Disney dining buddy shut down?

[missbrooke06]

I wonder if so far only Buddy shut down because they were the easiest from a legal perspective. My understanding was that for $8, I could search BOG. But when I book BOG and now want Ohana, it's another $8.

At Scout, I pay $4 for 6 months and I can search for 4 restaurants at a time. I got BOG
so I change that search to Cape May and I got that so know I switched to Akersaus. Maybe it's easier to claim Buddy is selling reservations and Scout is selling a search tool.

But I'm not familiar with the other sniper options so maybe that's completely off.

 

[5kidsmommy]

When you're talking about the dining sniping/scalping services, you have to realize that the programs they're running to constantly check the system are sending out queries beyond what you're probably imagining. My husband does lot of automation programming like this for his job and requests are measured in fractional seconds. Not seconds. Not minutes. Fractions of second. Services like DDB are likely sending out more than one query per second because they can write the program that way. Can you search more than once per second? I sure can't and I feel like I'm petty fast. I can come up with four services like this off the top of my head. They're sending multiple queries per second for every reservation request they have. Can you imagine the traffic? It's probably why the general public is having so many darn problems. The sniping/scalping services are eating up the server.

Additionally, if I were Disney, I wouldn't be too happy about someone charging for what I'm giving away for free.

Thank you for explaining this in layman's terms. I have tried in other places to explain the load that these sites are putting on Disney and people just don't get it or don't believe me. I truly believe that once these sites are all down the site should work better. Or at least I am hopeful it will.

 

[missbrooke06]

Thank you for explaining this in layman's terms. I have tried in other places to explain the load that these sites are putting on Disney and people just don't get it or don't believe me. I truly believe that once these sites are all down the site should work better. Or at least I am hopeful it will.

LOLOLOLOLOL

 

[3Gsandme]

Thank you for explaining this in layman's terms. I have tried in other places to explain the load that these sites are putting on Disney and people just don't get it or don't believe me. I truly believe that once these sites are all down the site should work better. Or at least I am hopeful it will.

And, obviously, I an only make a guess at how frequently they're searching. When my husband is automating, he considers it slow if he's only able to complete 1 request per second. Two seconds is beyond the pale, unacceptable. I'm not sure if the services also search for a certain request only (The Smith Family wants a 6pm at BOG, so they write the program to search only for that) if they're constantly making pings against the restaurant (we need to find anything at BOG) which would significantly increase traffic against Disney's servers.

I wonder if so far only Buddy shut down because they were the easiest from a legal perspective. My understanding was that for $8, I could search BOG. But when I book BOG and now want Ohana, it's another $8.

At Scout, I pay $4 for 6 months and I can search for 4 restaurants at a time. I got BOG
so I change that search to Cape May and I got that so know I switched to Akersaus. Maybe it's easier to claim Buddy is selling reservations and Scout is selling a search tool.

But I'm not familiar with the other sniper options so maybe that's completely off.

I think that every service Disney could find were sent cease and desist letters from Disney Legal. Disney Dining Buddy realized they couldn't fight it and shut down. Others, of course, realize they can continue to collect money while their lawyers come back at Disney's. They made plenty of hay when the sun was shining and they're lucky if Disney is just asking them to stop.

 

[MinnieM21]

I wonder if so far only Buddy shut down because they were the easiest from a legal perspective. My understanding was that for $8, I could search BOG. But when I book BOG and now want Ohana, it's another $8.

At Scout, I pay $4 for 6 months and I can search for 4 restaurants at a time. I got BOG
so I change that search to Cape May and I got that so know I switched to Akersaus. Maybe it's easier to claim Buddy is selling reservations and Scout is selling a search tool.

But I'm not familiar with the other sniper options so maybe that's completely off.

Just to let you know, Scout will charge your credit card again for another 6 or 12 months (whichever you signed up for) unless you click their cancellation link button. But...there is no cancellation button. They said they forgot to add it and said a week ago that they would add one in the next few days. But they never did and there is no way to cancel and not get charged again.

