Just finished 14 days in the disney parks. A few comments on DAS and advance DAS

[disneyholic family]

Yesterday was our last day of our 14 day ticket at WDW.
Bottom line, regular DAS selections inside the parks worked really really well.
You’re able to begin using regular DAS once you’ve actually entered the parks.
Since you do it all within the MDE app it’s much easier than in the past.

I also made advance DAS selections for all 14 days, however we missed almost every advance selection.
Since the advance times are locked we found we almost always were unable to make it, usually because we were resting at that time.
But it didn’t matter at all.
So I really didn’t need to have stressed as much as I did about getting the advance selections.

One other thing to note, they tell you the DAS button will be on the page where all those squares are but mine almost never was.
Instead I accessed the DAS from the tip board by clicking on the ride we wanted.
There I could click on DAS or genie +

Anyway we thought the new DAS was a nice improvement over the prior version!!

 

[pregnantw4thprincess]

How was your experience with the preregistration? We are almost 30 days out and I am worried that I won’t be able to get through.

 

[tara595]

I went on the site on Monday around 4:30 PM EST and was on in about 10 minutes! It was so quick!

 

[sticker231]

How was your experience with the preregistration? We are almost 30 days out and I am worried that I won’t be able to get through.

Our registration this time was similar to tara595, we were done within ten minutes. Prior experiences were way longer, several hours waiting and having to sign in the next day due to excessive wait times. The CM I spoke with said they have a lot more people back.

 

[DisneyOma]

One other thing to note, they tell you the DAS button will be on the page where all those squares are but mine almost never was.
Instead I accessed the DAS from the tip board by clicking on the ride we wanted.
There I could click on DAS or genie +

Anyway we thought the new DAS was a nice improvement over the prior version!!

You just have to hit the home button, then the extended menu button again and it will appear.

 

[Jellybean9]

I read that you got covid shortly after arriving. Did that impact your park days because of the 5-day quarantine? Were you successful in not passing it to any of your travel companions? That’s a big concern of mine for our upcoming trip.

 

[DisneyOma]

We’ve been at WDW since June 30 and lucky me I caught covid
Of course I’ll be done long before the cruise.
I just hope the rest of the family doesn’t go down one by one like dominoes leading up to the cruise.

I read that you got covid shortly after arriving. Did that impact your park days because of the 5-day quarantine? Were you successful in not passing it to any of your travel companions? That’s a big concern of mine for our upcoming trip.

Yes, how did Disney handle it? We had to acknowledge that if we got Covid we had to quarantine, possibly be asked to leave the resort, etc. So many people are walking around the parks, coughing their brains out, no masks. Ugh!

 

[Amanda999]

How was your experience with the preregistration? We are almost 30 days out and I am worried that I won’t be able to get through.

Last Thursday 4pm or so took about an hour (maybe less) to connect, but once I was on with the CM it took just minutes. DS already is in the digital WDW system as having a DAS (i.e. he had DAS in 2021) so maybe that sped it up. She does take a photo on that video chat fyi for the DAS. Also you know how MDE makes you login again after awhile - i.e., way more often than most websites? That did happen many times during the wait, and especially during the chat to choose the advance rides. BUT I realized after I logged back in, and clicked to join chat again - it put me right back into the same spot (e.g., I could see the chat that I and the CM had already done). So not to worry if that happens.

 

[jcemom]

How was your experience with the preregistration? We are almost 30 days out and I am worried that I won’t be able to get through.

I registered last Sunday at around 7:20 am. I was on "hold" for almost an hour. When I got connected we couldn't get the video portion to work. I was using Chrome on a cell phone. I had to switch to Firefox and then it worked just fine. The rep was very patient and helpful. That portion, once we got the video working, only took a few minutes. Easy peasy.

 

[capegirl]

We are heading to Disney on Friday 8/5, so we are excited to see how it all plays out for us. We initiated our DAS request around 7pm, and the wait was very short. My grandson, who is on the spectrum, has been getting a DAS for several years. It is a wonderful bonus that we no longer need to make the usual stop at Guest Services to request the DAS for him.
Has anyone else been questioned about a 'diagnosis ' during the video chat? My daughter explained grandson's issues like she has always done in the past at GS, but we were a bit surprised when the CM asked, "Do you have anything specific, like a diagnosis?" My daughter has no problem sharing this information about her son, but it was always explained to us that CMs never ask for a diagnosis. We were wondering if changes were made due to the video chat.
The selection of DAS return times was much more time consuming than the video chat itself. Morning return times were elusive, and the times we received were mostly late afternoon or evening, so we'll see how it goes. We are always very grateful that Disney offers a DAS, it makes a world of difference for my grandson and our family.

