Crappiest Website on Earth

How is it possible that the owners of the Happiest Place(s) on Earth (which also just happened to rake in a mere 3,374 MILLION dollars in profits last year alone) also happen to have the Crappiest Website on Earth? How? Please tell me. I just don't get it.

If I'm spending thousands of dollars on that "magical" vacation of a lifetime, then don't I deserve a pleasant booking experience? Oh sure, at first the website gives you that same magic filled feeling you had as a young child the first time you stood in front of Cinderella's Castle (which is conveniently helped by the fact that the castle is the first thing you see on the web page). The colors are bright and vibrant and the page slowly scrolls through all those magical moments you are sure to experience once you have booked your trip. And, if all this weren't enough to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, Mickey is there too to welcome you to this "happy" place.

As soon as you start to actually use the website tho, all of the illusion of magic and happiness begins to fade. If you make one tiny little mistake on a form an error is returned and ALL of your info is wiped out. Yup, you get to start over... start typing (again) but proceed with caution. Don't accidentally hit the "Enter" button before you are through or who knows where you will end up. But rest assured it will mean you will be starting over from the beginning and retyping everything again. Hopefully you are not in a hurry since all this typing and retyping is going to take some time, not to mention that even a successful form submission (if you somehow manage, by some miracle, to not unintentionally piss off the magical website fairies in the process) is painfully slow.

If you manage to actually complete the process and book your vacation on the Disney website then you are a true winner! (Akin to making it through a whole day at one of their theme parks without getting that signature red cherry snow cone stain down the front of your very white shirt). I am happy to report, that after a few tries, I WON! Our Disney vacation is now booked. Hooray!

And lucky for me, I got to have that fabulous Disney website experience again today as I shopped for a Disney honeymoon registry gift for a wedding shower of one of my friends. After retyping everything 2-3 times I was finally successful, only to find out that the "card" I was supposed to be able to print out with my personal greeting, was somehow missing MY PERSONAL GREETING!! So I ended up with "Congratulations!" + BIG BLANK SPACE + Mickey and his magic Cinderella castle at the bottom. Terrific. It should be noted that at this point any and all warm fuzzy feelings had now, somehow, magically disappeared.

Hopefully, by the time we (and my friend) actually go on our dream vacation, the magic Disney fairies will show mercy on us and make sure that all our dreams really do come true. After all, after going through all the hassle of booking the trip, don't we deserve at least that?