cali_crafter
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2009
Since I have seen many threads on maxpass I thought I would pass along our experience using it. We were a group of 5, two adults and three teens, with one day park hoppers for Saturday 10/28. The hours were 8am - midnight with 7:00am MM at Disneyland that we did not have. The traditional wisdom would be to start at DCA but we started at Disneyland and rope dropped the left side of the park and it was amazing. The morning was positively delightful with short lines and the park felt empty. I think everyone took the advice to start at the park without MM because Disneyland started to get really busy after lunch time.
Our goal for the day was to ride as many of the 'big' rides between rope drop and last call at midnight. This was definitely not a stop and enjoy the magic and wait for shows and parades kind of a trip, but we did fit in a lot of walking around and exploring in the afternoon hours when lines were long. We never had to wait more than 25 minutes for a ride.
So here is how we used Max pass to get on almost everything in both parks.
We got to the Downtown Disney security line at 7:11, it took about 5 minutes to get through. We got a locker and got into Disneyland around 7:30am, I immediately scanned our tickets into the Disneyland app and purchased MaxPass. I pulled our first Fastpass at 7:38am
In () at the end is when we were eligible to pull another FP
7:38am Indiana Jones, return time 8:35 (8:35)
8:40am Space Mountain, return time 9:25 (9:25)
9:27am BTMR, return time 9:30 (9:57)
We immediately used BTMR so we were able to pull another FP after we scanned our tickets.
9:31am Star Tours, return time 9:35 (10:01)
10:05am Matterhorn, return time 10:15 (10:35)
10:35 Buzz Lightyear (not sure, didn't screenshot this one) (11:05)
11:06am Soarin' over CA, return time 1:35 (12:36)
12:37pm Radiator Springs, return time 9:45 pm (I had been watching this one to get it at night, it usually is gone before noon on busy days) (2:01)
I could have pulled a FP now for something with a close return time but I was nervous about somehow missing the 3:00 GoG window so I didn't pull one immediately.
3:00pm GoG After Dark return time 5:05pm (this was gone by 3:15, make sure you are FP eligible at 3pm!) (4:30)
4:30 pm Toy Story, return time 8:35 (6pm)
6:00 Buzz - but we ended up cancelling it. After this there were no fastpasses available for anything we wanted to ride.
The teens weren't interested in Splash Mountain for whatever reason, and we decided not to go to Toon Town on this visit, so didn't grab Roger Rabbit, and Goofy's Sky School was closed. I think we could have fit in all of them though on a light-medium day with long hours. We rope dropped to Haunted Mansion instead of getting a FP and stood in line for California Screamin and Grizzly River Run because the lines were short.
So here is all we rode that day:
Haunted Mansion (Rope drop, no wait)
Pirates of the Carribean
Indiana Jones (Fastpass)
Jungle Cruise
BTMR (Fastpass)
Star Tours (Fastpass)
Space Mountain (Fastpass)
Matterhorn (Fastpass)
Buzz Lightyear (Fastpass)
Disneyland was starting to get pretty busy. We hopped over to DCA and had lunch.
Grizzly River Run (25 min line)
Soarin' (Fastpass)
California Screamin' (20 min line)
Little Mermaid
Monsters Inc. (15 min line)
Maters Junkyard Jamboree
GoG After Dark
We went Downtown Disney for dinner, tried Disneyland but it was wall to wall bodies so we headed back to DCA.
California Screamin' (20 min line)
Toy Story (fastpass)
Bugs Land rides
Back to Disneyland, after the fireworks cleared out we went to Fantasy Land
Tea Cups
Mr. Toad
Snow White
Pinnochio
Our feet were too tired to stand in the still long Dumbo or Peter Pan Rides
We were going to do Pirates again, it was a walk on, but the kids wanted to shop so we ended the night in the shops on the left side of the park after Fantasmic cleared out.
We left the park just before midnight.
