The hotel room booking project overrides the .scale value in loadTimeline() method:
function loadTimeline(date) {
dp.scale = "Manual";
dp.timeline = [];
var start = date.getDatePart().addHours(12);
for (var i = 0; i < dp.days; i++) {
dp.timeline.push({start: start.addDays(i), end: start.addDays(i+1)});
}
dp.update();
}
You need to change it there like this:
function loadTimeline(date) {
dp.scale = "Day";
dp.startDate = date;
dp.update();
}