 

[3Gsandme]

LOLOLOLOLOL

Well, there is a lot to be said about the kind of traffic these services are generating and what they're doing to Disney's servers. Disney IT is kind of a joke, but it wasn't until the rise of the sniping/scalping services that things really went off the rails. Server capacity isn't limitless.

 

[missbrooke06]

Just to let you know, Scout will charge your credit card again for another 6 or 12 months (whichever you signed up for) unless you click their cancellation link button. But...there is no cancellation button. They said they forgot to add it and said a week ago that they would add one in the next few days. But they never did and there is no way to cancel and not get charged again.

Yep, I'll just cancel my credit card. I do every couple months anyway. In fact, I may already have a new card number for that account... I'll have to check.

 

[Missyrose]

So everyone is just assuming that Disney Dining Buddy got a C&D because of the service it provides? Couldn't it just be because they're using the Disney name? Disney has always cracked down on TAs and businesses who use its name.

 

[quakechicago]

When you're talking about the dining sniping/scalping services, you have to realize that the programs they're running to constantly check the system are sending out queries beyond what you're probably imagining. My husband does lot of automation programming like this for his job and requests are measured in fractional seconds. Not seconds. Not minutes. Fractions of second. Services like DDB are likely sending out more than one query per second because they can write the program that way. Can you search more than once per second? I sure can't and I feel like I'm petty fast. I can come up with four services like this off the top of my head. They're sending multiple queries per second for every reservation request they have. Can you imagine the traffic? It's probably why the general public is having so many darn problems. The sniping/scalping services are eating up the server.

Additionally, if I were Disney, I wouldn't be too happy about someone charging for what I'm giving away for free.

Actually it puts less tax on their servers than having so many manually search. Don't forget dvc has been down (sadly) so the tons of people who used that haven't found the other way to search and they sit and search manually over and over and over. This puts much more load on Disney's servers than one site searching every 5 or 20 minutes and sending out auto alerts.

 

[quakechicago]

And the site problems? Their site is a hot mess. Have you seen the coding on it? A nightmare. More bad code over bad code. Nothing is fixed. Ever. They just add to it.

Their servers cannot handle the traffic now. And they keep adding.

It cost them a billion dollars. Literally a billion dollars for a site that is so busy, so vital to their business, and barely works.

 

[3Gsandme]

Actually it puts less tax on their servers than having so many manually search. Don't forget dvc has been down (sadly) so the tons of people who used that haven't found the other way to search and they sit and search manually over and over and over. This puts much more load on Disney's servers than one site searching every 5 or 20 minutes and sending out auto alerts.

You really think those services are only searching once every 20 minute? And I have literally no reason at all to be digging into Disney's coding. Why would I?

 

[quakechicago]

At one point I timed all 5. One searched every 2 minutes and another searched once every 20.

And I looked at the coding because I was wondering why it borked constantly when it cost a billion dollars. There's no digging involved.

 

[3Gsandme]

At one point I timed all 5. One searched every 2 minutes and another searched once every 20.

And I looked at the coding because I was wondering why it borked constantly when it cost a billion dollars. There's no digging involved.

This is getting weird. Did you code for one of them or something?

 

[Dean Marino]

When you're talking about the dining sniping/scalping services, you have to realize that the programs they're running to constantly check the system are sending out queries beyond what you're probably imagining. My husband does lot of automation programming like this for his job and requests are measured in fractional seconds. Not seconds. Not minutes. Fractions of second. Services like DDB are likely sending out more than one query per second because they can write the program that way. Can you search more than once per second? I sure can't and I feel like I'm petty fast. I can come up with four services like this off the top of my head. They're sending multiple queries per second for every reservation request they have. Can you imagine the traffic? It's probably why the general public is having so many darn problems. The sniping/scalping services are eating up the server.

Additionally, if I were Disney, I wouldn't be too happy about someone charging for what I'm giving away for free.