I loved Maxpass, it worked perfectly for a group like ours that wanted to get on as many of the big rides as possible and allowed us to really minimize our wait times. I think it's pretty amazing that we never had to wait more than 25 minutes on a Saturday, the weekend before Halloween. It was fantastic not having to run all around collecting fastpasses, I just grabbed them wherever we were for whatever park. It was definitely worth the $50 for our group since we only had one day and wanted to ride everything.
Our goal for the day was to ride as many of the 'big' rides between rope drop and last call at midnight. This was definitely not a stop and enjoy the magic and wait for shows and parades kind of a trip, but we did fit in a lot of walking around and exploring in the afternoon hours when lines were long. We never had to wait more than 25 minutes for a ride.
So here is how we used Max pass to get on almost everything in both parks.
We got to the Downtown Disney security line at 7:11, it took about 5 minutes to get through. We got a locker and got into Disneyland around 7:30am, I immediately scanned our tickets into the Disneyland app and purchased MaxPass. I pulled our first Fastpass at 7:38am
In () at the end is when we were eligible to pull another FP
7:38am Indiana Jones, return time 8:35 (8:35)
8:40am Space Mountain, return time 9:25 (9:25)
9:27am BTMR, return time 9:30 (9:57)
We immediately used BTMR so we were able to pull another FP after we scanned our tickets.
9:31am Star Tours, return time 9:35 (10:01)
10:05am Matterhorn, return time 10:15 (10:35)
10:35 Buzz Lightyear (not sure, didn't screenshot this one) (11:05)
11:06am Soarin' over CA, return time 1:35 (12:36)
12:37pm Radiator Springs, return time 9:45 pm (I had been watching this one to get it at night, it usually is gone before noon on busy days) (2:01)
I could have pulled a FP now for something with a close return time but I was nervous about somehow missing the 3:00 GoG window so I didn't pull one immediately.
3:00pm GoG After Dark return time 5:05pm (this was gone by 3:15, make sure you are FP eligible at 3pm!) (4:30)
4:30 pm Toy Story, return time 8:35 (6pm)
6:00 Buzz - but we ended up cancelling it. After this there were no fastpasses available for anything we wanted to ride.
The teens weren't interested in Splash Mountain for whatever reason, and we decided not to go to Toon Town on this visit, so didn't grab Roger Rabbit, and Goofy's Sky School was closed. I think we could have fit in all of them though on a light-medium day with long hours. We rope dropped to Haunted Mansion instead of getting a FP and stood in line for California Screamin and Grizzly River Run because the lines were short.
So here is all we rode that day:
Haunted Mansion (Rope drop, no wait)
Pirates of the Carribean
Indiana Jones (Fastpass)
Jungle Cruise
BTMR (Fastpass)
Star Tours (Fastpass)
Space Mountain (Fastpass)
Matterhorn (Fastpass)
Buzz Lightyear (Fastpass)
Disneyland was starting to get pretty busy. We hopped over to DCA and had lunch.
Grizzly River Run (25 min line)
Soarin' (Fastpass)
California Screamin' (20 min line)
Little Mermaid
Monsters Inc. (15 min line)
Maters Junkyard Jamboree
GoG After Dark
We went Downtown Disney for dinner, tried Disneyland but it was wall to wall bodies so we headed back to DCA.
California Screamin' (20 min line)
Toy Story (fastpass)
Bugs Land rides
Back to Disneyland, after the fireworks cleared out we went to Fantasy Land
Tea Cups
Mr. Toad
Snow White
Pinnochio
Our feet were too tired to stand in the still long Dumbo or Peter Pan Rides
We were going to do Pirates again, it was a walk on, but the kids wanted to shop so we ended the night in the shops on the left side of the park after Fantasmic cleared out.
We left the park just before midnight.
I loved Maxpass, it worked perfectly for a group like ours that wanted to get on as many of the big rides as possible and allowed us to really minimize our wait times. I think it's pretty amazing that we never had to wait more than 25 minutes on a Saturday, the weekend before Halloween. It was fantastic not having to run all around collecting fastpasses, I just grabbed them wherever we were for whatever park. It was definitely worth the $50 for our group since we only had one day and wanted to ride everything.