RideMax Roulette at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Tomorrow!

I’m headed to Animal Kingdom tomorrow, April 10th, to test a half-day RideMax plan. You can follow along for live updates from the park:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ridemax
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RideMax4Disney

I’m calling this “RideMax Roulette,” because rather than using a predetermined list of attractions, I decided to plug in a (mostly) random list of shows and attractions into RideMax, then created my half-day plan from there.

I say it was “mostly” random simply because I knew in advance that I wanted to visit both of the trails — Pangani and Maharajah Jungle Trek — and I also wanted to see the Lion King show. (Sorry, but I also knew I didn’t want to sit through the 40-minute-ish Finding Nemo show, and I didn’t want to get soaked on Kali with my DSLR in hand, so I omitted these from the list of possible attractions.)

After adding my three “must-do” attractions to the list, I used a random number generator to come up with five others, and I was left with the following list of eight attractions altogether:

Dinosaur (twice)
Expedition Everest
Festival of the Lion King
It’s Tough to be a Bug!
Maharajah Jungle Trek
Pangani Forest Exploration Trail
TriceraTop Spin

I know this may seem like a pretty wimpy attempt, given that the plan doesn’t include the Safari, but hey, it is what it is. I think it’s also good for me to test RideMax plans that include non-obvious ride selections, as it has sometimes helped me to see and/or fix problems that might come up with various ride choices.

Given this list of attractions, I decided to use FP+ for at least Dinosaur and Expedition Everest. I would normally use the other FP+ for either the Safari or Kali River Rapids, but since neither of these are in my list, I’m using the third FP+ slot for It’s Tough to be a Bug! (Yeah!)

After crunching on this list of attractions, here is what RideMax came up with. Remember, RideMax’s goal is to minimize BOTH waiting AND walking time:

Notice the large-ish block of “free time starting just before 9:00am. I think I’m going to use this to go see DiVine near the park entrance.

After creating this plan, I went into Disney’s “My Disney Experience” application and reserved my FP+ time slots to correspond with the times shown in green on the plan. (And yes, I realize that I most likely won’t need those Dinosaur and ITTBAB FP+ tickets that early in the day. If this were a full-day plan, you’d likely see those FP+ slots set up for later in the day.)

I’ll keep you updated on Facebook and Twitter as I progress through the morning. Feel free to comment there or below as I go!

Epcot Flower & Garden Festival 2015 – Hyperlapse Video Tour

I expect to post more about Epcot’s Flower & Garden Festival in a future update, but since the festival just opened yesterday, I thought it would be nice to provide a high-level overview of what’s available this year around the World Showcase. I hope this video gives you a feel for where those food kiosks and topiaries are located in relation to one another.

I also should say that as I shot the video, I tried to pause briefly at each kiosk so you could see the menus, but looking at the video now shows plainly that I didn’t pause long enough. Keep your mouse on the “pause” button if you want to gaze at the menus for more than about a second each, lol:

Note that if you’re using RideMax to plan your visit to Epcot and want to take in the Festival, my advice is take one of two approaches when creating your plan.

The first approach is to simply try creating a plan that begins when the park opens and which closes in the evening, with no scheduled breaks in the plan. This should typically leave you with a large block of “free time” on the plan, which you can use for touring World Showcase, viewing the topiaries, and sampling the food at the various kiosks.

The second approach is to use one of the activities listed in RideMax as “World Showcase, 3 hr Clockwise,” or similar, depending on how much time you want to spend here.

I suggest you experiment with both approaches or play “what if” for a while, until you arrive at plan you’re happy with.

Bon Appetit!

Disneyland and Walt Disney World Spring Break 2015 — Four Tips to Reduce Your Wait

Here we go again — it’s the time of year when people start planning that spring break trip to the theme parks. Whether you plan to visit Disneyland or Walt Disney World, here are four tips that can help you avoid the crowds and have a successful, fun vacation:

Arrive early, well before the park opens for the day
Buy your tickets in advance
Have a game plan
Choose the “right” park for your visit date

Let’s elaborate on these in more detail.

Tip #1: Arrive Early, Before the Park Opens for the Day

When visiting Disney’s theme parks during crowded seasons of the year especially, it’s important to be at the front gates well before the park opens for the day.

Consider the two pictures below, taken a couple of years ago at the Magic Kingdom during spring break. The first shows what Fantasyland looked like just after the park opened for the day:

Now, compare this to following picture taken two hours later:

Arriving early gives you access to the shorter lines right after the park opens, as you can imagine. But another huge advantage of arriving early is that it helps you get the most out of the FastPass-Plus (FP+) system at Walt Disney World, and the FastPass (FP) system at Disneyland.

