more magic. less wait.
Continuing with our summer updates, we’ve just updated our advice for viewing the World of Color show at DCA. This advice is now available to RideMax subscribers, and can be found on the “Shows and Parades” page in the RideMax “Tips & Hints.”
Happy Planning!
Just a quick note here on an update to our DCA estimates.
While preparing our Disneyland RideMax update for the remainder of July today, I noticed on the Disneyland refurbishment list the following note:
“Now – January 1, 2014: Tower of Terror will operate at reduced capacity during routine maintenance.”
This reinforces the feedback I received recently from a customer, who indicated that on the date of his visit, Disney wasn’t offering FastPasses for Tower of Terror. My guess is that Disney had actually run out of FastPasses before the customer arrived at the attraction that day, rather than not offering them at all. (Luckily, the customer ended up OK, as he was given his choice of FastPasses when another attraction he was riding broke down during his ride.)
In looking at recent FastPass return times for Tower of Terror, they do indeed seem to be running quite a bit later into the day than what I’d normally expect to see. It’s quite likely that Disney has cut back on the number of FastPasses they issue for this attraction, which of course causes later return windows, especially in the late morning, afternoon, and evening hours.
As a result of the reduced capacity here, we’ve updated our Tower of Terror FastPass return time estimates for all dates currently on the RideMax calendar. I recommend for those of you who have already created plans which include Tower of Terror, that you create new plans instead.
Happy Planning!
We’re recently back from another extensive multi-day Disneyland Resort visit. And with Cars Land approaching its one-year anniversary, we’ve made an important update to our Cars Land advice, available to subscribers from within the RideMax application itself.
The real focus of the update is on Radiator Springs Racers (pictured above), as right now it’s the most difficult attraction to board without a significant wait in the entire Disneyland Resort. The update is focused on strategies for reducing your wait — and the strategy can change depending on the day of the week and time of the day. Along with the advice, we’ve included pictures, which I hope will make the advice more clear, especially for those who might be visiting Cars Land for the first time.
For RideMax customers, you can find the updated advice in the RideMax “Tips & Hints” area. Look for the page simply titled, “Cars Land Advice.”
And finally, if you’ve visited Cars Land since its opening, what did you think? Did you enjoy these new attractions? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below!
If you’re planning to visit Disneyland, Disney California Adventure (DCA), or Disney World’s Magic Kingdom on Friday, May 24th, you probably already know that the parks will be open for 24 hours straight, from 6:00am on Friday morning all the way through until 6:00am on Saturday morning.
What you might not know, though, is that the Disneyland resort is also hosting Grad Night on Friday evening as well, with the Grad Night festivities centered at DCA. As a result, even though DCA is technically “open” for 24 hours, many attractions will be open to regular guests for much less than that. According to the Disneyland website, for example, Radiator Springs Racers won’t open until 9:00am, and will close to regular guests at 10:15pm Friday evening.
We’ve built this assumption into RideMax, of course, but thought you may want to know this if you’re visiting tomorrow. It could be very crowded, but fun too!
What about you? Are you planning to brave the crowds and visit one of these three parks tomorrow? How long do you plan to stay? Let me know your plans in the comments below!
If any customers have created RideMax plans for a park visit on February 18th or later, we strongly recommend creating new plans instead, at least if you made your plans prior to February 14th at 9:00am PDT.
The rumors have been circulating for a long time, but now that Disney has placed signs on the FastPass machines asking guests to return within the one-hour window printed on the FP ticket, it seems like it’s time to take this seriously.
As a result, RideMax for Disneyland has been updated so that any plans created for dates on or after President’s day, February 18th, will no longer have the option to use FastPass late. (For those who are new to Disneyland and RideMax, up to this point Disney allowed you to use your FP ticket after the time shown on the ticket, even if you arrived several hours “late.”)
The other effect of this change is that we’ve updated our FP estimates themselves to better take this change into account. It’s always been easy for us to err on the late side with those estimates, since this was allowed by Disney and gave us more “wiggle room” in the plans. Now that the wiggle room is gone, we thought it best to pull the estimates back.
What does this mean for you? We hope the change isn’t earth-shattering, but you will, of course, have the annoyance of re-creating your plans if you’ve already made them for the affected dates. Once in the park, you will also need to double-check the return time shown on your ticket to make sure it fits within the time indicated on your RideMax plan, and adjust your day on the fly if necessary. (This is especially the case for FP return windows in the afternoon and evening, when predicting FP return windows can be more difficult. Fortunately, the afternoon and evening is also the time of day when the timing of the plan is less critical, so we’re hoping this will still work OK for most cases.)
With this update we’re also releasing a new version of the Windows application. This new version includes the ability to schedule more breaks (up to five), and also allows you to specify the location of those breaks. It also allows you to specify which specific attractions your FastPass runner is willing to miss, if any.
Note that we’ve implemented this change quickly enough that the RideMax “Tips & Hints” pages haven’t yet reflected these changes. We expect to get this done over the next few days.
Please let us know how these changes work for you, and happy planning!
