I emailed them about my displeasure with their new system and this was his reply:
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. We can not go back to the old way because of the overload to the system. Last year in one hour I had over 1000 e-mails complaining about the crash in the system. We spent the first half of the year trying to find a new appointment system that would work with our process and unfortunately it is not out there. I did not trust the service we are using to open up at midnight and hope that it works.
Re: Email about Phipps Santa
No, they didn't block off any dates for later emails. I asked him about that in a follow up email and this was his reply:
Unfortunately the appointment system we use does not allow us to hold back appointments. We have to set the schedule for the entire season before the first appointment is booked. I agree every year we have to look at the system and try to improve it.Thank you for the feedback
You'd think that with as much money as they make each year (especially now that they charge just to make an appointment) they'd be able to afford to upgrade their system so they have less worry about it crashing. I mean, ticketmaster has thousands upon thousands of people on their site the moment the ticket window opens for a high demand concert. And even though its often slow when that happens, I've never known of it actually crashing.
I do like this system better than last year though, although their seems to be no realy rhyme or reason to it. But this year I got my 2nd option, and last year I had to settle for whatever was available.
Abigail Taylor 09.18.2008