At least I got my tickets! Whether you’re booking a full Walt Disney World vacation or purchasing tickets on the website, double check everything before you buy. The website is not infallible, and it’s easier to correct a mistake before the money has been taken out of your account.
I’m speaking from experience. I purchased two Disney Very Merriest After Hours tickets when they first became available. I had priced them in my mind, and I knew how much they should cost. I didn’t really look at the price until after I checked out. I couldn’t figure out how I was so far off on how much the tax would be! I then realized that I had been charged the full price, not the Annual Passholder rate, even though both tickets are for Passholders. In my defense, I bought the tickets after midnight after a very long and tiring day. My brain wasn’t on.
Knowing that the wait times on phone calls have been rivaling the wait for Flight of Passage, I decided to email Disney through the contact form on the Walt Disney World website. Someone got back to me two days later (on a Sunday evening!) but it wasn’t the news that I wanted to hear. The email said that I had to call, and gave me the Annual Passholder phone number and hours.
I called the next morning. It took almost five minutes to put in my information to verify my account, and then my call was placed in the queue. I didn’t wait too long, it was less than ten minutes until someone picked up. A friendly Cast Member verified my information and asked what I needed help with. After placing me on hold again, he returned and told me that there wasn’t anything that he could do. It was an issue for ticketing. He said that I could wait on hold another hour and a half, or that he could put in for a callback. That was what I opted for. He verified my phone number, and said someone should call within the hour.
The callback actually came about an hour and ten minutes later. I was then put on hold again, but there was no hold music so I wasn’t really sure if I was in the queue. The hold music started at a little over 19 minutes. A few seconds later someone finally picked up. I save one minute by asking for a callback instead of waiting on the line.
It turned out that my tickets were for some reason processed as DVC, not Annual Passes, which makes no sense because I’m not a DVC Member. Also, DVC also gets a discount, so I shouldn’t have been charged the full price. Because the tickets were processed wrong that meant even more time on hold. The good news was that he was able to figure it out, and I received my refund.
From start to finish it took about two hours and 15 minutes. That’s two hours and 15 minutes I could have saved if I had just double checked before I checked out. Both Cast Members who I spoke with were wonderful, and they really wanted to help. I gave them great marks on the survey at the end. Still, if I had paid more attention this would never have happened. I hope that someone else can learn from my mistake.