QS location whether you were ordering anything else or not (or even fill up your water bottle - Pizza Port) and it wouldn't be a problem but now with Mobile Order, you can't get near a QS place to do so which is awful and something that I am going to have to figure out when we go in June.

Wait, you can’t get free cups off ice water anymore? Man, we really depend on that!

 

[Gaugersaurus]

Wait, you can’t get free cups off ice water anymore? Man, we really depend on that!

I had no problem getting water at QS a couple weeks ago. I just walked up to a CM and asked for cups of ice water like I have in the past.

 

[rowan1813]

You can ask but we couldn't get near a counter or window to ask without having a Mobile Order. That was the main problem. When we got food we did ask and got cups of ice water (and some of the CMs were very snippy about it but I chalked it up to a busy, hot day and that they were tired already) but we didn't have food orders in constantly or when we ran out of water in our water bottles to ask for the cups of water to refill.

Sorry I wasn't clear initially!