One day Parkhopping with Maxpass- Trip Report

[midnight star]

I meant to post this last month when this trip happened.But here it is now. I wanted to post this trip report to show that you can still get a lot done in the parks in a day. Strategic planning is needed. I've also seen a couple of questions on the main DL board regarding maxpass. We heavily used maxpass for this trip. I HIGHLY recommend it for one day trips, even if you don't parkhop.

Background: On August 5, two of my friends joined me for a day at DL. They both had AP's when they were younger, and frequented the parks, but hadn't been in a couple of years. I currently have an AP, and we used the AP one day parkhopper discount tickets that were available this summer. My AP (signature +) comes with maxpass, so I had the maxpass option added at the ticket booths. This took away the one extra step of having to add it after entering the gates. We are all in our mid/late 20's (I'm 25, my friends are 28).

We arrived at the parks around 6:45am. Parking and security at Mickey and Friends was a breeze. My friends stood in the line at DL while I got the tickets at the booth. These particular tickets could only be purchased in person, but generally, I'd suggest buying tickets before arriving to save time. This step took me about 10 minutes. We started at DL since it didn't have magic morning.

Morning time: We were let into the gates around 7:45 for the 8 am opening. We headed straight to Space Mountain for rope drop. I attempted to book Indiana Jones maxpass, however the app kept saying that one of my friends was not "in the park" even though she was. I tried exiting out of the app, logging out, and it had the same issue each time. So we did Space Mountain and were off by 8:10ish. We then went back to the main entrance where a lead had to fix the ticket situation. We then were able to book Indiana Jones for 8:50 am. This ticket issue was thankfully the only problem we had during the day with the app. We went back to Tomorrowland and did Buzz and Star Tours (5 min stand by each).

Breaks: We took small breaks in between the rides so we wouldn't get tired out. We shared snacks together to save money and to not get full off of empty calories. The snacks we tried were the UP donut and UP poptart (Pixar fest was still happening). We also shared the beignets (pack of 3 for $4), and each got a mint julep.

Meal: We had a 2:55 pm reservation for Lamplight Lounge. Prior to this visit, I had come twice. The service for both of those times was fine. However for this visit, the service sucked pretty bad. Our waters weren't refilled, and they tried to give us food that we didn't order. I do hope they get it together, as the restaurant and food itself are too good to not have great service. We gave them brownie points though, for fulfilling our request to sit inside, since that day was so humid and hot.



Below are the rides that we did. I did my best to explain how we did the maxpass selections and redemmptions. We did a total of 17 rides.
Space Mountain (rope dropped)- Off by 8:10 am
Star Tours- 5 min wait
Buzz Astro Blasters-5 min wait
Indiana Jones- redeemed 8:50 am maxpass at 8:45 am (you can scan in 5 min early) .. Booked Splash Mountain for 9:05am
Splash Mountain-redeemed on or around 9:05am...booked Radiator Springs for 12:45 pm (we chose to wait the 90 minutes.
Winnie the Pooh- 0 minute wait
Roger Rabbit-15 minute wait time.. 90 minutes were up while in line... booked Guardians of the Galaxy maxpass for 12:50 pm
Small World- 5 min wait
Haunted Mansion- 13 min wait...90 minutes were up sometime after this ride and while eating beignets...booked Incredicoaster for 12:30 pm

At this time, it was about 12:15 pm, so we scarfed down the beignets and mint juleps to rush over to redeem Incredicoater maxpass

Incredicoaster- redeemed at 12:35ish...while waiting to get on the ride..our 30 minutes was up so we chose Toy Story Midway Mania for 4:35pm
Radiator Springs Racers- redeemed around 12:45
Guardians of the Galaxy- redeemed around 1:15...this fastpass line took the longest. We didn't get off the ride until nearly 2 pm.

Sometime during our breaks and eating at Lamplight Lounge, we chose Soarin' for 5:50. The last maxpass we booked was Goofy Sky School for 4:35 (this was an instant return time).

Toy Story Midway Mania- redeemed at 4:35
Goofy's Sky School- redeemed at 5:20
Silly Symphony Swings- 15 min wait
Little Mermaid- 5 min wait
Soarin- redeemed at 6:15 pm

We were going to go back to DL to do Pirates, but we were wiped out and decided to go home. We left the parks around 6:45 pm...12 hour day!

Rides we couldn't do: Matterhorn was down (still down). Also we were going to wait for Big Thunder in Standby..after maybe 10 minutes an announcement was made to have us all exit the line. We walked down the pathway that would take you to Fantasyland and saw that the ride was stuck at the top of the mountain! So that was shut down for a good portion of the day, and we were fine with not doing it.

Let me know if you have any questions. Hope it's not too long-winded.

 

[Jaina]

I did two one-day park hoppers last year, and they were exhausting, but so much fun. With MaxPass you can really fit a lot in without killing yourself with extra walking! Did you friends enjoy their trip back into the parks?

 

[midnight star]

I did two one-day park hoppers last year, and they were exhausting, but so much fun. With MaxPass you can really fit a lot in without killing yourself with extra walking! Did you friends enjoy their trip back into the parks?

Yes they had a blast! The whole maxpass system was new to them, so they enjoyed not having to run around the park getting fastpasses. I'm glad we got to do so many of the big rides back to back. I used maxpass for the first time in December when I went with a different group of friends, before I had my AP (so happy I have Disneyland-loving friends, lol). We just did one day and one park because of cost. We did all of the rides we wanted to do by 2 pm, and the rest of the day just relaxed and roamed around the park! I loved it.

And I agree, this trip was so fun, but exhausting. I have gotten spoiled with my AP where I do things at a slower pace.

 

[midnight star]

Oh! I knew I was forgetting something: I had everyone's tickets linked to my Disneyland app only. One of my friends didn't had a lot of storage and data. The other didn't had enough storage, so we just used mine. Minus that whole ticket issue we had in the morning, everything worked out great! No app crashes or slow loading. I turned the wifi off on my phone to prevent it from trying to use Disneyland's. My data plan isn't unlimited, but it is the max amount of data you can get before having to get an unlimited plan. So no worries regarding that.

Just a reminder when one person scans in for the whole group: have them stand directly behind you so they don't block others trying to use the fastpass scanners. I can scan pretty fast, and our group was small, and even then I had my friends stand behind me. Larger groups can block the whole scanning area, which in turn backs up the fastpass line.

 

[Eve & Wall-e]

I wanted to post this trip report to show that you can still get a lot done in the parks in a day

Looks like you got a lot done in one day. MaxPass is awesome!

 

[midnight star]

Looks like you got a lot done in one day. MaxPass is awesome!

I refuse to go without it now! I actually paid for their maxpasses for them because I didn't want run around all day trying to get paper fastpasses. There's no way we would've done all of that with the paper ones.