DCL Has Their Protocol Out!!!

[KantLose]

Was your scanned passport a PDF? I'm wondering if there is a restriction on PDFs vs JPEGs for uploads.

I have scanned our passports as JPEG, and taken photos as well. The scanned JPEGs are better quality than the photos I took. I plan to try the scanned JPEGs first.

When we checked in we had to quickly switch our passport files from pdf to jpeg. I think the upload only accepted picture file formats.

 

[ljm23]

So I just completed my Online Check In for the upcoming Dream cruise on 9/13. We did the Safe Passage app on day 32 where you enter you vaccination information (dates, vaccine type etc) and then about 2 days later you get a go/no go. We got a “Go” and a QR code from Safe Passage, and printed that out. The Safe Passage was quite easy, just have the info in front of you.
Now on the Check In, while it’s was not difficult, it was also not a breeze. The first mistake I made was waiting for Day 30 – I was thinking that as soon as my Disney Cruise app said 30 days I could check in – alas no. I had set my alarm for midnight as my app counted day from day 31 towards day 30. When it hit 30 I tried my check in and it wouldn’t work. After about twenty seconds it dawned on me that while the app said 30 days, it also had 23 hours left. Rats – can’t check in till tomorrow midnight!
So the nexy day, after setting two alarms, I was at the computer at midnight as the app counter down to day 29. Then I was able to start the Online check-in process.
Staring off is the Guest Info section. First snag was Disney Cruise Line still wanted to use my address from five years ago, although I’ve entered and edited my new address many times, and had three DCL cruise from the new address. Go figure. Then you had to post a picture of yourself. I had already taken a headshot picture of myself and one of the DW. Of course the Check-In didn’t like either of them for some reason, so I retook a selfie of myself and cropped it and it worked. The DW was sound asleep, so I cropped her picture and the app STILL didn’t like it, but accepted it upon review. Then you had to enter the passport info. I had scanned both passports in anticipation, but guess what – the app won’t take a scan, it has to be a picture. So I took pictures of both and entered them and that worked. I entered phone number, emergency contact info etc etc, and hit Save. Well it bounced as the app didn’t like the country code. I had entered “01”, but no it insisted on just “1”. So I hit save again, and it bounced again. The app would let me manually enter the expiration date of my passport, which I had done. You had to use there little calendar to do so. So I went back and did that. Finally that worked. So that whole Guest Information process took at least 30 minutes.
Next was On Board account. This should be easy right? No – as when I opend this section up the area for credit card info was not working and the buffering circle just went round and round for literally a minute. So I hit the back arrow, praying I won’t have to start the whole process from scratch. But luckily it went back to OnBoard Account and when I opened it up finally the credit card info showed up. After that 2 minutes and done.
Third section was Travel Plans – 30 seconds max
Fourth section was Port Arrival time. We are the kind of cruisers that like to arrive at dawn, but everything I had seen so far showed the earliest port arrival time as around 1pm-ish, with many folks getting 3pm port arrival times. So when I clicked on the button I was super happy to see there was an 11:15 to 11:30 arrival time open. This had to be because I was doing this at midnight as the clock turned to 30 days

Thank you Jrbeccles! I have to say I am confused on which midnight to stay up for ! You're cruising 9/13 so today - 30 days (31 day August) would be 8/14 in my book. I guess you're saying it's midnight of the 30'th day vs midnight at the start of the 30'th day. SO confusing!

 

[jrbeccles]

Its beyond me also to try and count down using a calendar. The trick/hack is to make sure you've downloaded the Disney Cruise app on your phone, and there is a countdown clock on it marking down the days till you cruise. Use that so when it hits 29 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes you are good to check in! You ll defiantly need to download that app before you sail as there are no paper menus or activities dailies anymore - its all on your phone via that app.

 

[TestingH2O]

Use that so when it hits 29 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes you are good to check in!

That’s assuming you are in the Eastern time zone. If you are not, you will also need to make the time zone adjustment.