At Walt Disney World’s theme parks, where the FP+ system is now in full use (with no paper FPs in use at all anymore), arriving early allows you to use your FP+ reservations earlier in the day, opening up the possibility of obtaining more FP+ slots once you’ve used your first three.

At Disneyland, arriving early is even more critical for efficient FastPass (FP) use. For those who aren’t aware, after you obtain your first FP ticket, you can’t obtain another one until either two hours have elapsed, or until the “ride window” for that first FP ticket has arrived, whichever comes first. Early in the day, those FP windows can be as close as 40 minutes away from the time at which you obtained the FP ticket, allowing you to get your next FP ticket 40 minutes after the first. Contrast this with later in the day, when the return windows for some of the more popular attractions can stretch out to several hours away instead, forcing you to wait the full two hours before you can get your next FP ticket.

The other significant thing to note about the Disneyland FP tickets is that they can “sell out” by midday for some rides (depending on crowd levels), so arriving early helps you to not get “locked out” entirely from getting FPs for certain attractions.

Tip #2: Buy Your Tickets In Advance

If you’re visiting Walt Disney World especially, it’s critical that you buy your tickets well in advance of your trip.

Disney allows you to make your FP+ reservations 60 days in advance if you’re staying onsite in a Disney hotel, and 30 days in advance if you’re staying offsite. And FP+ reservations for popular attractions and time slots can sell out very early, so it’s important to secure those FP+ reservations as far in advance of your trip as you can.

The catch here is that you have to have your actual tickets in hand before you can make those FP+ reservations. Once you have your ticket numbers, you can create an account on Walt Disney World’s My Disney Experience website and “link” these tickets to your account. Once that’s done, you can make your actual FP+ reservations.

Note that if you’re using RideMax to create and optimize your itineraries, the RideMax plan will tell you when it thinks it’s best to actually use those FP+ tickets. So the idea is that once you have your RideMax plans created, you then go into My Disney Experience and adjust your FP+ reservations to match the times shown on your RideMax plans.

The point is that the earlier you make your FP+ reservations, the more likely it is that you can get the time slots you want (or which your RideMax plan specifies). So buying your tickets in advance is critical.

For Disneyland visitors, the same “buy tickets early” advice applies, but it’s not nearly as important as it is for WDW guests. If you buy your Disneyland tickets in advance, it can save you some hassle the first morning of your visit, since you won’t have to wait in line at one of the ticket counters. You can also get access to one of Disneyland’s Magic Morning hours if you’re purchasing a 3-day or higher ticket online. This in itself can be a huge advantage if you wish to take advantage of Magic Morning.

Tip #3: Have a Basic Game Plan

OK, you probably figured this was coming, since I earn my living from the RideMax planning tool. But even if the detailed planning that RideMax allows isn’t quite your thing, you’ll still benefit greatly by mapping out at least a partial game plan in advance of your trip. Give at least give some thought to which attractions you want to start your day with, and then go from there.

Visiting your attractions in an efficient order can literally make or break your day, especially when the park is crowded, so I’d advise spending at least a few minutes before your trip thinking this through. This will help keep you from wandering around the park with your head buried in the park map trying to figure this out on the fly later.

Tip #4: Choose the “Right” Park for Your Visit Date

In addition to arriving early, you can save yourself a lot of grief if you choose the “right” park for your visit date.

The example photo above shows absolutely nobody in front of me as I made my way to Radiator Springs Racers. The catch is that for most guests, this is only possible on certain days of the week.

The reason for this is that both Disneyland and Walt Disney World host some an “early entry” program for their hotel guests, which gives these guests access to one of the parks one hour early on specific days of the week. For example, Disney hotel guests are normally allowed early entry to DCA on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and to Disneyland on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

If you’re not staying at a Disney-owned hotel and still want to get a jump on the crowds by arriving early, the best way to do this is to simply avoid the park hosting early entry on the day of you visit, and go to another park instead. For example, the picture above was taken on a Tuesday, when Disneyland, and NOT DCA, was hosting early entry. Had I gone straight to Radiator Springs Racers when the park opened to the public on a Monday instead, I would have found a large line for this attraction right at opening time. (And do yourself a favor and steer clear of Peter Pan on an early entry day at Disneyland, unless you have early access yourself!)

You’ll see a similar scene play out at Walt Disney World, which normally hosts “Extra Magic Hours” at one of its theme parks each morning as well. (Walt Disney World RideMax subscribers can find our “Which Day, Which Park?” recommendations in the RideMax “Tips & Hints” pages, or you can consult the Walt Disney World website for the early entry schedule also.)

