I made a reservation. At first I tried online, but that failed so hard my browser when on strike and refused to refresh. So I used the apple store app. With the app, I went right in and had a phone reserved in less than 2 minutes.
I then went to the store the next morning. Told them I had a reservation for a phone, so they then went and signed me in. I waited about 15 minutes or so. Lady came up, asked me to make sure the phone I reserved was the correct one with what she had in her hand. Then I gave her my credit card and was basically out the door. Whole process took about 5 minutes.