Is Ridemax worth it????

[SKShields]

My husband and i are heading to DL Dec. 2 through Dec. 5, and i thought i'd try ridemax out for part of my obsessive planning which i am thuroughly enjoying since i found the DIS boards . I've spent a little time playing with different "touring plans" even though our dates aren't up on ridemax yet, basically just to get a feel for how it works. To be honest at the moment it just making me a little nuts . So i thought I'd reach out to all the experts on the DIS and see what you all thought of using Ridemax to map out your DL/DCA time? Do you think it's better just to go on your own or is ridemax really effective? I've been to DL before, and it seems to me that i got more done in one day myself than the touring plans that Ridemax gives. Anyway, I digress..... thanks for your help guys!

 

[merrrydeath]

I've used Ridemax once before because I really wanted to be able to take as much advantage of my days as I could. I fiddled with it a little though. Ridemax will sometimes make you jump from one end of the park to the other from ride to ride, and even if that means a shorter wait time I didn't want to do it. So instead of filling in the hours I would be in the park and all the rides I wanted to do, I would break my day down into sections and fill in what rides I wanted to do. That's a little confusing... but it would just mean that for example I could do Fantasyland and Toontown(which are close to eachother) during a certain time of day(and have the best wait times for that situation) and then move on to Adventureland and New Orleans Square for a different part of my plan. Needless to say, I made a LOT of plans. But that's what's great with Ridemax, you can make as many different touring plans as you want, and compare them all.

In the end when I did use my touring plan in the park, we really did have short waits. More often than not we would end up 30-45 minutes ahead of schedule, and would just fit other things in at that time.

I don't use it now, because in making all those touring plans, I really got a good idea of what order to do rides in.

 

[TiggerMomNine]

We used Ridemax for our summer trip, and it was very useful. I played with it for hours and hours and hours and hours (not obsessive at all!). I loved it, and will use it again for my next trip.

 

[spacemermaid]

If you're a self-declared obsessive planner, you will LOVE Ridemax! I let my subscription expire because I like to do the Park at a leisurely, haphazard pace , but it was fun to see how many rides we could go on in one day. I can vouch that their time estimates were spot-on. Totally worth the $ if you like to plan everything out!

 

[mvf-m11c]

I use Ridemax on almost all my Disney trips (DL & WDW). It is a good planner to go onto different rides that are not busy and are busy. I wish that it could incorporate both DL and DCA into one so I could park hop over to each other. But thats why you set the hours on Ridemax at each section on the program and determine how much time you get over to DL to DCA vice versa.

Mostly when I used Ridemax and go in the park and follow the schedule. Sometimes I finish the rides faster than what it is planned on the schedule or it goes longer than expected. It is a great planner for anyone who wants to get the most of the rides at the parks even on a short visit.

 

[pokee99]

I just got it - and we're not going until March 2011. I really wanted to use it now and incorporate it into my research. It's working out well, because I am already trying to tweak it to suit maximizing our Fast Pass grabs. There's also a lot of good tips there - and unique tips are provided for each itinerary that is generated.

 

[Alinasan]

I just got the program also. So without having field tested the plans, all I can say is it seems a little wonky, and I feel like I have to do a lot of tweaking to get it to suggest a plan that sounds reasonable in theory.

I generated one tour plan that had a 55 minute wait for my last ride, so I decided to run my list again without that ride and no other changes, just to clean up the list. Well for some reason the plan then had me visiting all the rides in a different order that generally gave me longer waits for those rides! Maybe it had a shorter walk or something but point is, the program can produce some suggestions that seem odd.

Another issue I had was that I can't put in enough breaks or shows--have to keep running new plans to more or less cover those scenarios.

Eventually I do feel I'll get to the information I need, but it's not quite what I expected.

 

[HydroGuy]

I just got the program also. So without having field tested the plans, all I can say is it seems a little wonky, and I feel like I have to do a lot of tweaking to get it to suggest a plan that sounds reasonable in theory.

I generated one tour plan that had a 55 minute wait for my last ride, so I decided to run my list again without that ride and no other changes, just to clean up the list. Well for some reason the plan then had me visiting all the rides in a different order that generally gave me longer waits for those rides! Maybe it had a shorter walk or something but point is, the program can produce some suggestions that seem odd.

Another issue I had was that I can't put in enough breaks or shows--have to keep running new plans to more or less cover those scenarios.

Eventually I do feel I'll get to the information I need, but it's not quite what I expected.

Actually, that is the whole idea of RM. It is a customized touring itinerary. When you change any one variable (add or delete a ride, arrival time, etc.) it changes the way an optimized itinerary is built. And you end up with a different strategy. That is a good thing.

Even if you use the exact same arrival time and ride list, but choose different days of the week or times of the year, you can get a completely different itinerary. Because RM is accounting for all the variables for your particular day.

Static plans like in touring books do not account for all of this and are thus not dynamic like RM.

 

[PinkBudgie]

We tried it one summer. One problem we ran into was often that first ride it suggested would be closed at opening. And if that one was closed, we didn't want to go to the second on the list, but another we had in mind. Also, often we wanted to pick up FPs first thing or almost first thing and usually more often than it said to.

But at home before we left I also started putting in the same ride over and over as if I just wanted to go on one ride all day. I then got an idea for what time of day that ride had the shorter line and we would go there then. So that is mainly how we used it. It just helped me to know when to go try certain rides.

I haven't used it for recent trips but may try it again some year, maybe once all the new things are added to DCA.

 

[IdaTink]

I used RM last August. I had never been in the summer and was completely worried that we couldn't do enough without a formal touring plan. Turned out that even though the parks were crowded, by doing the usual rope-drop-afternoon-break-get-fastpasses-and-come-back-after-dinner plan we did everything we wanted. Plus, I was with some family members who just wouldn't follow the plan. So we didn't use RM much.

BUT, where it worked great was on arrival day. We couldn't arrive the first day until the afternoon, so I created several plans--for arrival at 1, 1:30, and 2 p.m., so that we could hit the ground running whenever we got there. That worked well.

I think I'll still use RideMax next time we go because I want to see how it works over a whole day when you follow it.

 

[Alinasan]

Actually, that is the whole idea of RM. It is a customized touring itinerary. When you change any one variable (add or delete a ride, arrival time, etc.) it changes the way an optimized itinerary is built. And you end up with a different strategy. That is a good thing.

Even if you use the exact same arrival time and ride list, but choose different days of the week or times of the year, you can get a completely different itinerary. Because RM is accounting for all the variables for your particular day.

Static plans like in touring books do not account for all of this and are thus not dynamic like RM.

Oh I agree, but I am just saying Ridemax is more useful if combined with all the helpful advice from these boards and one's own common sense.

As I said, the program came up with a longer set of waits for the SAME 4 rides at the same date and start time compared to those 4 plus one other that I dropped. The dropped ride was at the end of the first list and that was the ONLY change I made. So the program reordered the first four rides in a less optimal pattern for minimizing wait, and I'm doubtful distance should have been a big factor since I started and ended in the same lands on both lists. A small clue of course was that list one started with a very popular ride, and list two with "free time".... Maybe I just confused the program because I put in so few rides?

 

[SKShields]

Thank you so much for all the helpful hints, I really appreciate it . I played with it a little bit more (actually most of the day on saturday) and it's getting easier.