Hydroguy vs. Ridemax

[Pamb]

Last year when I took my family for the first time we used Hydroguy's tips for going on the rides and it worked great . My DH and I are going back (just the two of us ) in October. I haven't been this excited for Halloween since I was 12! I keep reading how busy October will be and wondering if we can still follow Hydroguy and be successful or if I should try out Ridemax.

What do you think?

 

[BillyFan]

I'd go with Hydroguy

 

[lulubelle]

Save yourself the $$ and stick with Hydroguy.
Have a wonderful trip.

 

[darph nader]

I'd go with Hydroguy

Same here.$ is $. He doesn't charge $15.00. (OH NO,I've just opened a can of worms)

 

[Pamb]

Hydroguy it is! I still have my planning notebook from last year that I can print and we are good to go.

 

[HydroGuy]

Hey, everyone here should know that HydroGuy is a Ridemax subscriber. I rarely follow RM itineraries at DLR. But I do follow RM touring tips and keep an eye on their wait time data. On my day trip a few weeks ago RM gave me a couple wait time estimates that came in handy.

For DLR newbies with WDW experience RideMax can help you get a feel for park crowd patterns. For DLR newbies in general I think RM can help you get a higher comfort level with how to tour DLR.

 

[DisneyMomma81]

Hydro ~

Would you recommend we use RM for our upcoming WDW trip?

 

[HydroGuy]

Hydro ~

Would you recommend we use RM for our upcoming WDW trip?

For me using RM on my first two WDW trips was a huge help. I did create itineraries but we did not follow them very strictly. The bigger help for me was to grasp how much could be done in a day. For example, in playing around with Epcot it became clear I really had too much I wanted to do in a single day. So I reduced my goals for that day.

Using RM to work around shows is also helpful because it lets you see what fits where.

I also heavily used TourGuideMike www.tourguidemike.com. RM and TGM have a similar philosophy. TGM is more about the whole vacation while RM is focused on rides. I will subscribe to both on all future WDW trips. The $20 for each one is money well spent compared to the excellent advice they give.

 

[Disney Dreams]

We did not use RM or TGM on our trip to WDW. Did we see everything? No. Did we have a great trip? Yes. FWIW

- Dreams

 

[HydroGuy]

We did not use RM or TGM on our trip to WDW. Did we see everything? No. Did we have a great trip? Yes. FWIW

- Dreams

With the number of posts that Dreams has I would guess she (?) used the DIS to gather information which is obviously a great resource .

Some people ask why pay for TGM or RM when you can get everything they offer for free on DIS. First, I do not think you can get everything they offer but it is true you can get a lot. Regardless, some people spend lots of time on DIS and do gather great information and everything they personally need. The information on DIS does tend to be spread out over thousands of threads. TGM and RM consolidates and organizes information and then adds a single voice of opinion to it as opposed to the thousands here. Is that better? Is it worth it? Does it make the trip better? Depends on who you ask. Can you have a great trip without those resources? Sure. Dreams did.

 

[avalon451]

I agree with Hydroguy about RM having some good consolidated tips and schedules. It's pretty handy to refer to, for park hours and updated tips.

However I found that RM doesn't maximize your FP collection. It also has a few idiosyncracies that make for odd schedules. For example, if you want to ride a ride twice in a day, it will always schedule them back to back, regardless. You have to do separate schedules for morning and evening touring, if you are parkhopping over to DCA (it would be cool if RM could integrate DL and CA touring!) Sometimes its ride order makes no sense-- every time I tried to schedule in Dumbo on a Fantasy land morning at opening, it had me doing it last with a 25-35 minute wait (instead of the MM super thread recommendation of doing it 2nd or 3rd in your ride order).

So while I found RM to be a useful tool, I found Hydroguy's guidelines to be a better way to plan out my own itinerary.

One thing I did on our last trip that was the most helpful, was to go through all the rides and think about how many times I wanted to ride them. For example, Space, Indy, HM, and PotC were must-do's, every day. Other rides I only wanted to do once or maybe twice during the trip, or not at all. In this way, I was able to rough out what rides we'd try to do every day, and work our schedule around that.

We made a detailed schedule, but went knowing that we wouldn't follow it precisely. It worked out great to give us a rough idea of where to go. No stress, knowing what we wanted to do next, and very little waiting in lines.

 

[wrightut]

So while I found RM to be a useful tool, I found Hydroguy's guidelines to be a better way to plan out my own itinerary.

