A few weeks ago, we told you that Mobile Ordering through the MyDisneyExperience app was coming to select Walt Disney World Resort counter service eateries. Well, yesterday, during a special preview of Pandora: The World of AVATAR at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, we got to try out the service at the Satuli Canteen.
The latest update of the app is necessary to use mobile ordering, so make sure you download it.
Upon opening the updated app, it informs guests of the new service, even though it is in very limited testing.
Guests registered for a preview of Pandora: The World of AVATAR can utilize the service at Satuli Canteen, who plans to launch with the service when they open on May 27th.
All you have to do is go to the restaurant of your choice in the app (who offers the service, of course), and select the “Order Food” option.
As we told you before, the Dining Plan can not be used for this service, only credit cards.
Ordering is very simple as you just select an entree…
Once the entree is selected, you can then customize it as you wish.
You can pretty much remove any of the ingredients, which I thought was impressive.
When I selected a fountain beverage, the app even tried to up-sell me a Navi Flute Cup. Don’t be ridiculous app, I already have it!
You can take a look at what’s in your “cart” or “bag” at any time to remove or change the quantity of an item. Once it is to your liking (and you skip over the cup up-sell again), you can hit “Review Order Summary”.
The “Order Summary” screen gives you one final chance to look at the order, see the price, and purchase it. It will automatically use the credit card attached to your MyDisneyExperience account unless you change it at the bottom of this page. Then you can just hit purchase when ready.
Once you have pre-paid using your credit card on file, you get a confirmation message. At this point, you can go do whatever and return when you are ready to eat later that day. I, in fact, placed this order three hours before returning to Satuli Canteen. When I even got anywhere near the restaurant, a notification would pop up and ask if I was ready to dine there, a nice feature to have.
Upon reopening the app, you can find your pre-order in a separate box in “My Plans”, awaiting you to click the “I’m Here, Prepare My Order” button.
You will need to present your order number, so have this ready when you do retrieve your food.
Once you hit the button, then your food will be prepared. You don’t have to do anything until it tells you that your order is ready.
I kept the app open through the entire process, so I saw the 3rd light turn green and tell me that my order was ready to be picked up. If you close the app, you can still get a notification to go to the counter, as you can see below.
As I said above, when the food is ready, the 3rd dot will turn green and it will tell you to head on over.
This is when you visit the counter labeled for Mobile Order Pick-Up, and if all goes according to plan, you will have your food and drink within seconds of your arrival. Everything worked for us and it was super convenient. The other person I was visiting with used the regular ordering process and I had my meal in hand much faster than he did, so should this system continue to work in this fashion, I think Disney has a real winner on its hands.
Mobile ordering will be also be available for the following counter service locations at the four Walt Disney World theme parks and Disney Springs at some point in the future:
- ABC Commissary
- Backlot Express
- Columbia Harbor House
- Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe
- D-Luxe Burger
- Electric Umbrella
- Flame Tree Barbecue
- Liberty Inn
- Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe
- Pinocchio Village Haus
- Pizzafari
- Restaurantosaurus
- Satu’li Canteen
- Tomorrowland Terrace Restaurant
- Tortuga Tavern
An exact start date for the service at all of these restaurants is still unknown, but we do know that at the very least Satuli Canteen will be using mobile ordering starting in May. More restaurants may be added in the future should the program prove successful.
Do you know if Mobile ordering will word with dining plan credits as payment? We are traveling in September, and will have the dining plan and would love to try this feature out.
Credit card is the only payment method available at this time. The credit card you have on file in your My Disney Experience account is the card that will be charged. The mobile order system will not accept Disney Dining Plan credits at this time.
As the review says, only credit card.
After I updated my app it stated it doesn’t currently work with dining plans and that you have to have a credit card on file.
Work**
You know this reminds me, WaWa is great.
its Wawa….not WaWa, come on son
This is super super cool! Can’t wait to try it out. Will save a lot of time when it’s busy.
Will this work with an AP or DVC discount? Is there a place to input the discount?
I didn’t see any modification options. If you wanted the bowl different than the standard, say without the slaw, would you have been able to do that on the app?
It looks like certain ingredients like the boba and the slaw can be removed – Tom has a picture of that screen option. I’m glad, since I can’t stand any kind of slaw.
I assume when you tap “Prepare my Order” that puts you in line after the guests at the cash registers have already paid?
Or did you jump them and the staff immediately started working on your order?
Tom, I hope you try this process again some time when it’s way busier (when everyone is able to use the app, on or after May 27th)…it would be good to see how quickly you get the food then.
This will be amazing at dluxe
We went to Satuli last week when cast members were guarding tables and not letting anyone without food sit down, but we were in line just long enough to figure out what we wanted to eat. Mobile ordering would not have saved any time, even with the restaurant being as busy as it was.
Our wait in line at D-Luxe Burger, Columbia Harbour House, and Backlot Express was also negligible, even during the crush of Memorial Day/first week in June crowds.
Not a reason for Disney not to offer the service for guests who want to use it, but our experience was that online ordering wouldn’t have revolutionized anything for us. Not in the way it revolutionizes getting Dominos or Taco Bell back home.
We have three children under the age of 10, all with ADHD and one with autism. This might help us out a bit. It can get rough when one of us has to wait in line and remember everyone’s order while the other is left alone with 3 hangry kids.
Tried it yesterday for Columbia house Failed miserably. Took 15 minutes to order for 4 people. When
I entered my password to validate the order, it failed 3 times, because of the lack of bandwidth in Fantasyland. By the time I moved to get better bandwidth, the order was gone. Wasted my time.
If you wait to use this when you are in the restaurant, you are doing it wrong. We’d order from the bus, across the park, pre dinner potty break. Then, when we were close we’d press I’m here. On busy days when the line to get in was 20 minutes we’d walk in and grab our food and yummm.