There’s a lot of excitement in Magic Kindom these days, mostly because TRON Lightcycle / Run is set to open soon!

And if you were among the (likely) thousands of people who tried to score an Annual Passholder preview for the ride the other day, you know just how highly anticipated this coaster truly is. But even though many guests hoped to get a preview, not everyone was successful…many thanks to some major flaws with the booking system. So what went wrong, and how can you be prepared for next time?

Timing of the Drop

First of all, there’s the timing of when the preview link was dropped. Annual Passholders were supposed to get an email, but many didn’t get a notification in their inbox until after the link to register had already been spread across the internet. Some fans found the link in the Passholder Buzz section of the My Disney Experience app, but if you didn’t know it was there, you might’ve been late to the game.

And for those waiting for an email, they were sent in waves. Passholders got the emails at different times, so if yours wasn’t one of the first sent out, you could’ve ended up HOURS behind in the queue. It all seemed very random and a little haphazard. Many were left frustrated by that alone.

Essentially, it would benefit you to check multiple places on the day that a preview link is set to be dropped. Who knows where it could end up first?!

The Process

Next, we have to talk about the process itself. It really wasn’t clear what would happen once you entered the queue. If you opened the link to the reservation page before 9AM ET, you were placed in a waiting room. Then, at 9AM, the waiting room refreshed and everyone was put into the queue. It’s unclear if this was random or in order based on when you opened the link.

Those who weren’t Passholders were able to enter the queue and could wait in it, but would be kicked out when they tried to log in before making a reservation. The estimated wait times for the queue were also all over the place. One of our team members started at “over an hour” but was then dropped down to 38 minutes in the span of a few seconds. It then jumped back up into the 50s. And many guests waited for hours to snag a preview — some waiting for multiple hours and not getting anything at all.

More Waiting

One issue that was particularly frustrating is that after you had your queue countdown and finally made it to the login screen, you might be met with MORE loading pages. One of our team members got stuck on a loading page with a photo of Woody multiple times, with 5-10 minute waits each time.

Since this page doesn’t have an estimated wait time, it’s hard to know if your waiting is productive or if the system is glitching and you need to refresh. And there’s no telling how long the wait will last once you get here.

Choosing Your Party

But perhaps the biggest struggle we encountered came when choosing our party. Once you’re logged in and you finally make it to the reservation process, you’ll first be required to choose the members of your group. Multiple times we had issues where the person who logged into the account was not shown as the “primary guest” — which may cause issues further down the line when showing up for your reservation. Because of this, we had to refresh the page and hope for the best, getting kicked out back to the screen with Woody again.

After that was resolved, we still ran into issues with selecting party members. If you have a lot of people on your Family & Friends list, it might not show all the Passholders at once. Many Passholders had to open the My Disney Experience app on their phone, remove guests from their Family & Friends list, and then refresh the page to get the right people to show up. And of course, if you refresh, you’re waiting another 5-10 minutes minimum.

General Glitches

And on top of the mass confusion and the long waiting, there were plenty of general glitches with the website. Some people were logged out of their accounts and some were kicked out of the process before getting to the confirmation page. To wait so long just to have some technical glitch mess it up was very frustrating for many.

So what can you do the next time a Passholder preview drops? First of all, make sure you have those email notifications on. And it wouldn’t hurt to check the Passholder Buzz in MDE throughout the day either. When the queue drops, it might be a good idea to join on your phone and your computer just in case.

If there are multiple people in your party trying to snag a reservation, you’ll have better chances if you all pitch in. Make sure you’ve got good wifi or a strong signal, because you’ll be in it for the long haul. Keep in mind that previews are limited, so you may not get one even if you’re fast. But of course, we wish you the best of luck!

Stay tuned to DFB for more tips on how to navigate Disney World and plan for your trip. We’ll keep you updated on the latest!

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Did you get a Passholder preview for TRON? Tell us in the comments!

The post 5 Huge Problems Exposed by Disney’s ‘TRON’ Coaster Previews first appeared on the disney food blog.