RideMax Users Thread (FAQs Linked in First Post!)

[Aliceacc]

We're not going until August, so I don't want to subscribe yet. (A subscription is only good for 90 days, right??)

So I'm not exactly sure to ask yet, other than what the difference is between "slow" and "normal."

 

[Lauri]

Great thread! Another Ridemax lover here.

I'm in !!!! I love Ridemax!!


I'm excited to use the Epcot WS shows portion! I always seem to miss the ones I really want to see...so I'm hoping by adding those into the 4 hour countercloackwise (or other) tour plan, I can catch them.

For our last trip in February, we were going to use the 4 hour WS tour. About a week before our trip, the individual shows with times were listed, so that we were able to plan the actual times of our shows. It worked great--until two countries were having difficulties with their shows, but we just continued on.

May dates are up.

I'm wondering about the child swap too.

I'm having the hardest time getting KS to be first thing. No matter what I do it has me going in the afternoon.

One thing that may help with child swap, it that we find time is usually built into the schedule already, and we are usually severl steps ahead of where we should be at a certain time.

Of course, my youngest is 12, so that may help us move aound faster. You may want to change the setting on Ridemax to moving at a slower pace, and seeing how that works for you.

Lauri

 

[ekatiel]

Can you give me some more info?? What is the cost? Do you tell it what you want to do/see and it gives you the schedule to follow? Thanks!

It costs $18.95 for a 90 day subscription and $29.95 for a year subscription. And you're exactly right-- you tell it what rides you want to ride and what shows you want to see for a specific date-- you can even put in breaks or ADRS, and then it spits out a plan for you that minimizes wait time. It is really very cool!

And the other thing is that we are thinking we want to ride Soarin' twice. Every time I make my plans, it has us go get FP for it two different times, but then ride it back to back. We were kind of wanting to do it first thing. It sends us to test track first to ride that, then go get our first FP for Soarin'. It doesn't have us riding it back to back until 4:30 in the afternoon! I've tried adjusting the plan and creating it again, but it still does that.

Oh, and another question....I am taking my laptop with me to WDW. Are you printing off your ridemax schedules before you go and just carrying each one with you that day? I might revise ours with my laptop and then adjust it. I could email it to my iphone I think.

I would try creating a really short plan first-- Like arrive at 9am and leave at 10 am (I'm not sure it will let you do this, but you can try!). Then, see how much time it is alloting to go on Soarin' (It should make you ride it first thing, then). Then, you can create a new plan and just make your start time that much later-- does that make sense?? It's basically the same strategy that Dave suggested about the KS at AK. That way, you can still get there at rope drop and ride Soarin' and then start to follow your plan after that.

We are planning on taking our laptop and DH's blackberry with us (we can use his blackberry as a modem on the laptop b/c we don't have a fancy broadband card). I think I'm gonna print off plans for the first few days and then make new plans while are there for the last couple of days, once we figure out everyone's favorites. NONE of us have ever been before, so this program has been a total life-saver for me!

We're not going until August, so I don't want to subscribe yet. (A subscription is only good for 90 days, right??)

So I'm not exactly sure to ask yet, other than what the difference is between "slow" and "normal."

I *think* that slow exchanges walking time for waiting time (ie-- you walk less, but you may wait in line a bit more). It says slow is for large groups. We have six in our group, and one of us will be pushing a double stroller, so I'm pretty much sticking with "slow" for us. --Katie

 

[Tinkerbell2B]

Thanks for starting this thread! Great tips! Leaving soon and the additional info is very helpful! I can't wait to see how my RideMax plans work out !!

 

[ekatiel]

Thanks for starting this thread! Great tips! Leaving soon and the additional info is very helpful! I can't wait to see how my RideMax plans work out !!

Wow, you're leaving in less than a week! Definitely post back on how your plans work out. I showed all my plans to DH last night, and he had a minor freak out session about being over-scheduled! He decided that he wanted to follow the schedule, but he didn't want to SEE the schedule again. That's ok with me -- I like the planning anyways! --Katie

 

[glovelsu]

we've used ridemax twice and it is great. the one piece of advice i have is get there at rope drop and schedule until you are ready for lunch if you have kids. after 3-4 hours of the schedule, the little ones tend to get tired and cranky, need bathroom breaks, drink and snack stops, etc.

This usually will make you fall behind and then the schedule maker starts stressing out and you lose some of the enjoyment. For a family of 5, i recommend half day "commando" riding and half day go with the flow. Otherwise you may need a few days to relax after vacation!

 

[delmar411]

we've used ridemax twice and it is great. the one piece of advice i have is get there at rope drop and schedule until you are ready for lunch if you have kids. after 3-4 hours of the schedule, the little ones tend to get tired and cranky, need bathroom breaks, drink and snack stops, etc.

This usually will make you fall behind and then the schedule maker starts stressing out and you lose some of the enjoyment. For a family of 5, i recommend half day "commando" riding and half day go with the flow. Otherwise you may need a few days to relax after vacation!

that's a great idea! I didn't even think about that. We are stopping constantly for potty breaks. Hmm, I'll have to revisit our schedules and see what I can do...

 

[Danauk]

Whilst I have not used Ridemax at WDW I have used the Disneyland version and loved it. I too was a little worried about being too tied to a schedule at 1st so I followed the recommendations of a fellow Ridemax user on the Disneyland board. I created a spreadsheet for each ride that I would be intersted in riding and worked out the predicted wait times for those rides for each hour of the day. That way if we did feel too tied to the plan and wanted to go with the flow more we could do that but with better knowledge of what would be and what would not be good things to do.
It took me quite a while to make the spreadsheets but I found them really useful. I will definately be subscribing for my next WDW trip and will print out plans and do the spreadsheets again.

