Just registered for DAS pre-arrival...

[PDXmouse]

We were on the ipad right as it opened at 7 am (4 am here! )

I used the ipad so I could go sit on the edge of my daughter's bed. She was half asleep as one might expect.

We got through almost immediately - yay! But I was surprised how limited the times were. We can only go to the parks for roughly half a day (can maybe be extended with more table service meals as rests.) The castmember didn't say this exactly but it sounds like they weren't given a full days worth of times from which to pick. I had our days roughly planned out but many of the options were off by hours. I will have to rearrange our park plans to adjust. She did say they release times in batches - so they will do morning, mid day, and evening. Then as those are used up they release more.

They are sticking to the "you can only have 7 days pre-planned at any given time" rule. I picked the DHS and MK days, plus one AK. After we finish our first day, we can then call back and make plans for another. So I guess the first three park evenings of our trip I will be on calls with the DAS help line... That is a little annoying because I already have so much I have to plan for and it's just one more thing... That said, 7 days is better than nothing.

She was very nice and it was an easy process overall. I'm relieved there wasn't a long wait. Now I'm going back to bed because I have to work today.

 

[jo-jo]

Yeah sometimes the timing is awful. We are limited to time and type of ride. At Epcot it’s basically, the one side of the park. We asked soaring and the land ride. We got them at say 10:am and 5 pm, while asking for morning. I’m sure we skipped a few of the pre planned rides just because timing didnt work.

 

[leiaorgana]

Also don’t forget that people who arrive before you and have overlapping dates with your trip will have had first pick at the better times as well. Personally, I can’t see there being much decent stuff left to pick from by the time you have to call again.

We did the pre-arrival DAS for our trip last June/July and honestly the pre-booked ones just made things more stressful having to go backwards and forwards across the park all of the time and having to keep an eye on the time and we ended up not using half of them because it was too tiring ping ponging around the park for them. I’m just going to renew my DAS in MK when we’re there in June and go from there because the extra ones were just too much pressure combined with other things going on in the day.

 

[lanejudy]

The DAS Advanced Selections are apparently limited options. They don’t schedule all day open to close. Many folks don’t end up using their Advanced Selections because the times simply don’t align well with their in-park plans. You can always get a regular DAS return time for those attractions and it may work better for your needs.

 

[voxparse]

just a heads up that if you need to alter the advance selections you only have to be in chat with them. you won't have to get on the video call again which is nice.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

They only do 7 days of pre selection? Is this new? I did all 10 of our park days on our most recent trip. I also didn’t use many of the pre selections because they didn’t work when we were in park

 

[lanejudy]

They only do 7 days of pre selection? Is this new? I did all 10 of our park days on our most recent trip.

It has been limited to 7 days for the past several months.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

It has been limited to 7 days for the past several months.

Oh ok I registered in October for a November trip and got all my park days. Good to know for next year

 

[DisneyOma]

We were on the ipad right as it opened at 7 am (4 am here! )

I used the ipad so I could go sit on the edge of my daughter's bed. She was half asleep as one might expect.

We got through almost immediately - yay! But I was surprised how limited the times were. We can only go to the parks for roughly half a day (can maybe be extended with more table service meals as rests.) The castmember didn't say this exactly but it sounds like they weren't given a full days worth of times from which to pick. I had our days roughly planned out but many of the options were off by hours. I will have to rearrange our park plans to adjust. She did say they release times in batches - so they will do morning, mid day, and evening. Then as those are used up they release more.

They are sticking to the "you can only have 7 days pre-planned at any given time" rule. I picked the DHS and MK days, plus one AK. After we finish our first day, we can then call back and make plans for another. So I guess the first three park evenings of our trip I will be on calls with the DAS help line... That is a little annoying because I already have so much I have to plan for and it's just one more thing... That said, 7 days is better than nothing.

She was very nice and it was an easy process overall. I'm relieved there wasn't a long wait. Now I'm going back to bed because I have to work today.

I wouldn't rearrange schedules based on the limited availability of pre-selects. Just ignore them if you can't use them and go to the parks when it works best for your family. We have found in-park DAS to work better for us than the pre-selects.

