Updated Resort Availability Tool

[KAT4DISNEY]

Is it possible to filter specific DVC properties and room sizes? Also is there a better way to display availability than slicking on each property to display?

At the top you can filter a little but for example you can't filter to just BWV but you can filter to WDW properties. Room size, not exactly unless you want to do it be the number of people in the room. If it's 4 ppl or less then again, you'll see them all. But if it were 8 ppl then you'd see 2 BRs and GVs. Displaying what's available at the individual resorts is going to require clicking on each resort though.

 

[supersnoop]

Is it possible to filter specific DVC properties and room sizes? Also is there a better way to display availability than slicking on each property to display?

Does my previous post help?
http://disboards.com/threads/updated-resort-availability-tool.3451485/page-4#post-54510626

 

[twinklebug]

Now that I've had more time to play with the redesign, I can live with it. The key for me is to use the "points" slider to ensure it pulls up only studios

 

[Sammie]

My guess is that the ability to search by room choice will be added. I know they are still tweaking it. So constructive member feedback is important. But email, and not tie up phone lines.

 

[bookwormde]

I think that if they added resort and room size check boxes like the old tool it would resolve most of the issues and programing wise is a very easy interface change with limited back end reprograming. Of course for DVC members who do mostly 11 and 7 month reservation starting with the current month makes little sense

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I think that if they added resort and room size check boxes like the old tool it would resolve most of the issues and programing wise is a very easy interface change with limited back end reprograming. Of course for DVC members who do mostly 11 and 7 month reservation starting with the current month makes little sense

And also do not require clicking on a check availability. That would be why people go to the check resort availability tool. Have it expanded immediately.

 

[Jennasis]

I booked two separate trips this weekend using the new tool. One trip was 11 months at home resort and i booked it on my phone using my browser. The other i booked on my laptop for 7 months.

Had no problems using tool or booking either way AND got BWV studio at 7 months for what i hope will be last weekend of F&G/first weekend of SWW.

No issues here and i hate MDE and Disney IT in general.

 

[bookwormde]

And also do not require clicking on a check availability. That would be why people go to the check resort availability tool. Have it expanded immediately.

Agree fully

 

[GoofyDisneyDaddy]

And also do not require clicking on a check availability. That would be why people go to the check resort availability tool. Have it expanded immediately.

Agree fully

Actually, I disagree, as that would be too much clutter. Instead, what it should do is state the availability before expanding (i.e., available, partial, unavailable) so then you know whether you want to expand that resorts options, or not.

I also find it obnoxious that, for me at least, Aulani always starts expanded. Not sure what purpose there is in that.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Actually, I disagree, as that would be too much clutter. Instead, what it should do is state the availability before expanding (i.e., available, partial, unavailable) so then you know whether you want to expand that resorts options, or not.

I also find it obnoxious that, for me at least, Aulani always starts expanded. Not sure what purpose there is in that.

On the old tool it was shown and even if you showed them all it required paging down either 3 or 4 times. On the new tool even without showing any availability that's about the same that it takes and you don't even know if there's any availability. It can be done without the clutter you speak with some redesign and not all resorts have a ton of booking categories which increase the information returned. What you mention would be an improvement but not all that I would like to see. With more filtering, such as room size it would also limit the returns but if you want to see them all then I at least would like more info on the top page.

 

[Jennasis]

Actually, I disagree, as that would be too much clutter. Instead, what it should do is state the availability before expanding (i.e., available, partial, unavailable) so then you know whether you want to expand that resorts options, or not.

I also find it obnoxious that, for me at least, Aulani always starts expanded. Not sure what purpose there is in that.

Just a guess but I think it always expands the first listing? If you filter what you're looking for by only Walt Disney World options and also dvc resorts only, the first one that should give you will be Bay Lake, which will also be expanded. Unless of course it always expands the first listing? If you filter what you're looking for by only Walt Disney World options and also DVC resorts only, the first one it should give you will be Bay Lake, which will also be expanded. Unless of course it expands resort that is your home resort, because bay lakr is our home and its always the first one expanded for us.

