What the! On Christmas Eve, even though they were supposed to close at the end of the day, they closing early (12noon) due to a storm in Reno. It is still confusing to me that a storm over 400 miles away caused the early closure in Las Vegas.
I ended up going the first business day after Christmas. I arrived at 7:30a and there were already at least 150 people deep in the line. It was cold, but I was prepared with a long poofy feather down jacket plus hood. I was dumbfounded on how some people were not freezing.
At 8:00a, they opened the door and started letting people in. To get everyone inside, most or maybe all the counter representatives were assisting with intaking and getting everyone into the wait for your turn system. The system is fairly high-tech and efficient as it take the last four digits of your phone number to tell you what place you are in line. There are monitors you can stare at to see how far down the queue you are. The system is also set up to call you or text you with updated wait times. I could have gotten a coffee or breakfast during the wait but the parking lot was packed so I didn't want to risk not getting back in time.
It took probably 45-1hr before my turn. Not too bad. But it took another 45-1hr to get my Real ID application completed with the DMV representative. It would have probably been sooner but my rep was social and chatty, which I think I would have appreciated more than the typical somber-faced representative.
All in all, it wasn't as bad as I expected.
I'm not sure why I didn't read the Yelp reviews prior and wished I did, for all the good tips - most notably the tip about texting the DMV system and getting on the wait list prior to arriving.