I have just heard that it can take a really long time activating APs at the ticket window at the parks. So, I am planning to go with my DH the afternoon we get there directly to a park to do the activation rather than waiting and trying to do it at RD at our first park. Two questions: 1. Can we go without our kids to activate all 4 tickets or do they have to be with us? 2. which park/ticket window do you recommend for the quickest turn around? We won’t be going in the park, just activating and going to the resort, so any ticket window will do.
Thanks!
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Like you, I was just going to a park to activate my AP. I had checked in at the Art of Animation and decided that I would take the first bus to either EPCOT or Hollywood Studios since they were the closest parks. I ended up at EPCOT guest services outside of the park to the right of the ticket booths. It was early afternoon in middle of August. OK, I know that I wrote that I was only going to activate my AP but I couldn’t resist going into the park and taking a selfie with my activated AP in front of Spaceship Earth -I am such a Disney nerd.
I estimate that it took me 45 minutes to wait in line, activate the AP and buy a Tables in Wonderland card. Most of the time was wait time. My transactions took maybe 10 minutes. There weren’t that many people in front of me in the line but they must have had issues that took a long time to deal with. Maybe it just seemed like a long time because I was excited to be at WDW!
I only activated my AP so I don’t know if your kids need to be present to activate their passes.
I’m curious about this too; we don’t have Annual Passes, but we do have Florida Resident tickets (“Disney Select Tickets”, I think) to activate. We’re not arriving at WDW until late the night before, so we have no choice but to activate in the morning at our first park (Hollywood Studios). Does anyone have experience on how early the Guest Relations window opens (it’s an AM EMH day), and how early we should be there to be first at the window?
just chatted with someone on the Disney website and they said it is not necessary for my kids to be there. That is helpful 
Hmmm. I chatted with a CM today too, and discovered that the DHS Guest Services window opens at 8:00 this Sunday. That would be at the same time the park opens for EMH. That’s a fly in the ointment. Does anyone know if the Guest Services windows ever open a little bit early on EMH days?
So they just said we can do it at Disney Springs, so that is even better as we are going there for dinner the first night we get there!
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Yeah, I wish that was an option for me, but we probably won’t be getting into WDW until after midnight on Saturday.
Just an update on this in case anyone looks at this thread and has the same question I did: another CM told me that Guest Relations does open earlier on EMH days. I hope this one is right, and the other one was wrong.
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