RideMax Users Thread (FAQs Linked in First Post!)

[Sydnerella]

What time would you plan to get to the parking lot for MK if you want to be at the rope drop for nine. Sounds time consuming to go from parking lot to monorail, to line ups, to security and ticket check... and finally into the park.
What are your suggestions? BTW we are staying off property.

We stay off property too - in a nearby VRBO house. We arrive at the MK lot around 8 for a 9am open. We usually wait at the Ticket and Transportation Center for a bit until they let you onto the monorail or the ferry over to MK. Then wait another 20minutes until the RD. I have never noticed that they let you inside and onto Mainstreet prior to the opening show completion though... perhaps its new since 2008 or I have been too into the show to notice the crowd filing inside?

Sydnerella's Mama

 

[Sydnerella]

Hi,

We have a 9AM ADR for CRT following BBB at 8. Would we savor our first time at CRT for our little princess for about 2 hours? Or wont they let us be there that long? I am wondering what time to start our RM plan after breakfast. We do not want to rush CRT at all but also want to know how long it takes - i heard they take a Cinderella pic when you arrive and then food is rapidly served family style... I was hoping to send DH right away once the primary CRT festivities were done for a FP at Buzz for DS5 who will be a bit princessed out! When should our RM plan begin?

Help please!

THANKS!
Sydnerella's Mama

 

[bellebookworm9]

I have no definite answer, but for my plans I'm allowing 80-90 minutes including check-in time. I've heard for buffets that's generally enough and I've heard they really rush you through at CRT.

 

[Grandma4ever]

We stay off property too - in a nearby VRBO house. We arrive at the MK lot around 8 for a 9am open. We usually wait at the Ticket and Transportation Center for a bit until they let you onto the monorail or the ferry over to MK. Then wait another 20minutes until the RD. I have never noticed that they let you inside and onto Mainstreet prior to the opening show completion though... perhaps its new since 2008 or I have been too into the show to notice the crowd filing inside?

Sydnerella's Mama

You are not allowed into the park until after the RD show but that is at about 8:45. Then you RUSH to the end of Main steet where you are stopped again until 9:00. This is to allow for more room for people to wait for park opening.

Hi,

We have a 9AM ADR for CRT following BBB at 8. Would we savor our first time at CRT for our little princess for about 2 hours? Or wont they let us be there that long? I am wondering what time to start our RM plan after breakfast. We do not want to rush CRT at all but also want to know how long it takes - i heard they take a Cinderella pic when you arrive and then food is rapidly served family style... I was hoping to send DH right away once the primary CRT festivities were done for a FP at Buzz for DS5 who will be a bit princessed out! When should our RM plan begin?

Help please!

THANKS!
Sydnerella's Mama

I have always allowed at least 90 min for table service. I have not done this one so I can't speak as to what you can expect here but even if you are done sooner you can just begin your ridemax plan a little sooner, should still work well, however your times may be off a bit.

 

[Sydnerella]

Hi

We have an 8AM ADR at TH in Animal Kingdom. I assumed after breakfast (1hour?) we would head straight to KS. I put in a break at TH 9:05 for 2min. Then RM wants me to go all the way to primeval whirl (we are not doing EE - little kids) rather than even getting an FP for KS...

I do not get it - I assumed we would go from Breakfast to KS. There are only evening EMH that day so I am not sure why it thinks I should get an FP at 10:20 after sending me to Dinoland and then to redeem it at 2:30...

Anyone have some strategy help to get RM to do what seems more reasonable here?

Thanks, Sydnerella's Mama

 

[mickey916]

I wanted to do the same thing. I put in a break at 9:05 for 25 minutes in Africa and called my break "Safari" then I selected all the other things I wanted to do, leaving out the safari (since I had already manually put that in as a break.) It then gave me a very reasonable schedule for everything else - and I put in EVERYTHING except triceratop spin. In fact, later I decided we might want to do the safari again so I added that in as a ride choice and it gave me an afternoon time period. Now we can do it during the break in the a.m. and again when Ridemax suggests in the afternoon. Hope this works for you too. Isn't Ridemax fun!

 

[Sydnerella]

We have 2 mornings at MK

One is Dumbo/fantasyland first
Two is BBB at 8 and CRT at 9

How can I get my DS5 onto Astro Orbiter without the hour wait RM keeps showing until 9PM??? Are the lines really that long ALL day for this ride? RM always gives a 54 minute wait anytime after RD, 44 min at 9PM, and 18 min at 10PM.

