Anyone managed to book a DAS using the chat facility?

[cliveywolves]

Thanks for the advice guys, were on doing this tomorrow for our daughter, hopefully all goes well !

 

[leiaorgana]

@disneyholic family My 30 days was the 27th May but I didn’t want to do it then with all of the Guardians stuff going on and with it also being Memorial Weekend over there. I wasn’t sure how long I’d have to wait on Friday because I know from other people’s experiences on here that they’ve been waiting hours just to even get to the video chat part if you’re not right on at 12:00pm our time so I did it yesterday.

I’m pretty sure that they’re there at weekends though so you should be okay doing it on Saturday with him but just make sure you accept the terms and conditions first and then click the chat button at bang on 12:00pm if you can to reduce the time you’ll be waiting because I expect weekends will be busier than week days.

The video chat part for me only lasted a couple of minutes but when I got through to the preselect chat, the CM I spoke to yesterday outright said she couldn’t book past 30th June for me before we even started since the Disney part of my holiday starts 26th June thru to the 10th July. When I queried it and said other people had been able to book the entire length of their trip at 30 days she just told me she couldn’t see a Disney resort stay attached to my account and couldn’t do it, which was highly annoying. I was just given a direct link the preselect chat and told to either do it everyday or wait until my full trip was in the 30 day window but she said there probably wouldn’t be much availability left if I did that and seeing how it was slim pickings already doing the few days I was able to do yesterday, I believe her. I wanted morning times and so far have only been able to get early afternoon times. I’m going to ask the CM I speak to tomorrow if they can book the rest of my trip for me but I suspect it’s something they’re only doing for their hotel guests

 

[leiaorgana]

Just a little update on how the rest of my preselections went today:

The CM I spoke to today was so incredibly helpful. He let me book the rest of my trip today all of the way up to our last park day on the 9th July completely unprompted by me and instead of doing the preselect form, he just looked at my account and saw what parks I was going on what days and pasted all of the available times for every ride into the chat and let me select what I wanted from there. Still took about 50mins to do because I’m not sure if he was talking to someone else at the same time as me but I really appreciated how helpful the CM I had today was.

 

[disneyholic family]

Just a little update on how the rest of my preselections went today:

The CM I spoke to today was so incredibly helpful. He let me book the rest of my trip today all of the way up to our last park day on the 9th July completely unprompted by me and instead of doing the preselect form, he just looked at my account and saw what parks I was going on what days and pasted all of the available times for every ride into the chat and let me select what I wanted from there. Still took about 50mins to do because I’m not sure if he was talking to someone else at the same time as me but I really appreciated how helpful the CM I had today was.

by the way, did you use a VPN?

 

[leiaorgana]

by the way, did you use a VPN?

Yes, I did! That’s the only way you can do it in advance from the U.K. The page you need to join the chat from won’t show up unless you use VPN, it just takes you to the U.K. Disney site.

I hope everything goes well for you and your son-in-law tomorrow though!

 

[disneyholic family]

so finished doing the DAS about an hour ago.
We logged in exactly at 7 am eastern time (14:00 my time), but still had to wait about 35 minutes.
We had just been kicked out at the 30 minute mark and then another 5 minutes or so.
The guy was super super super super nice.
We're easy since my son in law always has to have a DAS due to his medical condition and i think the CM sees the history in the system.
We did have an issue with the size of our group.
He put all of us in the group, but we can only reserve the limit number on the DAS.
He said that if we talk to guest services in the park, they should be able to expand the group to include the extra two people.
after talking to him, he switched us over to the text chat with another very nice CM.
She was able to book us through July 14. She said we'd have to come back in to book our last two days.
The only annoying thing is being kicked out every 30 minutes and having to find your way back.
But after some fiddling, we managed each time.
Oh and yes we used the VPN to get us to the US site.

 

[Randel_Raines]

so finished doing the DAS about an hour ago.
We logged in exactly at 7 am eastern time (14:00 my time), but still had to wait about 35 minutes.
We had just been kicked out at the 30 minute mark and then another 5 minutes or so.
The guy was super super super super nice.
We're easy since my son in law always has to have a DAS due to his medical condition and i think the CM sees the history in the system.
We did have an issue with the size of our group.
He put all of us in the group, but we can only reserve the limit number on the DAS.
He said that if we talk to guest services in the park, they should be able to expand the group to include the extra two people.
after talking to him, he switched us over to the text chat with another very nice CM.
She was able to book us through July 14. She said we'd have to come back in to book our last two days.
The only annoying thing is being kicked out every 30 minutes and having to find your way back.
But after some fiddling, we managed each time.
Oh and yes we used the VPN to get us to the US site.

