#DisneySMMoms, Turned Wild. What Happened?

It was one of the most talked about events last year for bloggers, Disney’s Social Media Moms Event.  This year, it’s an event that will be talked about for years.  Not because of the speakers or special guests that will be appearing.  It’s much larger because of what happened before the event, months before.
The 2010 event went off like a bang without any complications, at least nothing the attendees knew about.  Select bloggers were emailed an invitation and then later registration opened up for others or so I have heard.  I was one of the select bloggers last year who got an invite.  After the event last year there was buzz all over about others wanting information on how to attend the next one, if there was to be one.  There was a site/blog where you could give your email address so that you would be in the “know” on the next one.  Twitter was all abuzz for months about those that wanted to attend and those that did.
Soon there was word, from a sweet bird via email that more information would arrive soon.  Mommy bloggers went crazy tweeting about when, where and how they would get their invite.  I received the same email.  I thought that it would be the same as last year, really.  Select bloggers would be invited and then they would open registration up for others.  I didn’t expect to be on the list of those invited first this year because I quit blogging on JoJos Place and my traffic/stats aren’t anything they were over there.  So I waited, as others did.  Word came via a Tweet that registration would open up at the end of November.  Ladies were tweeting #disneysmmoms daily/hourly/minutely/secondly.  They probably could have typed it in another language, they had used it so much.  The date was finally set, December 2nd at 2:00pm Eastern time.  Ladies made sure they knew what time that would be in their own time zones and sat waiting for the registration form to open up.  I was one of the ones waiting and allowing the page to start refreshing 30 minutes prior to time, just in case our clocks weren’t synchronized.  The “orange circle of death” as it was deemed, seems very fitting to what was about to unfold.  Twitter was silent for a couple of moments and then the tweets started flowing like molten hot lava.  “We broke Disney”, “refreshing, refreshing”, “did anybody get in?” and then finally after what seemed like an eternity more and more tweets were “I got in!”, “Error Message”, etc.  It took me 1 hour and 45 minutes with one Firefox window and one Internet Explorer Window open, plus numerous times getting the form to load up and then going back to that “orange circle of death” before I finally got fully registered.  I got my confirmation email about them receiving my registration.  I thought to myself, “I got this!”.  All the while others were receiving their confirmation emails and others never did get registered.  Registration finally closed and hearts were broken while others were waiting in line for their chance of a lifetime. 
We were all told that by the end of today {December 3rd}, we’d know if we we’re among the chosen ones. 
Emails started pouring in and people on Twitter were happy, sad, mad, crushed, thrilled, and lot’s confused. 
I am among those confused/upset.  I didn’t get in.  I got the infamous capacity was filled before we could verify your registration.  WHAT?!  Are you serious?  I didn’t understand.  Of course I get the whole first come first served.  That makes complete sense to me.  However, there should have been a cap on the registrations.  Do not take in more than allotted.  So if you have 350 spots, do not take in 351!  That one person is going to be upset.  And there were a lot more than one that was upset. 
Hate flew against Disney.  Ugliness reared it’s head towards stat talk and that the whole thing was not first come first serve and that it was all about the “normal get it all crowd”.   But as I have already seen there are some bloggers, whom I consider bigger ones, that didn’t make it, those that get invited to lot’s of events.  There are bloggers that I have seen that were all about Disney blogging, that did make it and those that didn’t.  There were bloggers who don’t review a thing that made it and those that did nothing but write reviews make it. So those that made it were from all walks of life.
I don’t think it was first come first serve though, because there were a lot of those that got in early in the time and they got their confirmation emails about their registration, they didn’t make the final cut.   But there were those that got their confirmation emails later that did get in.  So I am confused at how it was really done.  Was it like drawing names out of a hat??  They just randomly selected those that registered??  We would all like to know how it was done.  At least those of us who aren’t going.  But I agree with a lot of the other thoughts on the wording should have been different.  Because myself, like many others thought we were just waiting for them to verify who we were. 
I am still a Disney World fan.  I still plan on visiting.  I still plan on trying to register next year, if they choose to go about doing another DisneySMMoms.  Who wouldn’t?!  I’m happy for those that get to attend this year. 
I hope y’all have a great time! Make sure you plan on staying longer than Sunday though, because you won’t have time in the parks with your family, if it was anything like last year.   There was only one day, several hours allotted for family park time.  So definitely plan on staying!  You’ll be glad you did, especially if this was your first time visiting.