The Circle of Death That Made Me Want to Vomit (#DisneySMMoms)

Yesterday was a HUGE day in the blogosphere, especially if you’ve been following the #DisneySMMoms hashtag (Disney Social Media Moms) and are a Disney freak like I am.  For months, hundreds or maybe even thousands of mom bloggers have been waiting for yesterday, specifically the time of day –2pm EST.  We were ready with all of our information, personal and blog related, ready with our credit cards in hand and waiting to GET IN the conference of the year.

Just in case you’re not a blogger and have no clue as to what is Disney Social Media Celebration is, I went over to 5 Minutes for Mom and copied their summary:

The Walt Disney World Resort near beautiful Orlando, Florida is the setting for this first ever, family-friendly social media conference for moms. You’ll experience special events, conference sessions and private parties taking place across the 40-square mile entertainment complex. You’ll have a chance to experience the fun and fantasy of Walt Disney World while hearing from captivating speakers such as Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Maxine Clark, MaryEllen Hooper, and more.

Your $375 conference fee provides you a hotel room for Mar. 17-20 at Walt Disney World, conference sessions, Theme Park tickets for you and up to 3 family members during the conference, and select meals for the conference attendee. (Transportation to and from Orlando is not included. Meals for family members are not included unless otherwise specified.)

Now isn’t that cool? Now you know what the fuss is all about between the mom bloggers. 😉

Anyway, yesterday I was ready with my coffee, my info and my fingers at 1:50pm.  I went to the site and left the window opened hoping that at 2pm I would be able to be quick and get my information to Disney before registration closed.

I was disappointed I couldn’t go earlier this year so I mentioned to my husband that next year we should make it happen. I knew this would be the best opportunity for us to get to Disney because of the great deal they were offering and to network with other bloggers as well.

So needless to say, I was desperate.

I was on the page watching the page refresh every 10 seconds wondering what was going on.  I kept reloading and reloading.  I even made my husband check the router because I was positive something wrong was going on our side.

After about 20 minutes of trying to figure out what was going on (I thought the internet conked out on me – it didn’t) I decided to check on Twitter.  I saw that lots of moms were having a hard time with getting through also and they too kept seeing the “circle of death.”

The page kept loading every 10 seconds so after every 10 seconds, I was more sick to my stomach.  I had my laptop, Ipod and computer opened to the site.  I even had my husband checking the site on his computer. So in total, we had 4 “computers” checking to see which page will open first.

It was absolutely exhausting.  And because of the coffee, I had to pee really bad but I didn’t want to leave for fear I may miss the registration button.

It was insane!  I never thought that a circle of “death” would make me want to vomit. Never!

After 45 minutes of seeing the page loading for the hundredth time, I was getting discouraged. I really thought that registration was closed but I found out through twitter that Disney’s server crashed because of all the people trying to register.  Whew. That was a small relief.

I could not believe that some people actually got in.  They were  registered by 2:15 and received the confirmation email.  I tell you I was almost crying — almost.

And then it happened.  After a whole hour of refreshing and seeing the page load once again, I finally saw the registration button.  I clicked on the box and then clicked on registration page and then POOF! Gone.  The circle of death was turning around and around.

Another 15 minutes passed and it stopped loading.  I couldn’t believe I was finally able to click on registration and see the page.  As soon as I saw the page, I was super fast with my fingers and typed all of my information.

I think I made the mistake of putting another email address that I didn’t use when I signed up for updates back in March 2010 because after I was done registering, I printed out my confirmation page and went to check my emails.  I had nothing there. I was upset because I had no idea what that meant. Was it because they didn’t recognized my email address or maybe I did something wrong with the application. I was confused.  I still am confused because I still haven’t received any confirmation as of yet and it’s 2pm.

What to do? 

Update: Read part II of what happened 3 days later!!! :)