Re the my Škoda app, to activate locking/unlocking it says have to take it to dealer with driving licence to get it activated.

is that normal?

Yep, same for me. I contacted the dealer and got some waffle about connecting via WiFi. I decided it wasn't that important to me! 

Yes needs to be activated from the dealership, it's a 5min job if I recall right.

Handy feature which I've used a couple of times when walking to the car to pick up something and realizing I had forgot my key elsewhere.