Thanks for the detailed info. Can I ask please, when you were kicked out did you just refresh the page/ how did that part work please.

 

[ellataylor]

We did the chat facility a few weeks ago. When it tells you in the chat box its timed out (I can remember exactly what it said), I had to log back into MDE and go through the DAS pages to set up the call again. When you press the start chat button, the old, familiar chat box appears with timings when you originally joined the wait.

It is a bit disconcerting, the first few times I was convinced I’d be starting over! It also happened mid chat with the CM who was setting up the pre selected DAS rides. By the time I managed to get back to her, she was about to cut me off as she had thought I’d purposefully disappeared. I thought that was odd as it must happen a lot!

 

[disneyholic family]

Thanks for the detailed info. Can I ask please, when you were kicked out did you just refresh the page/ how did that part work please.

We did the chat facility a few weeks ago. When it tells you in the chat box its timed out (I can remember exactly what it said), I had to log back into MDE and go through the DAS pages to set up the call again. When you press the start chat button, the old, familiar chat box appears with timings when you originally joined the wait.

It is a bit disconcerting, the first few times I was convinced I’d be starting over! It also happened mid chat with the CM who was setting up the pre selected DAS rides. By the time I managed to get back to her, she was about to cut me off as she had thought I’d purposefully disappeared. I thought that was odd as it must happen a lot!

i've read other posts reporting the same thing.
So the system is apparently set up to throw you out every 30 minutes.
On two different days, i was in the chat with them for almost 3 hours and so i was thrown out 5 times - every half hour.
You're in a text chat box with them, and suddenly it goes blank and says error and also say go back to the prior page.
you have to go back to the prior page and if i remember correctly, you have to close the chat box and when you try to get in again, you have to log in again and then the chat box opens on it's own and you're back to exactly where you were when it stopped.
Each time i just said "hi, i'm back. i had to log in again"
And they seemed to know it was happening and said, "no worries, i'll be here when you get back each time"
but it was soooooooooooooooooooo frustrating...
sometimes i was right in the middle of answering a question about times or whatever...
and it added a good 25 minutes to the session since it took me a while to log back in each time...

fortunately, i'd see someone else's post about it before i did it the first time, so i wasn't completely shocked when it happened...
but still it's upsetting and annoying each time it happens...

 

[Randel_Raines]

i've read other posts reporting the same thing.
So the system is apparently set up to throw you out every 30 minutes.
On two different days, i was in the chat with them for almost 3 hours and so i was thrown out 5 times - every half hour.
You're in a text chat box with them, and suddenly it goes blank and says error and also say go back to the prior page.
you have to go back to the prior page and if i remember correctly, you have to close the chat box and when you try to get in again, you have to log in again and then the chat box opens on it's own and you're back to exactly where you were when it stopped.
Each time i just said "hi, i'm back. i had to log in again"
And they seemed to know it was happening and said, "no worries, i'll be here when you get back each time"
but it was soooooooooooooooooooo frustrating...
sometimes i was right in the middle of answering a question about times or whatever...
and it added a good 25 minutes to the session since it took me a while to log back in each time...

fortunately, i'd see someone else's post about it before i did it the first time, so i wasn't completely shocked when it happened...
but still it's upsetting and annoying each time it happens...

Fab thanks for the info still got 30 days before we can apply for my daughter. Its the first time having to use it so a new entity for us on lots of levels. Next stop is to speak to Virgin to see if they can offer any assistance.

 

[jjj4]

Fab thanks for the info still got 30 days before we can apply for my daughter. Its the first time having to use it so a new entity for us on lots of levels. Next stop is to speak to Virgin to see if they can offer any assistance.

Hi just wanted to advise you that following our very recent experience with requesting special assistance from Virgin, I would recommend contacting them sooner rather than later and, unlike previous years, they could not have been more unhelpful.....

 

[Sundancer UK]

Well am I glad to see this thread! I asked Disney a couple of days ago if advance DAS was available to UK residents and told a flat no.

We're not going until November 30th, but we're a large party of eight, and five are disabled. I was thinking of just doing DAS for two of them, as the rest can join parties?
Fingers crossed we will be able to do the VPN method later this year, it sounds like it makes quite a difference.

 

[Sundancer UK]

Hi just wanted to advise you that following our very recent experience with requesting special assistance from Virgin, I would recommend contacting them sooner rather than later and, unlike previous years, they could not have been more unhelpful.....

Sorry to go off topic here, but what help could Virgin give if I were to ask? As I said in my last reply, there's five people with disabilities in my party and I've no idea what help can be offered. Mostly ours is autism, adhd, and mental health issues, rather than physical, although some symptoms of this can manifest as physical too...