Disney Dining Buddy No More

[Disneyliscious]

This is my issue. Fine, shut down sites that search for ADR because they put an undue burden on resources. But how can people be happy about that when the people selling ADR made with fakes names are still operating? If anyone needs shutting down its them they should go first, the sites like dining buddy should go second

Its clear from your multiple posts you have an issue with one place and not the others, but how do you know they all didn't receive warnings the same day? Maybe they don't check their mail/email/voicemail everyday? Maybe, if letters were sent snail mail, it takes longer to reach one destination than the other? I mean, seriously, you're acting like that one place is getting a free pass when its only been a few days. Its pretty safe to say they are all going to go, but you can't expect it to all happen at the same time. Who cares who goes first?

 

[Miskey]

Its clear from your multiple posts you have an issue with one place and not the others, but how do you know they all didn't receive warnings the same day? Maybe they don't check their mail/email/voicemail everyday? Maybe, if letters were sent snail mail, it takes longer to reach one destination than the other? I mean, seriously, you're acting like that one place is getting a free pass when its only been a few days. Its pretty safe to say they are all going to go, but you can't expect it to all happen at the same time. Who cares who goes first?

But the places are not the same and do not operate in the same manner. I agree with the PP that the scalping sites should have taken priority over the search sites.

What I'm really wondering is how Disney has the authority to shut down Dining Buddy?? What law was broken?

 

[Allison]

But the places are not the same and do not operate in the same manner. I agree with the PP that the scalping sites should have taken priority over the search sites.

What I'm really wondering is how Disney has the authority to shut down Dining Buddy?? What law was broken?

Using Disney as part of your website name is going to cause an issue for one and can quickly be acted upon.

Thus the reason this site is the Disboards and wdwinfo.com. The word Disney is not actually used.

 

[BadPinkTink]

But the places are not the same and do not operate in the same manner. I agree with the PP that the scalping sites should have taken priority over the search sites.

What I'm really wondering is how Disney has the authority to shut down Dining Buddy?? What law was broken?

I guessing that Disney went after all of them. BUT as Dining Buddy was using the Disney name, they had to immediately shut down, while the others can fight Disney and still remain online. With Dining buddy Disney can use copyright and intellectual property theft but with the others they will have to find other reasons, which will take longer to close the sites.

 

[bjb1124]

Word on DIS Dining Agent site:
Dis Dining Agent
Opening Soon
We have received word from Disney and are altering our service to meet their requests. DDA will be back next week. Anyone who has a pending transaction will receive an email on Monday. Our clients have been great and we appreciate the opportunity to have served you. We look forward to serving you in the future. More information will be available on Monday. Follow us on Twitter for updates - @************** **Dine In Style*** DiS Dining.

 

[TeresaNJ]

Don't forget, Disney Dining buddy and other services like this were also alerting a thousand other people to the hard to get reservation you wanted.

Yes, I understand that. You neglected to bold the part of my comment where I stated I agree with first come, first serve. I know going in that just because I'm being alerted to an opening, that I may not get it. I'm willing to pay the $8 and take my chances. I truly see no difference in the operation of the Disney dining reservation website from before these services started, until now, so how do we really know what burden is being placed on it? I think the resort reservations page is awful, sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. There whole system stinks for a company as large as they are. I agree that Disney Dining Buddy should never have used the word Disney in there name. Stupid on their part.

This whole making dining reservations, FP, etc so far out definitely contributes to the madness. As I stated before, allowing people to make multiple dining reservations at multiple places, within an hour or so of each other is so wrong. They should only allow dining reservations on the same day to be made at least 3 hours apart. Then we'll see more availability.

 

[BadPinkTink]

how do we really know what burden is being placed on it? I think the resort reservations page is awful, sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. There whole system stinks for a company as large as they are.

THATS what happens when a website gets overloaded. All the extra usage by automated bots causes a slowdown. The bots disrupt the system, the genuine customers get a slow website which they cant use, so then then get frustrated with Disney, blame Disney for the awful website and then PAY the third party reservations sites.

Pretty good deal by the owners of the third party reservations, create a problem on the official site so that a target market will turn to them instead of the official website.