So, do yourself a favor this spring break and avoid the crowds by arriving early, buying your tickets in advance, having a game plan, and choosing the right park for your visit date. I think you’ll be glad you did!

Are you planning a spring break visit to Disneyland or Walt Disney World? I’d love to hear your comments below!

Follow Me on Twitter!

I figured it’s about time I started a twitter account to help pass along RideMax and Disney news updates that come along. I also expect to tweet from the parks.

You can follow me here: https://twitter.com/RideMax4Disney

Disneyland – Huge Crowds on October 17th?

When I’m working on estimating crowds at Disneyland for the RideMax planner, October is one of those months that is always sort of dicey. One day things can be just fine, but other days can have absolutely crazy crowds.

The past few years, in order to help with these October crowd estimates, I’ve researched school fall break calendars, especially for schools in some of California’s neighboring states. And this year, I’m seeing something of a perfect storm of crowds shaping up for Friday, October 17th.

Why October 17th?

Well, first of all, I expect the entire week to see larger crowds than you might expect for the fall. Both Columbus day and Canadian Thanksgiving are on Monday that week, and sometimes the “holdover crowds” from these holidays can spill into the week. There are also schools in Arizona which will be out the entire week on fall break as well.

The real icing on the cake is UEA break, however, when schools in Utah are on break Thursday and Friday (the 16th and 17th), and Utah’s Alpine and Provo school districts are out on Monday, the 20th, as well.

You may discount the idea that a school break in the state of Utah, which doesn’t actually even touch California, could have a large impact on the crowds, but consider this: Utah has the highest percentage in the nation of homes with children. And you can bet that many of those families will be headed to Disneyland for fall break!

Given that the Utah break doesn’t start until Thursday, I don’t expect crowds to be nearly as bad Tuesday and Wednesday (though I expect the AZ break will make even those crowds larger than normal for fall weekdays).

The crowds should peak on Friday, the 17th, with UEA break in full swing. I flat out expect the 17th to be the most crowded day for the entire month of October. Adding to the craziness, Disneyland itself closes early that night, at 6:00pm, in order to make way for the Halloween party that evening. As such, you can expect DCA to be extremely (extremely!) crowded that evening, as all of the local annual passholders come into the park expecting a nice Friday evening visit, likely unaware of the crowds that await them.

As if this weren’t enough, the other thing that could make the crowds seem larger-than-normal is if Disney itself is unprepared for Friday’s madness, and doesn’t bulk up the staff that day. Some attractions that rely on employees for throughput rate (i.e., Jungle Cruise), could see much longer lines if Disney doesn’t anticipate the crowd levels adequately.

Unlike Friday, Saturday is blocked out for both types of Southern California annual passholders, so the crowds should actually be somewhat lower on Saturday than on Friday. And both parks will be open late Saturday, allowing the crowds to spread out more than on Friday. (Add to this the fact that many folks from AZ and UT will also use Saturday as a travel day home.)

OK, so in an effort to not be all gloom-and-doom here, if you are visiting on the 17th, is there anything you can do to help salvage the day?

I’m sure you expect a shameless plug for RideMax here, so let’s get that out of the way first: Yes, by all means, use RideMax. This will at least set you up with a basic game plan for the day, which sure beats wandering around with your head buried in the park map trying to get everyone to agree on where to go next… meanwhile, the precious morning hours just tick away and the crowds continue to build.

The other, significant thing you can do is arrive early Friday morning, well before the park opens for the day. I really can’t stress this enough, so let me say it again with emphasis: ARRIVE EARLY FRIDAY MORNING!

Because the Disneyland park doesn’t host Magic Morning on Friday, you can especially get a jump on the crowds at Disneyland if you arrive well before opening time. (DCA, on the other hand, will have crowds already in the park at opening time, due to Extra Magic Hours on Friday morning for hotel guests. So the early advantage isn’t as great at DCA unless you have access to Extra Magic Hours yourself.)

As an added “early-arrival” bonus, the parks both open at 8:00am on Friday, and given that many folks have a much harder time getting out of bed for an 8:00am opening than a later one, this is a case where the early bird really does get the worm.

I hope this helps you anticipate and plan your week if you’re heading to Disneyland for fall break. There really are a lot of great things about Disneyland in the fall, and some of my favorites include the cooler weather and the holiday makeover of the Haunted Mansion (something I really wish Disney World would also do in Orlando).

So if you are visiting on the 17th, don’t let the crowds discourage you. Anticipate them, do a little advance planning, and arrive early to beat them!