RideMax Users Thread (FAQs Linked in First Post!)

[disney4us2002]

Okay, I had a thought about my DHS dilemma. We're going to go on a Wednesday morning and the plan was to stay til about 2ish. As it turns out, Wednesdays are the pm EMH day for DHS. If I get FPs during the morning, will we be able to use them if we return for the pm EMH? It is our last night at Disney anyway so it doesn't matter as much if we're tired. During the break we'll just have to pack for the next day's return trip.

 

[torsie24]

Is RM only worth the $$ if you follow it to a t?

I really want to get it as I know it'll be fun planning, but as it's our first trip I want some 'smell the roses' time and don't want to be going ride, ride, ride.

I have TGM and wil be following his 'good day/bad day' guide. But don't want to skip getting RM if it means we'll be spending an extra 2 hours a day in line....

Hope this makes sense!!

 

[singingpixie]

Okay, I had a thought about my DHS dilemma. We're going to go on a Wednesday morning and the plan was to stay til about 2ish. As it turns out, Wednesdays are the pm EMH day for DHS. If I get FPs during the morning, will we be able to use them if we return for the pm EMH? It is our last night at Disney anyway so it doesn't matter as much if we're tired. During the break we'll just have to pack for the next day's return trip.

There's no guarantee that the FP lines will be running during EMH. If they are using FP, most likely you can use your ones from earlier in the day; however, it's been very inconsistent as far as whether FP is used during EMH.

 

[singingpixie]

Is RM only worth the $$ if you follow it to a t?

I really want to get it as I know it'll be fun planning, but as it's our first trip I want some 'smell the roses' time and don't want to be going ride, ride, ride.

I have TGM and wil be following his 'good day/bad day' guide. But don't want to skip getting RM if it means we'll be spending an extra 2 hours a day in line....

Hope this makes sense!!

Generally, you should follow the plan to get the best benefit. This is especially true regarding the timing of getting fastpasses. The plans will have directions in regular type and some in bold- the bold ones are more time-sensitive.

That said, the plans work in "free time" blocks that would be optimum "stop and smell the roses" time. You might find that you could follow the plan and still have time to take in the little things. Another option, which is what I plan to do, is to Ridemax plan my mornings to be busy but to leave the afternoons and evenings free for slower-paced, more spontaneous things.

 

[torsie24]

Generally, you should follow the plan to get the best benefit. This is especially true regarding the timing of getting fastpasses. The plans will have directions in regular type and some in bold- the bold ones are more time-sensitive.

That said, the plans work in "free time" blocks that would be optimum "stop and smell the roses" time. You might find that you could follow the plan and still have time to take in the little things. Another option, which is what I plan to do, is to Ridemax plan my mornings to be busy but to leave the afternoons and evenings free for slower-paced, more spontaneous things.

Cool, that sounds great! We are going to do a lot of rope drops so that would be perfect for us!

 

[singingpixie]

Cool, that sounds great! We are going to do a lot of rope drops so that would be perfect for us!

Yeah, for us it was a compromise between my "theme park commando" tendencies and my boyfriend's "go with the flow" personality. I knew he would go along with me if I wanted to be a commando the whole time, but he'll definitely enjoy it more if we slow down some too. And I'm less likely to do the burnout thing 5 days into the trip like I usually do.

 

[superplannermom]

Can someone tell me if Ride Max gives you time to take time to notice all the "non-ride" stuff or is it basically to get you from one ride to another as quickly as possible?

 

[singingpixie]

Can someone tell me if Ride Max gives you time to take time to notice all the "non-ride" stuff or is it basically to get you from one ride to another as quickly as possible?

Its expressed purpose is to minimize ride wait times, but the plans to give you "free time" blocks which are good to use for that. You can also schedule breaks at any time or location you choose, or plan to do the ridemax plans and prioritize rides for part of the day, and spend another part of the day focusing on the non-ride stuff.

 

[DaveStroem]

Can someone tell me if Ride Max gives you time to take time to notice all the "non-ride" stuff or is it basically to get you from one ride to another as quickly as possible?