 

[ariel53098]

We used ridemax for our CA Disneyland trip and LOVED IT!!!! I made a general schedule for each day and knew we would come back to the hotel each afternoon for rest.
For that I would do a schedule for opening to like noon and get my ridemax schedule. Then I'd do the same day but do like 4pm to close and get that schedule. Basically I had two schedules for each day.
Then if something changed (ie. we got on a specific ride in EMH or we were going back earlier or later to the parks in the afternoon), I'd get my laptop out in the room and type in a new schedule. I didn't have a printer so I would just jot down the times and rides.
We'll be using it again when we go next month to WDW!
Rachel

 

[disneyjunkie]

OP thanks for starting this thread.

I joined ridemax back in January, but I have not really looked at it since our trip isn't until this summer.

When I saw this thread, I decided to play with the site a bit. I'm glad I did or I would have missed out on the upgrade.

Anyone know if there is a way to schedule rides more than once in one day?

 

[singingpixie]

OP thanks for starting this thread.

I joined ridemax back in January, but I have not really looked at it since our trip isn't until this summer.

When I saw this thread, I decided to play with the site a bit. I'm glad I did or I would have missed out on the upgrade.

Anyone know if there is a way to schedule rides more than once in one day?

Yep, just add it to your list twice!

 

[disneyjunkie]

Yep, just add it to your list twice!

DUH, why didn't I think of that?

Thanks

 

[ekatiel]

We used ridemax for our CA Disneyland trip and LOVED IT!!!! I made a general schedule for each day and knew we would come back to the hotel each afternoon for rest.
For that I would do a schedule for opening to like noon and get my ridemax schedule. Then I'd do the same day but do like 4pm to close and get that schedule. Basically I had two schedules for each day.
Rachel

If you're returning to the same park in the afternoon, you might also want to try making one schedule with a huge break in the middle. That way, you can use some of the FP's that you got earlier in the day to ride rides in the evening.

I've worried about the potty break thing, too (Is it awful that I'm intentionally NOT potty training my almost three year old, just so I don't have to deal with it at Disney?? ). Anybody else have solutions for potty breaks? --Katie

 

[ekatiel]

I just thought of a couple more questions:

How long do you guys schedule for ADR's in the parks? I've been putting in 80 minutes for our late breakfast at Crystal Palace-- is that enough time?

Also, should I put our actual ADR time in, or should I put in a time that's a few minutes earlier? It stresses me out when I tell it that we have a 10:30 ADR and then it's got me riding a ride at 10:09!! Will I really have enough time to squeeze that ride in? --Katie

 

[singingpixie]

I just thought of a couple more questions:

How long do you guys schedule for ADR's in the parks? I've been putting in 80 minutes for our late breakfast at Crystal Palace-- is that enough time?

Also, should I put our actual ADR time in, or should I put in a time that's a few minutes earlier? It stresses me out when I tell it that we have a 10:30 ADR and then it's got me riding a ride at 10:09!! Will I really have enough time to squeeze that ride in? --Katie

I think 80 mins is more than enough, especially for a buffet. My guess is you'd be out in less than an hour, but better safe than sorry (you don't want to be stressing out all the way through your meal).

I'd probably schedule the break for the time you'd like to arrive to check in for the ADR.

 

[disneyjunkie]

I just thought of a couple more questions:

How long do you guys schedule for ADR's in the parks? I've been putting in 80 minutes for our late breakfast at Crystal Palace-- is that enough time?

I'm planning to use 60 minutes. We used the dining plan on our last trip and an hour was more than enough time for us to check in and complete our meals.

I have a small family (just son and I). I try to book our ADRs for opening times (11:00 or lunch and 4:00 or 4:30 for dinner) that way we are seated right away.

60 minutes is doable for us since were a party of 2 and dine during nonpeak times.

 

[ekatiel]

I'm glad that 80 minutes will be more than enough time. I think I'll schedule my breaks to start a few minutes before our ADR and still leave them at 80 minutes. Thanks for the replies! --Katie

 

[kathyfranklin]

What upgrade?

We just subscribed a few days ago...didn't see anything about an upgrade.

 

[ekatiel]

What upgrade?

We just subscribed a few days ago...didn't see anything about an upgrade.

If you just subscribed, you were probably already given the upgraded version. I subscribed a few weeks ago, and when I opened up the program a couple of days ago, it told me that I needed to upgrade. It took me through all the steps. I'm guessing that you got the upgraded version when you subscribed. --Katie

 

[kathyfranklin]

Thanks for th 411 on the upgrade.

I am loving this program. It is very flexible and so helpful. I am doing several scenarios, which help crystalize what the best options should be.

Here are two tips that I am using so far:

When we are staying late for illuminations, I don't schedule it. I put down a (much) earlier end time. Ridemax has then been giving me a much better ride plan - i.e. shorter waits, and not too much longer in walking. (We'll still do illuminations.)

For rider swap - I run ridemax to get the schedule we will use. Then in looking at that schedule I see the times we need to build in the rider swap. Then I rerun it exactly as before, but put in a break right at the time after the ride we'll be reider swapping - I titled it rider swap. Ridemax then gives me the optimum schedule, with the rider swap time built in (as a break). Hope that makes sense.

I hope the itineraries actually work well at the parks!

I wish I had a blackberry - I really think I'd actually run Ridemax in the parks in the afternoon.