ClaraOswald
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2014
Disclaimer - We registered for Disneyland DAS for our February 2023 trip, so my comments may not be valid for how things are currently. But I thought I'd put up a post about the differences in the process at DLR vs WDW for anyone interested.
The registration process was pretty much identical, including having to wait around 45 minutes to start the video chat. The CM was quick to ask why we needed the pass and approved us then took our son's picture.
The pre-selection of return times is quiet different, however.
For Disneyland, we stayed in the video chat with the same CM and basically just went through each day. I told her which attractions I was interested in and she told me the available times. I was able to pick either park. It was pretty quick since the choices are more limited.
For WDW, instead of staying on with the same CM, they transfer you to someone else. And it's not a video chat. It's just the little chat window. (Nice to not have to be on camera anymore!) They send over a "form" to fill out. You can only do 4 days at a time. You can also only select ONE park to get return times from so if you're hopping...this isn't great. I was hoping to book an attraction for 1 park each morning and a different park in the evening. Bummer.
So once you send the form over, you then have to wait for the CM to look at it and then tell you what's available. She basically told me 2 rides/return times for each day. I just took the 2 she offered because we just look at these as "extras" and if we can use them, great. If not, oh well. I suppose I could have asked for other options but I don't care that much.
The CM is working with several guests at a time so you basically have to sit here forever waiting to hear what's available. I was on the chat with the pre-selection CM for almost an hour. Most of the time just waiting to hear back on what attraction times were available.
Overall, the WDW process definitely takes longer (for me) because of this. And I'm hoping DLR doesn't switch to this same system before our next trip out there! I do understand why it needs to be done this way at WDW since there are more choices and people go for many more days so I'm sure for most people, it's probably the quicker method. But since we pretty much know which rides and whatnot we want and aren't too picky on times...it would be so much quicker if we could just chat with the CM like we do for Disneyland. I understand most people plan in a much different way than me though.
Anyway...I'm happy to have it done. Just wanted to share my experience for anyone else who goes to both parks and uses DAS. This is our first time using it at WDW so I'm anxious to see how it is the same/different compared to DLR.
Here's the timeline of my WDW DAS chat today...
10:30am (central time) - entered the queue
11:15am - CM showed up.
11:20am - Done with registration.
11:25am - Ride selection CM entered chat.
12:15pm - Completely finished.
The registration process was pretty much identical, including having to wait around 45 minutes to start the video chat. The CM was quick to ask why we needed the pass and approved us then took our son's picture.
The pre-selection of return times is quiet different, however.
For Disneyland, we stayed in the video chat with the same CM and basically just went through each day. I told her which attractions I was interested in and she told me the available times. I was able to pick either park. It was pretty quick since the choices are more limited.
For WDW, instead of staying on with the same CM, they transfer you to someone else. And it's not a video chat. It's just the little chat window. (Nice to not have to be on camera anymore!) They send over a "form" to fill out. You can only do 4 days at a time. You can also only select ONE park to get return times from so if you're hopping...this isn't great. I was hoping to book an attraction for 1 park each morning and a different park in the evening. Bummer.
So once you send the form over, you then have to wait for the CM to look at it and then tell you what's available. She basically told me 2 rides/return times for each day. I just took the 2 she offered because we just look at these as "extras" and if we can use them, great. If not, oh well. I suppose I could have asked for other options but I don't care that much.
The CM is working with several guests at a time so you basically have to sit here forever waiting to hear what's available. I was on the chat with the pre-selection CM for almost an hour. Most of the time just waiting to hear back on what attraction times were available.
Overall, the WDW process definitely takes longer (for me) because of this. And I'm hoping DLR doesn't switch to this same system before our next trip out there! I do understand why it needs to be done this way at WDW since there are more choices and people go for many more days so I'm sure for most people, it's probably the quicker method. But since we pretty much know which rides and whatnot we want and aren't too picky on times...it would be so much quicker if we could just chat with the CM like we do for Disneyland. I understand most people plan in a much different way than me though.
Anyway...I'm happy to have it done. Just wanted to share my experience for anyone else who goes to both parks and uses DAS. This is our first time using it at WDW so I'm anxious to see how it is the same/different compared to DLR.
Here's the timeline of my WDW DAS chat today...
10:30am (central time) - entered the queue
11:15am - CM showed up.
11:20am - Done with registration.
11:25am - Ride selection CM entered chat.
12:15pm - Completely finished.