Its expressed purpose is to minimize ride wait times, but the plans to give you "free time" blocks which are good to use for that. You can also schedule breaks at any time or location you choose, or plan to do the ridemax plans and prioritize rides for part of the day, and spend another part of the day focusing on the non-ride stuff.

You can also set RM to the slow mode which will let you smell the roses and not be quite so commando. Of course the trade off is that you will not be able to get as many rides in during the same amount of time (if your maxing out the day)

 

[AnnaLeeB]

I read the Unofficial Guide thoroughly (I learned about the book through these boards) and found it be an incredible source of information -- crowd calendars, advice on EMH hours, understanding the rides to figure out which we'd like best, structuring the plan in an optimum way so, for example, one morning is devoted to Fantasyland rides and another to the others like Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, etc.

However, I was a bit concerned when creating touring plans because the plans they offered didn't quite fit what we wanted to do. I made substitutions but I was worried I was going to throw the plan off completely by doing that. I was thinking it would be great if they had a software so I could customize our own touring plans. And then I found out about Ridemax on these boards!

Ridemax is amazing and so worth it -- we used it during Spring Break and never waited more than 15 minutes for any ride on our plan -- our waits for the most popular rides (Soarin', Tower of Terror, TSM, Rn'R, Expedition Everest, Kilamanjaro Safaris, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, etc.) were 0-10 minutes because we were either there at rope drop or used fastpasses. Test Track was the one exception; we waited 15 minutes using fastpasses at around 6:00 PM. When there was a discrepancy between the posted wait time at an attraction and the Ridemax wait time, it was striking to see the Ridemax wait time was correct! (I actually timed our wait at Pirates of the Carribean to verify this.)

I did play around with it a lot to get what I wanted -- on a first pass, if you add too many rides and shows into the plan, especially at a place like Animal Kingdom, you can wind up with long wait times for Expedition Everest and Kilamanjaro Safaris. But if you make adjustments, you will wind up with what you want. For someone who had little prior knowledge of the parks, I also found the ride descriptions in the UG extremely useful for those pockets of time when we got ahead of plan.

For example, on our day at Animal Kingdom the park opened a little early, and by 9:00 AM we had fastpasses for EE and my daughter had ridden Triceratop Spin (I wasn't even sure if that ride was open -- no one was in line -- but it was). The next step on our plan was to wait in line for the 10:00 AM Lion King show at 9:37, so we had plenty of time. So we rode Triceratop Spin again while my husband rode Primeval Whirl, and then decided to go on the Dinosaur Ride (I knew this was popular due to my UG reading but thought it would be too frightening) which was a total walk-on. I guess everyone was at Kilamanjaro Safaris or EE. Dinosaur actually turned out to be one of our favorite rides in all the parks -- our five year old was scared at points, but afterwards kept talking about it -- she was facinated.

For those who are worried about rushing around and not having time to smell the roses with a Ridemax plan -- well, there is a lot of rushing around in the early morning, especially during periods like Spring Break. But on the other hand, if you want to go on the popular rides, would you rather rush around for a couple hours early in the day or wait in hour-long lines all day? And after the early morning rush, you have the rest of the day to take it easy and smell the roses without worrying about whether or not you're going to be able to experience something. We simply would not have been able to do all that we did if we had not arrived at the parks early with a plan;we would have wasted too much time waiting in lines.

And at some parks we were actually able to do far more than planned for. For example, at DHS, I did not plan to go on Toy Story Mania -- I just didn't want our family to get caught up in all the craziness around that ride. But since we arrived at the park 40 min. early and were almost first in line at the turnstiles, I asked my husband to get fastpasses for it. Also unplanned was a second ride on Tower of Terror, as well as character meetings (Mickey, Donald, Prince Caspian, and Bolt and Rhino). We did that along with all the other rides and shows on the plan (The Great Movie Ride, Rock n' Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Beauty and the Beast, Arial Show, Lights, Motors, Action, a half hour break) and then left at 3:00 to go to Epcot for a dinner reservation.

All the planning paid off surprisingly well and we had a wonderful trip!