 

[Miskey]

THATS what happens when a website gets overloaded. All the extra usage by automated bots causes a slowdown. The bots disrupt the system, the genuine customers get a slow website which they cant use, so then then get frustrated with Disney, blame Disney for the awful website and then PAY the third party reservations sites.

Pretty good deal by the owners of the third party reservations, create a problem on the official site so that a target market will turn to them instead of the official website.

I don't think it's fair to blame these sites for Disney website problems. In the scheme of things, these websites are fairly new, and I can't ever remember a time when the website hasn't been slow

 

[Disneylover99]

Yes, I understand that. You neglected to bold the part of my comment where I stated I agree with first come, first serve. I know going in that just because I'm being alerted to an opening, that I may not get it. I'm willing to pay the $8 and take my chances. I truly see no difference in the operation of the Disney dining reservation website from before these services started, until now, so how do we really know what burden is being placed on it? I think the resort reservations page is awful, sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. There whole system stinks for a company as large as they are. I agree that Disney Dining Buddy should never have used the word Disney in there name. Stupid on their part.

This whole making dining reservations, FP, etc so far out definitely contributes to the madness. As I stated before, allowing people to make multiple dining reservations at multiple places, within an hour or so of each other is so wrong. They should only allow dining reservations on the same day to be made at least 3 hours apart. Then we'll see more availability.

I just find it ironic, that people are willing to pay for and sing the praises of services that may or may not be hoarding the ADR's themselves. Yet they are quick to criticize people who legitimately make ADR's as hoarders.

 

[Lehuaann]

Word on DIS Dining Agent site:
Dis Dining Agent
Opening Soon
We have received word from Disney and are altering our service to meet their requests. DDA will be back next week. Anyone who has a pending transaction will receive an email on Monday. Our clients have been great and we appreciate the opportunity to have served you. We look forward to serving you in the future. More information will be available on Monday. Follow us on Twitter for updates - @************** **Dine In Style*** DiS Dining.

Good! It will be interesting to see what type of "altering" takes place.

Btw, I just read this post on their twitter from Fri, lol.

Happy Friday! Just a reminder that DDA has never used a bot or automated program to search for or make ADRs as it bogs the system down.

 

[Disneyliscious]

What I'm really wondering is how Disney has the authority to shut down Dining Buddy?? What law was broken?

Using Disneys name to advertise their service
Accessing Disneys site for commercial purposes (making money)
Interfering with Disneys site (bots to crawl the system)
Copyright Infringement on restaurant names

I'm sure there are a lot more but those are the obvious ones to me.

 

[maburke]

reservation watch is still up and running

Update: they are not accepting new users.

 

[Jhondy210]

I just find it ironic, that people are willing to pay for and sing the praises of services that may or may not be hoarding the ADR's themselves. Yet they are quick to criticize people who legitimately make ADR's as hoarders.

I think the consensus is services like Scout and Buddy are not hoarding ADRs. Also, I don't see how a person who Hoards ADR's is making ADRs any more legitimately than I am when Scout notifies me and I go make the reservation. I guess the only difference is I have one BOG and not 10 so, in my situation, I allow 9 others the chance to get BOG. I also don't think a person who makes 10 BOG ADRs but only intends to go to BOG once is making all "legitimate" ADRs. Yes they aren't breaking any rules but they don't intend to use all ADRs they make so I don't consider all of them legitimate.

 

[Disneylover99]

I think the consensus is services like Scout and Buddy are not hoarding ADRs. Also, I don't see how a person who Hoards ADR's is making ADRs any more legitimately than I am when Scout notifies me and I go make the reservation. I guess the only difference is I have one BOG and not 10 so, in my situation, I allow 9 others the chance to get BOG. I also don't think a person who makes 10 BOG ADRs but only intends to go to BOG once is making all "legitimate" ADRs. Yes they aren't breaking any rules but they don't intend to use all ADRs they make so I don't consider all of them legitimate.

I'm just not convinced.

 

[Jhondy210]

I'm just not convinced.

Well, I can tell you when I requested a certain reservation, it took them a couple weeks until I got notification. I think it would be extremely challenging for them to hoard enough ADRs to make their customers happy as they would need to hoard multiple ADRs for the sought after restaurants everyday. I just don't think it is reasonable for them to do that.

