I would cancel and rebook the pre booked stuff. You’ll lose stuff but you’ll get other stuff in its place, I did this when I had to add someone to my trip like a week out. As PPs have said the reality of the same day returns for many of us is they’re hard to use because of how unchangeable they are.
I would not just ask at the rides because it puts the CM in an awkward position, it clogs the LL entrance as your whole party is held there & it puts your late addition in an awkward position when the CM says no and someone has to stay behind.
The
Same Day return times (sometimes called
“day of” return times) are actually the *
simplest* to use. Once you “get in line” on the app, you do not have to worry about getting there too late because the return time given is “return after [x] time”.
The preselected ride times are the ones that are
unchangeable. You
must arrive within the one hour window given.
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At WDW, I probably wouldn’t risk trying to rebook the pre-selects if they are things your
DAS holder really wants to ride, and you think there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be able to plan your time to use them.
On the other hand, if you’re fine with choosing from a shorter list of available rides and somewhat less desirable time options, then go for it. The GS CM will cancel your existing ride reservations and then begin looking for what else is available that can accommodate your now-larger group. Unfortunately, you could end up with them saying that there is literally
*nothing* available in the park on a given day. And nearly 100% of the time, they will be unable to reassign the times you gave up, because someone else will have grabbed them up.
I don’t think there’s been a single person report here that they got their original reservation back if they called to check for different times. On the contrary— there have been multiple posts warning not to attempt to change any preselect times, or you’ll end up with worse.
In one instance, the guest was told that nothing else was available. As far as they knew, their original choices were still in effect, since they hadn’t ended up choosing anything different. So, they thanked the CM and closed the chat. Only to discover, days or weeks later, that the preselects they had originally chosen were either no longer there in the app, or they noticed that they had return times listed for a completely different ride that they didn’t want, at a time that was literally unusable for their party.
The guest was understandably upset, because they had not been told
that in order for the CM to look for something else to offer you, your original choice must be deleted from MDE. It is the way their software works— there must be an empty “pre-selection slot” available in your and your linked-guests’ MDE apps. Only if there is an available slot will the system allow them to look fo potential rides & times in your reserved park.
IIRC, there wasn’t really anything that that could be done by the CM’s in the park.
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Have a good trip,
@Disfamilylife! Don’t stress over the pre-selections that you made before you knew another family member was going to join you.. You have a few options:
- You can simply ride your advance selections together with your original travel party while the family member does something else— get a snack (churro, anyone?), shopping, people-watching, Dapper Danstending another of your kids who doesn’t want to do that ride, etc.
- the family member can try to get a reasonably close G+ time, and you can all go on together,
- you can choose to forget the advanced selections altogether, and just book a “day-of” return time for your whole party, for that same attraction after you’ve all entered the park.
- Swap your relative’s MB with another adult from your party [Not the DAS holder, obviously] and let your relative ride in place of that someone— like maybe somebody really, really want a churro, but you don’t want to share (are you sensing a pattern?
)… Or maybe they want to pick up a gift when there are no little eyes watching 
[CM’s aren’t checking the identity of the rest of the party that accompanies the DAS holder, just that the MB being scanned belongs to someone who was in the linked party when the ride was selected.]
- Or some combination of the above if your DAS holder really loves the ride and wants to go on it more than once.
I’m sorry this turned into a novella
. Hopefully it’s helpful.
Safe travels!