 

[tjknitz]

Going Sept 11-17th. I was planning on visiting MK on Monday th 14th and using Ridemax. I believe I heard somewhere that Ridemax does not take into account anything on Main Street that we would want to do (ie. I want to get my daughters haircut at the Barber Shop). How would I account for this on Ridemax?
For any of you veterans - is there a good time to go to the barber shop on a Monday??? I would hate to go first thing in the AM since I want to make sure we get the FP's for all the major headliners.

 

[tjknitz]

I read the Unofficial Guide thoroughly (I learned about the book through these boards) and found it be an incredible source of information -- crowd calendars, advice on EMH hours, understanding the rides to figure out which we'd like best, structuring the plan in an optimum way so, for example, one morning is devoted to Fantasyland rides and another to the others like Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, etc.

However, I was a bit concerned when creating touring plans because the plans they offered didn't quite fit what we wanted to do. I made substitutions but I was worried I was going to throw the plan off completely by doing that. I was thinking it would be great if they had a software so I could customize our own touring plans. And then I found out about Ridemax on these boards!

Ridemax is amazing and so worth it -- we used it during Spring Break and never waited more than 15 minutes for any ride on our plan -- our waits for the most popular rides (Soarin', Tower of Terror, TSM, Rn'R, Expedition Everest, Kilamanjaro Safaris, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, etc.) were 0-10 minutes because we were either there at rope drop or used fastpasses. Test Track was the one exception; we waited 15 minutes using fastpasses at around 6:00 PM. When there was a discrepancy between the posted wait time at an attraction and the Ridemax wait time, it was striking to see the Ridemax wait time was correct! (I actually timed our wait at Pirates of the Carribean to verify this.)

I did play around with it a lot to get what I wanted -- on a first pass, if you add too many rides and shows into the plan, especially at a place like Animal Kingdom, you can wind up with long wait times for Expedition Everest and Kilamanjaro Safaris. But if you make adjustments, you will wind up with what you want. For someone who had little prior knowledge of the parks, I also found the ride descriptions in the UG extremely useful for those pockets of time when we got ahead of plan.

For example, on our day at Animal Kingdom the park opened a little early, and by 9:00 AM we had fastpasses for EE and my daughter had ridden Triceratop Spin (I wasn't even sure if that ride was open -- no one was in line -- but it was). The next step on our plan was to wait in line for the 10:00 AM Lion King show at 9:37, so we had plenty of time. So we rode Triceratop Spin again while my husband rode Primeval Whirl, and then decided to go on the Dinosaur Ride (I knew this was popular due to my UG reading but thought it would be too frightening) which was a total walk-on. I guess everyone was at Kilamanjaro Safaris or EE. Dinosaur actually turned out to be one of our favorite rides in all the parks -- our five year old was scared at points, but afterwards kept talking about it -- she was facinated.

For those who are worried about rushing around and not having time to smell the roses with a Ridemax plan -- well, there is a lot of rushing around in the early morning, especially during periods like Spring Break. But on the other hand, if you want to go on the popular rides, would you rather rush around for a couple hours early in the day or wait in hour-long lines all day? And after the early morning rush, you have the rest of the day to take it easy and smell the roses without worrying about whether or not you're going to be able to experience something. We simply would not have been able to do all that we did if we had not arrived at the parks early with a plan;we would have wasted too much time waiting in lines.

And at some parks we were actually able to do far more than planned for. For example, at DHS, I did not plan to go on Toy Story Mania -- I just didn't want our family to get caught up in all the craziness around that ride. But since we arrived at the park 40 min. early and were almost first in line at the turnstiles, I asked my husband to get fastpasses for it. Also unplanned was a second ride on Tower of Terror, as well as character meetings (Mickey, Donald, Prince Caspian, and Bolt and Rhino). We did that along with all the other rides and shows on the plan (The Great Movie Ride, Rock n' Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Beauty and the Beast, Arial Show, Lights, Motors, Action, a half hour break) and then left at 3:00 to go to Epcot for a dinner reservation.

All the planning paid off surprisingly well and we had a wonderful trip!