Ditto this. As a complete DL novice, Ridemax was good in that it helped me to visualize crowds and ride wait times. But it was frustrating because you can't incorporate the ability to parkhop and I didn't feel like it maximized our FP usage either.

In addition, I printed out Hydroguys tips and found them invaluable - especially the one about getting the most out of a summer trip. It helped so, so much. I could have done without Ridemax and had a good trip, I think. But as someone who had never set foot in DL before and didn't want to wander aimlessly with my mouth hanging open, I loved Hydroguy's tips. They really helped us have a great trip.

 

[HydroGuy]

OK everyone. I have decided to start charging for my tips. If you use them send me a PM with your credit card number and I will charge each of you 1 cent.

 

[funatdisney]

So are you saying. "A penny for your thoughts."?

Hee Hee

 

[darph nader]

(told ya. sorry folks )

 

[Disney Dreams]

We did not use RM or TGM on our trip to WDW. Did we see everything? No. Did we have a great trip? Yes. FWIW
- Dreams

With the number of posts that Dreams has I would guess she (?) used the DIS to gather information which is obviously a great resource .

Well.... first:
Great resources, all free, that I used for my WDW trip planning info:
- Some fellow Dis members replies to my posts requesting info
- Hydroguy's DLR Vets Guide to WDW (or vice-versa): great if you know 1 resort & visiting the other. Thanks again, HydroGuy! (Well, it WAS free until post 13 of this thread hehe)
- Posts on DIS on the WDW side (I read and read and read everything I could find.)
- Allears
- AAA guidebook
- Disney's site
- Friends who had been
- CMs at WDW upon arrival

And the purchase of 3 little tour books that I loved ($10/each):
- Imagineering Field Guide to Magic Kingdom
- Imagineering Field Guide to Disney's Animal Kingdom
- Imagineering Field Guide to EPCOT
They have one for Disneyland:
- Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland
I have never bought it or used it, but LOVED the 3 for WDW.

General trip planning: I also don't plan every minute of my vacations. I have a general feel for what I want to do and when, but I HATE being tied into a set plan beyond dining plans and show times. I like the freedom to plan as I go. My travel style is to read, learn, and utilize that info on the go with a rough skeleton of a plan.

I never once asked about crowds, weather, or wait times because to me, they are just a given when going to a popular vacation spot. I plan my fun and work around these variables once there. It's just my style and it works great for me (and DH). I believe RideMax would drive me crazy to be honest. What if it sent me to do outdoor stuff on a rain day? ugh, not for me.

Now, as for my post count, hehe: I really didn't post much for my trip. As mentioned above, I read and read every single thing I could find about WDW. There is some GREAT info on DIS already that I seriously spent hours on end reading and learning. I had a few threads asking for input and subsequent replies, but those are really a minimal amount of my posts on Dis. A small minority of my posts are helping others with Disneyland info here on this section of Dis. As for a VERY large majority of my post count, for those interested, I offer you story time:

Once upon a time, a fair wish-she-were-a-Princess (yep, Dreams is a she) was visiting a magical place called Disneyland. On this fine day, she spied a poster for a virtual land which promised the "magic of being at Disneyland from home." Having never played any online games, this fair maiden wrote down the website out of curiosity. That night, in early 2006, she discovered "Virtual Magic Kingdom," an amazing online place that delivered as the ad promised --- and so much more. For two and a half years, our fair wish-she-were-a-Princess played VMK virtually every day. Along with this amazing virtual place, she discovered another place, The DisBoards (Gaming Section) through which she could communicate with fellow VMKers. For two and a half years, she played VMK and posted at the DisBoards until she and so many others were heartbroken when their virtual Disney playground was closed forever on May 23, 2008. - VMK RIP - In those 2 years, Dreams posted and posted and posted... and posted on the DisBoards VMK section interacting with fellow players who became in game (and in some cases IRL) friends, all the while building quite a post count on the DisBoards. This count continued to grow while exploring, testing, and sharing with others fellow-former-VMKers experiences and thoughts on no less than 7 possible online replacement games for VMK, none of which provided the amazing experience that VMK once did.
The End - fade to black -

- Dreams

 

[Pamb]

Once upon a time...
The End - fade to black -

- Dreams

That was such a beautiful story it inspires me to do something crazy. I think I will plan a trip to DL in your honor.