 

[Disneyliscious]

On FB, DDB had over 73,000 "likes". Thats a WHOLE lot of people happy with their service. Imagine how many times they had to access Disney system with bots to make all them people happy. Also, imagine the cash cow that place was.

 

[ChasingLeslie]

I know it would require Disney to spend money updating their website (which probably won't happen), but I think a lot of the problems could be solved by a wait list.

Let's say you want a BOG dinner reservation and there are none available. Then you would be able to select a time frame (ie: 6-6:30, 6:30-7, etc) and if someone releases a reservation during that time, the first person on the wait list would receive an email/text alert and have a certain amount of time (maybe three hours?) to grab it for themselves before it goes to the next person.

 

[Disneylover99]

Well, I can tell you when I requested a certain reservation, it took them a couple weeks until I got notification. I think it would be extremely challenging for them to hoard enough ADRs to make their customers happy as they would need to hoard multiple ADRs for the sought after restaurants everyday. I just don't think it is reasonable for them to do that.

Obviously they don't hoard all ADR's. And if they are picking up ADR's to release later, it's not something they are going to advertise on their website. But who is to say they don't have some kind of separate operation where that is part of what they do? It would be easy for them to pick up some coveted ADR's to release later if they wanted to. Then they pick up satisfied customers singing their praises.

I don't know if that's what they do. But it seems plausible. Then you've got other companies jumping on the bandwagon looking for a piece of the action, thinking how can I compete? What can our company do to stand out and make some money. I say, shut them all down.

 

[bumbershoot]

I'm not a lawyer. I'm not sure that having a sister in law who is a partner in a top 10 law firm working in Trademark law helps me have any extra info (except that I now know why George Lucas went after anyone who made anything remotely Star Wars'ish...becuase you must defend your trademarks vigorously or you could lose them). But a quick read through the Terms and conditions of the Disney site showed me some things that Disney might use against these sites.

"The Disney Services are for your personal, noncommercial use and are intended for informational and entertainment purposes only."

"Except as we specifically agree in writing, no element of the Disney Services may be used or exploited in any way other than as part of the Disney Services offered to you."

"You may not circumvent or disable any content protection system or digital rights management technology used with any Disney Service; decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise reduce any Disney Service to a human-readable form; remove identification, copyright or other proprietary notices; or access or use any Disney Service in an unlawful or unauthorized manner or in a manner that suggests an association with our products, services or brands."

"We do not allow uses of the Disney Services that are commercial or business-related, or that advertise or offer to sell products or services (whether or not for profit), or that solicit others (including solicitations for contributions or donations). You agree not to knowingly or recklessly introduce a virus or other harmful component, or otherwise tamper with, impair or damage any Disney Service or connected network, or interfere with any person or entity’s use or enjoyment of any Disney Service. You agree not to use any software or device that allows automated gameplay, expedited gameplay, or other manipulation of gameplay or game client and you agree not to cheat or otherwise modify a Disney Service or game experience to create an advantage for one user over another. Additionally, you agree not to access, monitor or copy, or permit another person or entity to access, monitor or copy, any element of the Disney Services using a robot, spider, scraper or other automated means or manual process without our express written permission."

"Some Disney Services permit or require you to create an account to participate or to secure additional benefits. You agree to provide and maintain accurate, current and complete information, including your contact information for notices and other communications from us and your payment information. You agree not to impersonate or misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity, including using another person’s username, password or other account information, or another person’s name or likeness..."

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/park-experience-terms-conditions/ (which despite its URL name is actually listed under MyMagic+ T&C) doesn't seem to have anything governing use by a dining site. But I found this interesting tidbit. If we use the site to change FP+s etc while walking through a park, we're going against what we agreed to by using the site. "We advise you to not use this Site/App (including the camera) while driving, walking, or when being distracted or disoriented from your surroundings as it could be hazardous."

 

[gatordoc]

A Disney vacation is not made by the places you eat.

With all due respect, that is not true for everyone. As a passholder and veteran of numerous WDW trips, I can say that without a doubt the part of the trip we most look forward to is the opportunity to dine at the many fabulous and well-themed restaurants that Disney has to offer. That being said, we've never had trouble getting the ADRs we want with some good advance planning and persistence. I do feel for those who have difficulty, though.