I am so happy that you posted this - thank you! I have never been to WDW and I have not been able to see Ridemax yet (as my trip isn't until Sept). I was worried if this program was too good to be true. I'm happy to hear that so many people really do have positive experiances with it.
Thanks again for posting! I'm getting so excited to purchase Ridemax. I can't wait until Sept information gets downloaded -

 

[AnnaLeeB]

I am so happy that you posted this - thank you! I have never been to WDW and I have not been able to see Ridemax yet (as my trip isn't until Sept). I was worried if this program was too good to be true. I'm happy to hear that so many people really do have positive experiances with it.
Thanks again for posting! I'm getting so excited to purchase Ridemax. I can't wait until Sept information gets downloaded -

Yes, I recall looking at all these plans I made with Ridemax and wondering if they were really going to work, and then after a few days of using them feeling a bit amazed at how well they were working. Also, it's really nice to have a plan so you never wind up standing around looking at maps and schedules and discussing what you want to do next; that's already taken care of.

 

[AnnaLeeB]

Going Sept 11-17th. I was planning on visiting MK on Monday th 14th and using Ridemax. I believe I heard somewhere that Ridemax does not take into account anything on Main Street that we would want to do (ie. I want to get my daughters haircut at the Barber Shop). How would I account for this on Ridemax?
For any of you veterans - is there a good time to go to the barber shop on a Monday??? I would hate to go first thing in the AM since I want to make sure we get the FP's for all the major headliners.

Could someone in your group get fastpasses while you're with your daughter at the barber shop when it opens? Otherwise, what you might try, if you plan on being in the barbershop at 9:00 AM, is to set your start time in Ridemax for 9:30 to see how much this effects your plan.

I created a Magic Kingdom plan (this was one of two plans and this particular one did not include the Fantasyland rides) with a 9:00 AM start time and along with ones with 9:15 and 9:30 start times and found I actually preferred the scheduling on the 9:15 AM one. In September in particular you may not find a big difference in the scheduling, which would leave you 30 minutes at the beginning for a stop at the Barber shop.

However, if your daughter wants to ride Dumbo, you really do need to head directly to that ride as soon as the park opens!

Hopefully you can also get advice from someone who is familiar with the ebb and flow of traffic at the barber shop during the day; we haven't been there.

 

[schwenksvillemouse]

Subscribing

 

[ekatiel]

We're at WDW now and on our first trip. RideMax has been AWESOME!!! We haven't had to wait for more than about 10 minutes for anything, and we've been able to walk-on or use FP's for nearly everything. We just shake our heads at the poor people waiting in the long standby lines . I'll update with a longer report once we get back, but I just had to come here and give RideMax a big ! Oh, and one thing we've been laughing about is that it's so funny to always be traveling AGAINST the crowds-- it seems like there is always a swarm of people coming towards us as we are heading the other direction! I guess that's how you zig when they zag !--Katie

 

[DaveStroem]

So glad your having a great trip. Can't wait to read the rest of your TR.

 

[MamaCrush]

We're at WDW now and on our first trip. RideMax has been AWESOME!!! We haven't had to wait for more than about 10 minutes for anything, and we've been able to walk-on or use FP's for nearly everything. We just shake our heads at the poor people waiting in the long standby lines . I'll update with a longer report once we get back, but I just had to come here and give RideMax a big ! Oh, and one thing we've been laughing about is that it's so funny to always be traveling AGAINST the crowds-- it seems like there is always a swarm of people coming towards us as we are heading the other direction! I guess that's how you zig when they zag !--Katie

This gives me such great hope at surviving our upcoming trip at Thanksgiving! Thanks so much for letting us know... Can't wait to hear the details of your trip. I so wish I were there!

 

[lesliejmorris]

I am having soooooo much fun overplannin our July vacation. Usins Ridemax, TGM, and UG. There is room for ALL of them....but maybe it is just the compulsive planners who feel they need all three. Glad to see this thread, it is helping me play with Ridemax until my dates become active.

 

[meanmom121]

just got the ridemax program. I'm loving it. The plans I am printing out look very doable.