Love this post . Sure you are not secretly a Network Architect? . This is, in fact, spot on. Humans, en masse, can take a system down.... but it takes a LOT of humans. Other machines, impersonating humans, can take a system down in a heartbeat. When this sort of thing is done intentionally? It's called a DOS ("Denial of Service") attack. Even when that isn't the goal - enough machines wacking away at a website, and the database behind it, can cause a crippling situation for slower humans .

3Gsandme... both you, and your husband, are dead right. For WDW - this is a monetary loss problem on two fronts: loss of control, AND siphoning of network resources.

 

[Dean Marino]

And the site problems? Their site is a hot mess. Have you seen the coding on it? A nightmare. More bad code over bad code. Nothing is fixed. Ever. They just add to it.

Their servers cannot handle the traffic now. And they keep adding.

It cost them a billion dollars. Literally a billion dollars for a site that is so busy, so vital to their business, and barely works.

OK - you've been using "view source" too, haven't you . You are so DEAD right.... too much glitz, broken style sheets, poor script coding.... probably one of the best examples of how NOT to code a business system . The site has GREAT value, as a teaching tool for coders . Accomplishing WDW's Business Goals? ehhhhh - not so much . Just to really get you going ("Frau Bleucher!" style....) CHANGE CONTROL! That fundamental thing a business HAS to have.... Can you find any? I sure can't .

Also - must apologize to all the folks that are NOT Network Engineers.... a lot of this stuff is the ugly underlying material of the Internet. Best way to wrap it up - it's technical. The people who GET all this, though, are numerous. Some of them haven't even gotten out of High School . Companies CAN hire really good people in this area - a lot of them HAVE. Sadly, Disney does not to be one of them.

 

[Jenni1026]

This was such a great service. So sad to see it go.

 

[Pally]

Ahhh, I miss the gold old days when you would go to WDW, stand in line to ride what you wanted to ride (sometimes up to and more than a hour) and if you wanted to eat somewhere you went to GS (I loved those little screen ones at Epcot where you talked to the person on them so cute) and said I would like to go to dinner tonight, what is available or tomorrow night or 3 nights from now? They would tell you what was available and you either booked it or didn't. No booking in advance of your trip for anything.

They had booths with CMs asking you if you would like a reservation. This is how I found out about Teppan Edo. They suggested the kids would love it. They were 8 and 9. They did love it. We ended up going twice that week. This was probably in 2002 or 2003. So Easy.

 

[Jjs7one]

I personally love these services. I got a BOG and Chef Mickey because of them

 

[SaintsManiac]

And also, people need to stop thinking that there's tons of selfish people with a billion dining reservations cancelling the night before and rearranging their plans every night of their trip. Oh those hoarders! Well, I don't actually see this happening either here or anywhere on FB. If anything, everywhere seems seriously booked up especially during free dining and at character meals. Disney could easily add more character dining and other restaurant options for everyone. Clearly, there's a need.

People view sit down, table service dining now as an event. The dining is their evening activity. Especially when you add characters. I see more people desperate and unable to book ANY dining they want than people with stuff even to trade. There's not multiple people even in facebook dining groups saying hi, I have a huge amount of dining that I booked because I'm indecisive or I decided I don't want any of these reservations if anyone wants it. Even some groups where people actively trade reservations, there's not much open. The few people who do have several dining reservations they don't need are cancelling their trips. Not hoarding. There's more dining demand than TS options right now and that needs to change.

Maybe there aren't tons of people hoarding, but I have seen the same person making cancellation posts for lots of ADRs. Seemed like hoarding to me.

 

[mcd2745]

Maybe there aren't tons of people hoarding, but I have seen the same person making cancellation posts for lots of ADRs. Seemed like hoarding to me.

Definitely still going on. I don't think it's as widespread as it was before having to enter a CC for each ADR and the $10 no-show fee...but, yes going through the cancellation threads, you'll notice it is still happening. Only way to all but eliminate it is to charge a non-refundable/non-transferable deposit at the time of booking.