This is just a quick update for Disneyland RideMax subscribers .
California Adventure has recently started opening Toy Story Midway Mania later than park opening time. This has typically been between 9:30-10:00am, depending on the date.
This delayed opening has been consistent enough lately, probably due to all of the construction in the area, that we’ve updated RideMax to assume this from now on. After Disney reverts back to the normal opening time for this ride, we’ll make the corresponding change in RideMax as well.
In the meantime, if prior to today you created RideMax plans for DCA which include Toy Story, I strongly encourage you to re-run those plans before your trip.
If this is your first time visiting the RideMax website, you should know that RideMax is planning software designed to save you time in line at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. You enter the date you’ll be visiting the park, as well as the attractions you want to visit, along with your preferred touring options. RideMax takes these into account, crunches on our estimated wait times for the date of your visit (possibly comparing *millions* of potential itineraries), to create a custom, optimized game plan which you can then take to the park.
RideMax was initially released in the pre-smartphone days, when folks actually printed their RideMax plans on paper and took them to the park.
Although you could still follow this procedure today, a lot of technology has been introduced since those early days which can assist the visitor to Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Some of these innovations include smartphones in general, FastPass+ at Walt Disney World, MaxPass at Disneyland, and the parks’ own apps, which give users insight into current wait times in the park. Third-party apps also abound.
Given all of the tools available to theme park visitors these days, I thought it would be helpful to outline ten reasons why I STILL think you should be using RideMax to help plan your next Disney park visit.
Reason 1: It saves you time in line (and time is money!)
This may seem obvious, but the whole point of RideMax is to save you time standing in line, while also reducing the amount of walking you need to do to make this happen. (It’s optimization algorithm is specifically designed to minimize your estimated waiting AND walking time.)
Crowds build early at the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in the Magic Kingdom. A little strategy here can go a long way.
So, how much is that time savings worth to you? Let’s assume for a moment that you are a family of four is planning a three-day visit to Disneyland, where you expect to spend an average of eight hours each day in the park, at a total cost of $2,000 for everything, including park tickets, hotel stay, and travel.
If you divide that $2,000 by the 24 total hours you expect to spend in the park, you’ll see that the cost per hour of park time is just north of $83. At that rate, RideMax will only need to save you eleven minutes(!) in line before you break even on your $14.95 RideMax investment. And that’s not eleven minutes per day, but eleven minutes TOTAL for your entire vacation.
We’ve had customers report saving HOURS of time in line thanks to RideMax, so this advantage seems pretty clear.
Something I rarely mention here is my Disneyland eBook, which is appropriately titled, The RideMax Book of Tips for Disneyland. It’s basically a short “how-to” guide containing time-saving tips for Disneyland and DCA, as well as my favorite viewing locations for the parade, fireworks, World of Color, and more. These are illustrated with pictures to help convey details which are otherwise hard to describe with just text.
I mention all of this because I’ve just published the latest version of the eBook, which contains updates for MaxPass, as well as a general “refresh” of many of the other tips in the book.
The eBook is currently only available as an add-on to the Disneyland RideMax subscription, but if you have a current subscription which includes the eBook, you can update to the latest version for free by following the eBook download link in your original subscription email.
Just a quick note here to let you know that Disney is doing some major construction at DCA as part of a re-theme for the Paradise Pier area of the park. I’d recommend re-generating any DCA RideMax plans as a result.
In case you’re wondering about the details, the construction walls now block access to the circular route around the pier. You can walk from California Screamin’ to Toy Story Midway Mania, but at that point you’ll hit the walls and have to turn around if you want to visit the attractions on the other side of TSMM.
These temporary park changes affect the estimated walking times used by RideMax when it creates your custom plan. If prior to Tuesday, January 16th you created a RideMax plan for DCA, I’d recommend running that plan again.
If you’re planning a trip to Disneyland in the near future, you may be asking yourself if MaxPass is worth it. It certainly is convenient to arrange all of your FastPass reservations directly from your phone, but it does cost $10 per-person, per-day, so this can add up, especially for larger groups.
I’ve analyzed this in detail below, but if you don’t want to read further, let me summarize my conclusions: MaxPass helps most on busy days, and it helps most those groups who can’t or won’t use a “FastPass runner.”
To be clear, as I posted previously, I think Disneyland’s MaxPass system is far superior to Walt Disney World’s FastPass+ system. But the intent of this post isn’t to compare parks, it’s to help you decide whether MaxPass is worth the cost for your own individual situation, given that you plan to visit Disneyland.
To help you decide, I ran four different RideMax plans for the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend, which is one of the busiest days of the year.
