*No longer relevant* (Maxpass/Fastpass: an overview and some strategy)

[smartlabelprint]

I’ll watch the app once true spring break weeks hit. I still have to learn the system as well. If we walk in around 2, is it possible to stack a couple for the evening? (I ask this like I know what I’m taking about but I really don’t. I’ve just seen the word stack before).
My plan for the later arrival Sunday is a walk around, a dining package for F!, whatever rides we can manage, and getting my son set up with DAS. $60 in the grand scheme of everything doesn’t seem too bad.

How old is your child that needs DAS. This confirms for me that you’ll want MP. Every second in the parks counts for our kids with sensory processing disorder, etc. They can’t cope with waiting in loud, busy surroundings for one moment longer than necessary. We can’t be going back and forth between the kiosk and the ride multiple times. We only use our DAS for non-maxpass rides.

 

[Mike_M]

The photopass that comes with maxpass is something else to keep in mind. If you think you’re going to be doing a lot of meet and greets, or other places a Disney photographer is used, the value from that could make up for not getting a full day’s worth of fast passes.

 

[JJ2017]

How old is your child that needs DAS. This confirms for me that you’ll want MP. Every second in the parks counts for our kids with sensory processing disorder, etc. They can’t cope with waiting in loud, busy surroundings for one moment longer than necessary. We can’t be going back and forth between the kiosk and the ride multiple times. We only use our DAS for non-maxpass rides.

He’s 9. It’s the sensory/anxiety that is taxing on him.

 

[Etonduf]

Agreed. If one uses FP as they should. They will get more FP than using max pass. I am not opposed to it. I just find FP easier to use and hey. It’s free. 15.00 for 4 of us is still 60.00. I like being a FP runner. It’s fun and I get satisfaction in doing it. Knowing how to best use FP is the strategy. If you use it right. You can get 15-20 FP all day everyday. And in the end. 60.00 is a lot of money not to throw away. And that’s just one day. Going 3 days or so. That adds up.

While some people using paper FPs may get more pulls than some people using MP, this is a disingenuous. MP has a shorter maximum return time and allows you to get canceled FPs. And if the MP user is even slightly efficient, they're pulling new passes as soon as they swipe in with their previous--before they've even gotten on that ride, in fact. And that doesn't even take walking time into consideration. To put it bluntly, anything you can do with paper FPs, you could do faster with MP.

That said, your points about price are well-taken. The bump for $10 to $15 is painful, and adds up quickly. Paper FP is the right choice for a lot of people. And people definitely should know that using paper FPs is a vast improvement over not using the system at all. But it's not on par with MP, objectively speaking.

 

[Carrie in AZ]

We are going for 5 days and will see how it goes before getting max pass. Would be nice to hear someone's experience touring old school fast pass.

After using MP for the first time on 12/20-21 and LOVING IT, I am not sure why anyone would want to try it old school. It is amazingly convenient and sooo easy. I set the timer on my phone for the time when we could get another one and I would tap it and get it. I absolutely LOVED it!! Worth every penny.

 

[smartlabelprint]

He’s 9. It’s the sensory/anxiety that is taxing on him.

Yes. Same with our kids. Maxpass is your best friend on this trip!

 

[julieheyer]

Yes. Same with our kids. Maxpass is your best friend on this trip!

we actually didnt even get a DAS pass for our 3 yo (trauma background, sensory issues and frequent melt downs) this last trip. we used MP and did early Morning rope drop for rides w/o FPs (fantasy land and pirates in DL mostly). It was very manageable and he did so much better than I thought he would. Less walking back and forth too.
hope you have a wonderful time!

 

[smartlabelprint]

we actually didnt even get a DAS pass for our 3 yo (trauma background, sensory issues and frequent melt downs) this last trip. we used MP and did early Morning rope drop for rides w/o FPs (fantasy land and pirates in DL mostly). It was very manageable and he did so much better than I thought he would. Less walking back and forth too.
hope you have a wonderful time!

We are going in summer specifically for very early openings hoping it’s quiet. Ours have the same background as yours and the oldest especially is visually overstimulated. Just having a less busy Park will help.

 

[Cal-Pie]

I know I've seen this question asked somewhere, but I can't find it...Is there a limit to the number of people you can load into one maxpass group?

 

[BellaandMickey]

I know I've seen this question asked somewhere, but I can't find it...Is there a limit to the number of people you can load into one maxpass group?

I posted this question and never got an answer on here. I was able to find a person in a Disneyland group on Facebook who said that they had a group of 14 that they successfully got maxpasses for.

 

[mouschievous]

We did it with 10. That's the most we've tried though.

 

[pokee99]

Are there any advantages to buying MaxPass in advance, along with your hopper pass?

I'm buying my family's 3-Day Hopper Passes about a month in advance because we can get 20% off as Canadians. Someone told me that if you don't buy your MaxPass with your Hopper tickets, you can't link them to both parks. Is that correct?

 

[ZCarroll]

Are there any advantages to buying MaxPass in advance, along with your hopper pass?

I'm buying my family's 3-Day Hopper Passes about a month in advance because we can get 20% off as Canadians. Someone told me that if you don't buy your MaxPass with your Hopper tickets, you can't link them to both parks. Is that correct?

No that's not true... there's no difference buying in advance versus buying the day of, it's the same (I've done both)

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Are there any advantages to buying MaxPass in advance, along with your hopper pass?

I'm buying my family's 3-Day Hopper Passes about a month in advance because we can get 20% off as Canadians. Someone told me that if you don't buy your MaxPass with your Hopper tickets, you can't link them to both parks. Is that correct?