 

[disneyholic family]

I read that you got covid shortly after arriving. Did that impact your park days because of the 5-day quarantine? Were you successful in not passing it to any of your travel companions? That’s a big concern of mine for our upcoming trip.

it's the advantage of a very long trip...
ours was a 31 day long trip to central florida...
we had 14 days in the disney parks, but spread over 18 days (the ticket we had - the UK 14 day ticket)..

i caught it and my daughter, son in law, and husband did as well...
they must have caught it at about the same time as i did, since they were a day after me...

if you're there for a short time, it will impact your trip i'm sure..
but with a long trip it wasn't a big deal..
plus we weren't sick at all other than the first 5 hours..
after that, we didn't have any symptoms at all...

we were happy that we caught it so early on, since we were going on a cruise at the end of the vacation and had to test negative (which we did)..

interestingly, 5 of our group of 9 NEVER caught it....even though they were in a 2 bedroom suite with my husband and me...
we were very close together both right before and during our illness..
they kept testing themselves every day, but never tested positive (and never had any symptoms)..
by the way, we brought lots of tests with us to WDW (which we'd gotten for free over the course of the year)..
we ended up using almost all of them in our testing craziness....

anyway, it was interesting that the 5 of them never got sick...
4 of them had covid way back at the time of beta...
so maybe that's why....
but the 6 year old has never caught it...not even when her sister and brother had it (and they share a bedroom)...and not when her parents got it..
and not when her grandparents and aunt/uncle caught it at WDW...
interesting..

bottom line, since we were there for such a long time, it didn't impact the trip at all....

 

[disneyholic family]

You just have to hit the home button, then the extended menu button again and it will appear.

no, it only appeared twice in that spot in my app over the course of 14 days.
And i tried the same way every time.
It's just a very very very very glitchy app. (notoriously so)
But as i noted, if you're in the tip board and click on a particular attraction, the das button and the genie+ button appear there.

So no need to stress about it not appearing where they told you it would be.

 

[DisneyOma]

no, it only appeared twice in that spot in my app over the course of 14 days.
And i tried the same way every time.
It's just a very very very very glitchy app. (notoriously so)
But as i noted, if you're in the tip board and click on a particular attraction, the das button and the genie+ button appear there.

So no need to stress about it not appearing where they told you it would be.

We never had that issue - what phone are you using? My daughter and I have iPhone 13, iPhone 11. Never had to do more than the home button and back to get the DAS option.

 

[disneyholic family]

We never had that issue - what phone are you using? My daughter and I have iPhone 13, iPhone 11. Never had to do more than the home button and back to get the DAS option.

i have an iphone 11, but there may be an issue since we're from overseas - so we were never really sure what network we were on...
wifi worked for us only part of the time..
and our phone company at home contracts with both T-Mobile and AT&T, but our reception was zero most of the time..
so we were struggling because of that probably

 

[Jake]

I found most of the pre selections were like walk on rides. Usually a 5 mintute standby. Once you get the hang of it it’s works great. Had trouble with the fourth person banding in would get the buz but did not go through

 

[disneyholic family]

I found most of the pre selections were like walk on rides. Usually a 5 mintute standby. Once you get the hang of it it’s works great. Had trouble with the fourth person banding in would get the buz but did not go through

we actually got some very good advance selections, but once you're at the parks, your day might be entirely different so those fixed advanced selections don't necessarily work...
but they're nice to have if they do work out......
we used our advanced selection on the last day for festival of the lion king which had just returned in full force the day before..
i knew when i made the advance selection that it was coming back the day before our last day
so we made AK our park for the last day and i booked festival of the lion king as our advance selection..
it means you go in first and usually get to sit in the lion section, which we prefer...
of course, wouldn't you know it, the show had a technical problem and stopped right before the end..
so we used regular DAS to see it again in the afternoon..
it's such a spectacular show...makes us happy every time we see it, and we've seen it at least 100 times over the years..

we also used the advance selection to see the Nemo musical which is still enjoyable even though they changed it...
but it has the original songs and actors so it's still beautiful....

because we had both genie+ and DAS, we were able to be quite flexible...
on days that the DAS person wasn't able to come to the parks, the rest of the group used early entry and genie+
and on the days the DAS person was with us, we used a combination of early entry, genie+ and DAS....

we actually had two DAS people in our group of 9...
the person who has needed it for the past 13 years and my husband who is in treatment for stage 4 cancer...
both of them took many days off from the parks - we had a 14 day ticket.....
i think they both took about half of the days off to rest in the hotel...
but the only way they could have possibly done even the 7 days was with the DAS..
there is no way they could have done it without it..
and this summer was probably the worst i've ever seen the crowds...
it was actually quite unbearable in the afternoons and we left every day no later than 2 PM and didn't come back....

Had we not had the DAS they wouldn't have been able to go into the parks at all...no question about it......