 

[LisaS]

Actually, I disagree, as that would be too much clutter. Instead, what it should do is state the availability before expanding (i.e., available, partial, unavailable) so then you know whether you want to expand that resorts options, or not.

I agree. Unless I can limit the search to specific resorts I don't want everything expanded because it increases the amount of scrolling I need to do to get to the resort I'm interested in. I also agree that the check availability link should display the true state (available, partial, unavailable) so I don't waste time expanding something that isn't available. Of course that is only useful if I can filter by the room size(s) I want. Otherwise how does it choose which state to display if studios are unavailable, 1BRs are available, GVs are partially available.

I also find it obnoxious that, for me at least, Aulani always starts expanded. Not sure what purpose there is in that.

The only reason I can come up with is that it's there to educate users that the word "Availability" is actually a link. I don't recall that the first listed resort was expanded the first time I used this new tool. Given how many of us complained that we thought we had to click on the link over on the right (leading us to pages showing resort amenities and resulting in too many clicks to see availability) I suspect they added code to expand the first result to show new users what to do to check availability.

I always limit my searches to WDW and DVC Resorts so for me it's BLT that is expanded when the results page is loaded since that is the first result when you filter out everything except WDW DVC resorts. The first thing I do when that page loads is click the Availability link for BLT to close it back up to reduce the amount of scrolling I need to do!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

The first resort is the one that is expanded. Which one that is just depends on how you limit the search.

 

[GoofyDisneyDaddy]

The first resort is the one that is expanded. Which one that is just depends on how you limit the search.

Yes, but why... why expand one? It makes little sense except to exhibit that they can be expanded, which then goes to overall design flaw.

 

[twinklebug]

Yes, but why... why expand one? It makes little sense except to exhibit that they can be expanded, which then goes to overall design flaw.

It's fairly standard in the newer interfaces to have multi - result displays with details in underneath to have the first displayed. As Lisa said, it is in part for educational purposes, there will be folk out there who don't understand they need to click for details. The alternate reason it is industry standard at this time is on occasion there will be only one result, in which case it should be expanded.

Do I like the overall design? No. To me this screams "I must be able to use this on my iphone!" I think far better things are to come for us but give it time, at the moment all of the major websites are flipping around to this type of mess.

In Disney's favor: I like this better than what the airlines are doing

 

[quinnc19]

This doesn't work so well when you are only looking for one night. I had trouble sliding it far enough to limit it to 25 points.

Now that I've had more time to play with the redesign, I can live with it. The key for me is to use the "points" slider to ensure it pulls up only studios

 

[twinklebug]

This doesn't work so well when you are only looking for one night. I had trouble sliding it far enough to limit it to 25 points.

Duly noted. Having a tiny slider that goes from 1 to 3000 is ridiculously difficult to guide to the smaller point levels without a mouse. It's made for folks with a ton of points to spend, and seems to be designed to encourage us to spend those points outside the DVC rooms.

 

[drusba]

Though I can work with the new tool, I look at it and ask, what IT people believed some of this was what everyone wanted. Too often you get websites put together by those who are experts at creating pretty sites but lack any common sense or the ability to think from the viewpoint of the user when designing these. Take the points slider. Who has ever done a search for available rooms based on the range of points needed? How could the creators of the site actually believe that a difficult to use points slider was better than providing what everyone obviously would want, an ability to easily search for available studios or another size room at the WDW resorts. Likewise, another feature users would obviously want is the ability to easily check for particular rooms or rooms in general in just two or three resorts at one time. From a user's point of view, those are obvious features the search tool should have but the ones creating the tool either had no idea that is what users would want or purposefully decided to make searches difficult rather than easy.

 

[Jennasis]

My only suggestion would be to get rid of the slider and replace it with the ability to filter by room size instead.

 

[LadyLvsTramp]

I extremely dislike the new availability tool and filled in the survey to say so! I really liked the other format it seemed to give up to the minute availability and this just seems like a dummy site to me...Disney forcing all the options on me when I am only interested in specific resorts I will be emailing member services to make sure they know I am not a fan of the new un improved tool.