The only potential advantage would be if they raised Maxpass prices between when you bought your tickets and when you entered the park. I personally feel that’s unlikely to happen this year.

 

[Etonduf]

The only potential advantage would be if they raised Maxpass prices between when you bought your tickets and when you entered the park. I personally feel that’s unlikely to happen this year.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but if you don't buy MaxPass with your tickets initially, you can't add it until you've scanned in for the day. If you've already got your payment method set up in the app, this is a very simple and very fast process, but it is one more step to take in the park before you can grab your first pass.

However, that does give you the option of choosing to only get MP for some of your days in the parks, instead of paying ahead of time for all the days on your ticket.

 

[ChanaC]

Hope this thread can help with my FP/MP strategy - I'm planning a non-holiday weekday visit and what all the crowd calendars say will be a low-to-medium attendance day. We're just doing Disneyland.

So, there will be two of us, one who is a huge Star Wars fan who is also a Disneyland first-timer. I'm local, but don't get to attend a lot, and haven't been since Galaxy's Edge opened. My initial plan was to enter the park pre-rope drop, get a boarding pass, and then head to Smuggler's Run while getting a MP for Indy. However, I've heard the Smuggler's Run really gets busy at rope drop, but wait times decrease later in the day, so it's smarter to head to Indy, get a MP for Space Mountain, and hit some other big rides and come back to SR later in the afternoon (we also have an Oga's reservation at 3pm, so maybe after the reservation). Of course, we'll hit RotR whenever our boarding group is called.

However, I got all this advice before Rise of the Resistance opened. I'm wondering if having a large group of people attend rope drop has affected my strategy. Are more people heading to SR first thing in the morning? Should we fight through the crowds and head there first thing, or is it still smarter to get to Indy and Space Mountain first? I guess the advantage of getting to SR first thing is that we can easily get FastPasses for Indy and SM later in the day, and even SM has a single-rider line. Also, I would love to do SR multiple times if possible to try all the different positions, so we can also come back later in the day when the line is shorter. However, if Galaxy's Edge is just insanely crowded in the morning, maybe it really would be better to wait until later.

Anyone have any thoughts? For reference, the Disneyland first-timer and I are both WDW veterans, so we know there are some duplicates we can skip (Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, etc.) and some other new or totally different rides we need to get to (Matterhorn, Pirates, Indy, and some of the smaller Fantasyland dark rides).

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Hope this thread can help with my FP/MP strategy - I'm planning a non-holiday weekday visit and what all the crowd calendars say will be a low-to-medium attendance day. We're just doing Disneyland.

So, there will be two of us, one who is a huge Star Wars fan who is also a Disneyland first-timer. I'm local, but don't get to attend a lot, and haven't been since Galaxy's Edge opened. My initial plan was to enter the park pre-rope drop, get a boarding pass, and then head to Smuggler's Run while getting a MP for Indy. However, I've heard the Smuggler's Run really gets busy at rope drop, but wait times decrease later in the day, so it's smarter to head to Indy, get a MP for Space Mountain, and hit some other big rides and come back to SR later in the afternoon (we also have an Oga's reservation at 3pm, so maybe after the reservation). Of course, we'll hit RotR whenever our boarding group is called.

However, I got all this advice before Rise of the Resistance opened. I'm wondering if having a large group of people attend rope drop has affected my strategy. Are more people heading to SR first thing in the morning? Should we fight through the crowds and head there first thing, or is it still smarter to get to Indy and Space Mountain first? I guess the advantage of getting to SR first thing is that we can easily get FastPasses for Indy and SM later in the day, and even SM has a single-rider line. Also, I would love to do SR multiple times if possible to try all the different positions, so we can also come back later in the day when the line is shorter. However, if Galaxy's Edge is just insanely crowded in the morning, maybe it really would be better to wait until later.

Anyone have any thoughts? For reference, the Disneyland first-timer and I are both WDW veterans, so we know there are some duplicates we can skip (Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, etc.) and some other new or totally different rides we need to get to (Matterhorn, Pirates, Indy, and some of the smaller Fantasyland dark rides).

Since WDW’s MF:SR is getting FP+ added, it’s possible that DL’s will add FP soon, so keep an eye on that.

Otherwise I’d avoid SR in the morning. Stick with your plan of rope-dropping Space or IJ and grabbing a FP for the other (also keep an eye on Matterhorn), and go from there.

Good luck!

 

[Paigesmom2013]

Maybe this has been answered, but if you pull up MaxPass and would prefer to ride say, RSR, at a later time than what's showing--is there a swipe left option to pick a later time? Or something that says "more options"? I'm thinking about how people stack FP for the evenings...

 

[MonocularVision]

Maybe this has been answered, but if you pull up MaxPass and would prefer to ride say, RSR, at a later time than what's showing--is there a swipe left option to pick a later time? Or something that says "more options"? I'm thinking about how people stack FP for the evenings...

Nope. Best you can do is to go back to the previous screen and try again. If the times shown were for an earlier, cancelled FP and someone picked it up, you might get a later time. But you can’t really choose your time. You get first of whatever is available.

 

[Paigesmom2013]

Nope. Best you can do is to go back to the previous screen and try again. If the times shown were for an earlier, cancelled FP and someone picked it up, you might get a later time. But you can’t really choose your time. You get first of whatever is available.

Thanks, I thought that was the case. ☹ I guess we just pick whichever Fastpass makes sense at the time.