 

[10CJ]

I recently registered and I was happy with how smoothly the process went overall. Not sure I started right at 7 am, but had launched the chat window between 7 and 7:10. I think it was around 7:45 or 7:50 when they were ready to start the video chat. They could see I had used the program in the past. I think I was done at 8:04. I was pleasantly surprised that the approval cast member was able to book the advanced pre-selects. I did not have to type anything in. I told the CM times of day and rides and they gave me times to pick from. They did not seem to have anything later in the evening. I believe 6 pm was that latest I could get for a day mid-trip. They did let me overlap times though, so that is nice.

 

[Craig Larson]

It has been limited to 7 days for the past several months.

Do all 7 days need to be within the 30 day period? Or can you call 30 days from your check-in (or first park day) and go out an additional 6 days? I've been confused around that part of the advanced selections.

 

[lanejudy]

Do all 7 days need to be within the 30 day period? Or can you call 30 days from your check-in (or first park day) and go out an additional 6 days? I've been confused around that part of the advanced selections.

Technically WDW rules indicate that all days must fall within the 30-day window. Some CMs stick to that. Other CMs apparently are more lenient and may do the Advanced Reservations for all days even if some are more than 30-days out. So yes it is confusing and very much a case of YMMV.

 

[10CJ]

Do all 7 days need to be within the 30 day period? Or can you call 30 days from your check-in (or first park day) and go out an additional 6 days? I've been confused around that part of the advanced selections.

I registered on the first day I was eligible. The CM let me book all my days, even though only the first day was in the 30 day window. I was prepared for them to say I could only book one day, but they seemed completely fine booking all my days. I only had 7 days, so can not comment on if they would have allowed more than 7 days.

 

[Debbie Jean]

I registered on the first day I was eligible. The CM let me book all my days, even though only the first day was in the 30 day window. I was prepared for them to say I could only book one day, but they seemed completely fine booking all my days. I only had 7 days, so can not comment on if they would have allowed more than 7 days.

My upcoming stay is actually 8 days. Was able to book 7 days. While I could certainly have called later to book that last day, it’s really not worth the trouble to me. While I appreciate having the ability to register before arriving, prebooking attractions is not my focus… honestly wouldn’t miss it, if they eliminated that.

 

[gottalovepluto]

I registered on the first day I was eligible. The CM let me book all my days, even though only the first day was in the 30 day window. I was prepared for them to say I could only book one day, but they seemed completely fine booking all my days. I only had 7 days, so can not comment on if they would have allowed more than 7 days.

Do you do this while on the video or does it switch to a chat session?

 

[brockash]

Today was out 30 day mark for our 1st park day and were able to book all days.

 

[rlk]

Today was out 30 day mark for our 1st park day and were able to book all days.

Were you able to book more than 7 days?

 

[Debbie Jean]

Do you do this while on the video or does it switch to a chat session?

Video CM will pass you over to a chat session with a different CM. If for some reason you aren’t ready to make prebooked ressies, you can come back later to do that… don’t need to return to the video portion.

 

[CeCe0906]

We just viewed our preselected as" extra if convenient" . The DAS day of selects worked better for us. The only exception for us is something that they really like we used it to ride twice in a row, I was able to time our in DAS selection close to the window of our preselected, and we got off and just reentered the LL.

The advanced select were held out as a perk of preregitering to save the lines and time spent doing it on first park day. Bit the reality of most DAS users is that many need the flexibility that the preselected ones don't offer.

We stayed at Dolphin and just went to guest services on arrival day at the IG, you don't enter the park and did it in person in the evening before our first park day. No line and easy. Perk of doing that was after we rode the Skyliner for fun and saw the Epcot fireworks!

 

[10CJ]

Do you do this while on the video or does it switch to a chat session?

This time around I did it while on the video call with the CM who approved me. It was so much easier than being transferred to another CM and doing it over chat. The CM could see my park reservations, would name the day and park. I would say two rides and then they would list off times and I would select them.