Best pass for young family- help please;-)

[sckiwi]

Hi there
I hope I am posting on the correct forum- We are a family of 4- Mum, Dad and 2 young boys= 2 and 4, coming to explore the magic of Disneyland in November from NZ. I am bit confused regarding the passes available and have a couple of questions- fast pass, max pass? I think I get the gist of the them, but wondering what exactly would be the best option for us- my oldest can go on most rides as he is pretty tall for his age but his younger brother can only go on about half. I would love to get the photo options, and from what I gather the max pass includes this? but do we have to buy a max pass for all of us? or would 1 max pass be ok if we just wanted to use it for the photo option and save money? do we have to buy fast passes for everyone? Lastly how exactly woudl a rider switch work with the fast passes? Sorry for all the questions- have been to Disneyworld a looooong time ago as a kid but its all so very different now. Thanks in advance;-))

 

[3gr8boys]

Are you traveling to Disney World or Disneyland? You need instructions/advice that will be very different depending on your destination.

ETA
If you are traveling to Disneyland, you may want to scroll down on the main DIS forums page and post your question under the Disneyland forum for better/faster answers.

 

[lanejudy]

As PP mentions, to best answer your question we need to know which location you are visiting -- Disneyland in California or Walt Disney World in Florida.

Disneyland has Maxpass and FP (fast pass); Maxpass costs extra, FP are free. These are not your admission tickets, though, these are simply additional tools available to avoid waiting in long queues.

Disney World has FP+ (fast pass plus), no maxpass, and FP+ is free and available to all guests. Again, this is not your admission ticket but a way to essentially "reserve" your spot in line for a given attraction. A month or two before your visit, you can pre-book 3 attractions for FP+ each day of your stay, with more available once you are in the park and have used the initial 3.

Feel free to ask more questions.

Enjoy your vacation!

 

[Callist]

If you're going to DisneyLAND in California, I can't help you.

If you're going to DisneyWORLD in Florida:
TICKETS: You need one ticket each for the adults and the 4 year old, the 2 year old should be free. You have the option of :
1) regular tickets that get you into one theme park per day.
2) park hopper tickets that allow you to visit multiple parks per day. Some people love them, some people think one park is tiring enough, 2 is too much
3) park hopper plus water park tickets - as above, but includes the water parks.
4) an annual pass for at least one adult in the party to qualify for some perks. This may or may not be a cost savings, depending on how long you'll be.

FASTPASS+
This gives you a shorter wait in ride lines. If you are staying in a Disney resort, you can make 3 of these each day 60 days before the day you check in at your resort. If you are staying somewhere else, you can make them at 30 days before your check in date. They are free. You will need to make a FP+ for each person riding the ride/seeing the attraction except for the 2 year old ( please double check me on that part).

Each FP+ tells you a time to come to the ride or attraction. You have an hour long window, so if your FP+ is for 10:30, you have from 10:30-11:30. When you get to the ride, there will be a post with a round Mickey Mouse symbol on it. You tap your MagicBand or your ticket cards on it. The Mickey will turn green and you can go in! After you use all 3 of the FP+ that you made initially, you can use the My Disney Experience app to get another one. When you use that FP+, you can get another one. There are also kiosks that you can go to, but I've literally never used those so I can't say anything about how to use them.

PhotoPass is where you can view and purchase your photos from Disney. Memory Maker is a service you can buy that gives you ALL of the photos taken by Disney photographers and all ride photos also. If you choose to purchase Memory Maker, you only need it once. When you have a Disney photographer take your pictures, they will ask to scan someone's ticket card or Magic Band. Make certain that one that is scanned is the one that belongs to the person who purchased Memory Maker (it sounds like you're the one doing all the planning, so you'll be the one to purchase it - just have them scan yours). The rides will automatically scan the Magic Bands and assign the ride photos to your account.

We did not use the rider swap so someone else please feel free to correct me, but my understanding is that everyone will wait in the FP+line. One parent and the 4 year old will ride while the other parent waits with the 2 year old. Then the first parent will wait and the second parent will ride. I think I've read people saying the 4 year old can ride twice, once with each parent? Please double check me on this!

This is NOT complete, it's just a quick run down, but hopefully it helps?