 

[Ellajoan]

we actually got some very good advance selections, but once you're at the parks, your day might be entirely different so those fixed advanced selections don't necessarily work...
but they're nice to have if they do work out......
we used our advanced selection on the last day for festival of the lion king which had just returned in full force the day before..
i knew when i made the advance selection that it was coming back the day before our last day
so we made AK our park for the last day and i booked festival of the lion king as our advance selection..
it means you go in first and usually get to sit in the lion section, which we prefer...
of course, wouldn't you know it, the show had a technical problem and stopped right before the end..
so we used regular DAS to see it again in the afternoon..
it's such a spectacular show...makes us happy every time we see it, and we've seen it at least 100 times over the years..

we also used the advance selection to see the Nemo musical which is still enjoyable even though they changed it...
but it has the original songs and actors so it's still beautiful....

because we had both genie+ and DAS, we were able to be quite flexible...
on days that the DAS person wasn't able to come to the parks, the rest of the group used early entry and genie+
and on the days the DAS person was with us, we used a combination of early entry, genie+ and DAS....

we actually had two DAS people in our group of 9...
the person who has needed it for the past 13 years and my husband who is in treatment for stage 4 cancer...
both of them took many days off from the parks - we had a 14 day ticket.....
i think they both took about half of the days off to rest in the hotel...
but the only way they could have possibly done even the 7 days was with the DAS..
there is no way they could have done it without it..
and this summer was probably the worst i've ever seen the crowds...
it was actually quite unbearable in the afternoons and we left every day no later than 2 PM and didn't come back....

Had we not had the DAS they wouldn't have been able to go into the parks at all...no question about it......

How did the combo of DAS and Genie Plus work? Were you able to get earlier Genie plus return times on the instances you got later DAS return times?

 

[disneyholic family]

How did the combo of DAS and Genie Plus work? Were you able to get earlier Genie plus return times on the instances you got later DAS return times?

DAS and genie+ are independent.
Having one does not affect the other.
speaking only of the regular in park DAS, you can only have one at a time
(i'm ignoring the advance selections which don't affect the in park selections)..

You can hold both genie+ and DAS at the same time
In fact, you can have a genie+ and a DAS for the same ride at the same time (though it confuses things when you tap in)....

for both genie+ and DAS, once you tap into the ride, you can then make your next selection.
If a ride has two tap points, then you can only book the next DAS/genie+ once you've tapped in at the second point.

but again, you can have both genie+ and DAS at the same time.
This helps in trying to get more in if you're going to stay in the parks for a shorter time.....

i'll add that we did a lot of cancelling and selecting new genie+/DAS because sometimes we just were too tired or whatever to do what we'd picked..
so we'd cancel and rebook it for later after sitting and relaxing..

the big difference between genie+ and DAS...
actually there are two big differences...
you can only use genie+ once for any ride..
DAS doesn't have that restriction..

also, genie+ can get 'sold out' so to speak during the day....
for the high demand rides, the genie+ times sell out fast...
so even at 7 am when you book your first genie+, for a high demand ride, you might already get a pretty late return time..
But with DAS, the return times are based on the standby line, so you don't get that "sell out" phenomenon..

another difference, though it's not important in my opinion, you can only book your first in park DAS when you're in the park....not at 7 am like genie+..
i actually view this as a plus, not a minus...

another difference, you can use same day in park DAS for every ride, including the paid lightning lane rides except for guardians of the galaxy...
put another way, guardians is the only ride you can't use the in park DAS for....which is nice...

So if DAS is better than genie+, why did we use genie+?
because as i mentioned, our DAS people weren't always able to come to the parks...
on several days and several partial days, they needed to rest in the hotel...
so the rest of the group needed genie+ for those days..
and since we had it, we also used it in conjunction with DAS on the says the DAS people were with us...
also we only used DAS for rides the DAS people could do, and genie+ for the rides they weren't doing...

bottom line, we found it more flexible that way..

also, i bought genie+ way in advance for the whole ticket before they changed the rules...
i found that to be much better, but now you have to buy it day by day..
i'm not sure i would have bought it if i'd had to buy it day by day when you feel the cost of it (for 9 people)..

we probably used genie+ on about 3 to 4 rides a day....it depends on the park...
at magic kingdom we used it a lot more...

i should add that obviously both of our DAS people are adults who can stay at the hotel by themselves...
clearly this wouldn't be true if it's a child ...

 

[disneyholic family]

editing the above terribly long post about genie+ and DAS:

if the DAS person is a child, i see no reason for you to buy genie+. DAS alone is more than sufficient.
The only time you might want to use genie+ is if there is something the DAS child can't ride and you'd like to get on it without waiting four hundred years. In that case genie+ might help.

if the DAS person is an adult, who might stay back at the hotel, then it may make sense for you to buy genie+. It's the same decision in that case as for any guest.

i hope that makes a little more sense than my verbose post above.

again, we had genie+ since i'd bought it months prior to our trip when it was included with the ticket.

 

[DisneyOma]

another difference, you can use same day in park DAS for every ride, including the paid lightning lane rides except for guardians of the galaxy...
put another way, guardians is the only ride you can't use the in park DAS for....which is nice...

To clarify - you can't use DAS for GotG unless you have already snagged a boarding group. Once your boarding group is called, you can access GotG with DAS through the $LL entrance. Some have posted that the standby queue is better and has had a short wait, but when we were there it was a long line.