For some reason I’ve been in a reflective mood today, thinking back to the beginnings of RideMax, and how incredibly grateful I am that I get to do what I do for a living!
The picture above, of my wife Liesle and me earlier this week at the Magic Kingdom, reminds me of how RideMax started, way back in the late 90’s. Our young family was visiting Disneyland, trying to get as much out of our limited time in the park as possible. I don’t remember the exact attractions involved, but we were trying to decide whether to do attraction “A” next or “B” next, as the morning crowds were starting to build.
Whichever attraction we chose to visit next, we chose wrong.
By the time we exited that next attraction, the line for the other one had a very long line, even though the attraction we had just visited still had a short line — about the same as when we boarded. It occurred to me that had we just swapped the order of the two rides, we could have saved ourselves a good chunk of time in line.
Then the thought occurred to me: why not take this to the extreme? If I had wait time estimates for all of the attractions as the day went on, I could use a computer to plug in the list of attractions I wanted to ride, and have it do a gazillion plan comparisons to come up with an “ideal” one designed to minimize the time in line.
I was working as a software engineering manager for a major networking company at the time, and thought, why not give this a try? That was the beginning of what would eventually become RideMax.
It took a LOT of hard work and experimentation to refine the optimization algorithm that’s at the core of RideMax (it turns out that optimizations of the sort RideMax does, especially if it involves more than about 12 attractions, are pretty difficult to do in a reasonable amount of computer time). And of course it also took a lot of legwork to sample those wait times at different seasons of the year and at various times of the day.
I still remember when I finally thought I had something that was “good enough” to try in the park. I created a plan for Disneyland that included all of the rides in the park (well, those that were open that day, anyway), and which began when the park opened, and finished later that night. If I remember right, it even included a nice break in the afternoon.
Liesle and I took that plan to the park on a busy fall Saturday. And even though I had written the software myself, I was actually sort of stunned by the results. The park itself seemed very crowded — we could definitely see the mobs of people around us — but we hardly felt the crowds at all.
As we used that first plan, it sort of felt like we were in an alternate universe where lines barely existed. It seemed that the park had given up a huge secret, one that had lay hidden from everyone who had ever visited the park since 1955, but that had finally been handed to just the two of us. It was an incredible experience!
As time went on and RideMax became more and more popular, it allowed me to leave the world of “big” programming and strike out on my own, doing RideMax full time. We moved to Florida to make it easier to cover the Disney World parks, and, as they say, the rest is history!
Of course, I realize that I wouldn’t be able to do this without your help. I think RideMax has sometimes succeeded in spite of me, rather than because of me. Most of our “advertising” has been plain ol’ word of mouth from satisfied customers.
And for that — for being part of this incredible journey — I thank you!
Oh, and if you’re wondering why Liesle is using MY laser gun in the picture above, it’s because she had already maxed out her score at 999,999, so she decided to see how many more points she could get using my gun (I had been taking pictures instead of playing).
She’s got this ride down cold! 🙂
Thank you Thank you Thank you….although I have enjoyed RideMax on several occations at both DisneyLand and Disney World, the credit for finding and using your site goes to my wife. I will admit, being a big Disney fan, and after visiting the park so many times prior to using RideMax, I was skeptical…boy was I wrong…I was amazed on the first day, how easy it was to get through the park…and with 4 kids in tow…it eliminates the “what do we do next” family pile in the middle of the walking path, that results in frustration and fatigue. I recommend you site to every person who is even considering going to Disney!!!! Keep up the good work!!!!
Just a word of thanks from a lifetime Disney-goer. I was born and raised in So-Cal and annual passes to Dland were part of my husband’s and my budget every year for a long time. When we moved to CO I heard of Ridemax from a neighbor and decided to try it on our next visit (since we didn’t have the benefit of annual passes and had to pack as much into one day as possible!). That was about 6 years ago, and we use it EVERY TIME we go to DL or DW. We pretty much are able to ride everything we want in any park by about 2pm. LOVE IT!
We’re planning another trip to DW this October with our 3 kids, and you can bet I’ll be using RideMax! Thanks again for helping us make the most of our vacation!
Are scheduling options available now for the first part of June?
I want to congratulate you for the work. I used it already, and really worked. I was able to do both parks in Califórnia. I am a system analyst, so not only liked it, as I admire the work it has behind the scenes. Great Job!
Pam, dates for June are available now for Walt Disney World. Dates through the first part of June for Disneyland should be coming in about 3 weeks, after Disneyland has published park hours through June 15th.
Stay tuned!
I’m so glad you’ve been able to make this your full-time gig. A service by fans, for fans, that stays up-to-date with the changes Disney likes to make is valuable to so many.
RideMax makes our visits such a pleasurable experience, I wouldn’t ever go without using it anymore.
I just returned from Disneyland and DCA this week. We used RideMax and is was amazing. Our party was 63, 36, 14 & 4 years old and my challenge was to make everyone happy. I was so worried that the ‘agenda’ wouldn’t allow for fun, but it was perfect. The 4 year old even walked with goofy as they opened up toon town. We had an amazing 2 days complete with 90 min naps in frontier land behind thunder mountain and at the Grand Californian fire place. The only thing I would love to see added is ride swap there were some rides one of us had to stay with the 4 year old and there was not enough time in schedule for us to do a ride swap. Thank you for such an amazing tool!!
Thanks for the report, Megan! I’m glad you found RideMax helpful!
Should you try this again and find the need to “swap” for the little one, I normally recommend collecting the child swap passes when the first “group” rides, at the time shown on the RideMax plan. Rather than using the pass right away, however, I suggest holding onto them and using them during the large block of “free time” that most RideMax plans include in the afternoon hours.
This has the advantage of allowing you to stay “on schedule,” as well as using the passes during the busy afternoon hours when they give you the most advantage over the larger crowds that exist at that time.
I hope this helps… Thanks again for the report!
Thank you so much for Ridemax, it’s the beat $15 spent on our Disnyland trip. I to felt as if my family was in an alternate universe watching people stand in line. We never had a wait time over 20 minutes at disneyland, and only one 25 minute wait time at California Adventure. In addition we were a couple minutes late getting started, but because the plan was so effecient we blew through and had time to go on every major ride at Disneyland twice (awesome). I will recommend this program to all my friends and family going on a Disney vacation.
Thanks for the great time, Craig