Is AO really as bad as dumbo in terms of lines?!?!? Any suggestions to getting on it without late nights or hour waits based on our schedule constraints?

thx!
Sydnerella's Mama

 

[lemondog]

We have 2 mornings at MK

One is Dumbo/fantasyland first
Two is BBB at 8 and CRT at 9

How can I get my DS5 onto Astro Orbiter without the hour wait RM keeps showing until 9PM??? Are the lines really that long ALL day for this ride? RM always gives a 54 minute wait anytime after RD, 44 min at 9PM, and 18 min at 10PM.

Is AO really as bad as dumbo in terms of lines?!?!? Any suggestions to getting on it without late nights or hour waits based on our schedule constraints?

thx!
Sydnerella's Mama

Astro-Orbiter has a terrible wait. Not only is it a very slow loader like Dumbo, but to get to it you have to ride up an elevator that only holds a few at a time. We are actually skipping it this go-round because I could not get RM to get it to a decent wait time, and it's honestly no different to me than Dumbo or Aladdin's Magic Carpets.

 

[sandym718]

Astro is tough. With only true RD, you'll have a wait, unfortunately. We did two RD's and did Dumbo/Fantasyland for one and AO/Tomorrowland for the other (Space Mtn. was closed and we Fast Passed Splash and Thunder).

Maybe you'll get lucky?

 

[bellebookworm9]

The day we will be going to AK is Sunday, May 23rd. I'm currently using a Tuesday in April (same hours & crowd levels, both recommended days), as any May dates with the same hours are Sundays or days with EMH. We will not be arriving at rope drop. I want to ride EE twice, but I can't seem to have it make me a good plan. Even if I only put it in once, it comes out weird. The thing is that my mom won't ride it, so I can use the singles line or use her ticket to get myself a second FASTPASS. However, when I don't put it in at all I get a 2.5 hour break in the middle of the day (1:30-3). Do you think this is enough time to ride twice using the singles line?

 

[BlueFairy]

The day we will be going to AK is Sunday, May 23rd. I'm currently using a Tuesday in April (same hours & crowd levels, both recommended days), as any May dates with the same hours are Sundays or days with EMH. We will not be arriving at rope drop. I want to ride EE twice, but I can't seem to have it make me a good plan. Even if I only put it in once, it comes out weird. The thing is that my mom won't ride it, so I can use the singles line or use her ticket to get myself a second FASTPASS. However, when I don't put it in at all I get a 2.5 hour break in the middle of the day (1:30-3). Do you think this is enough time to ride twice using the singles line?

Have you considered doing the Give A Day promotion and using your voucher for Fastpasses? If you volunteer 1 day you will get a voucher that can be exchanged for a fastpass card, getting you multiple EE fastpasses if you choose to use it that way. The great part is that the fastpass is good immediately (no waiting for a return window), so you can use it in the break designed by RM. Here is a thread:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2379179

 

[bellebookworm9]

Have you considered doing the Give A Day promotion and using your voucher for Fastpasses? If you volunteer 1 day you will get a voucher that can be exchanged for a fastpass card, getting you multiple EE fastpasses if you choose to use it that way. The great part is that the fastpass is good immediately (no waiting for a return window), so you can use it in the break designed by RM. Here is a thread:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2379179

No, actually I hadn't thought about that! I forgot you could exchange the voucher for FASTPASSes and since it's actually cheaper for me to buy a 7day WPF&M than a 6 day, I never considered it. I'll look into that though!

 

[deepmagic]

the only thing I can think of is building in breaks as child swaps. Like get your schedule then add in a break after each of the headliners for another 15mins and see how that goes.

I didn't really think about the swapping this time as we've been hoping the youngest will hit 40" but it looks like he'll be an inch too short still.

I'm going to fiddle around and see what I can come up with.

buy your kiddo some TALL shoes!

 

[Sydnerella]

I have a nice itinerary developed for Sunday March 21 at MK.

And I have decided that while my DD3 waits for and sees Ariel in the grotto from 9:40-10:30, that DH and DS5 can go catch the very coveted (by DS) Astro Orbiter and meet us back at Mad Tea Party after 50 min based on the RM plan. So my question is:

While they are in tomorrowland at 9:50 should DH and DS grab a FP for Buzz before riding AO? RM has us getting our first FP for BTMRR at 11 and using that at 1:30 but I was wondering if we got the BuzzLY one at 9:50-10 am if that would mean we would not be able to get the BTMRR FP until noon?

I was under the impression that some FPs picked up in the first hour might help you "get ahead" with your FPs so picking up another could be possible before 2 hours. Based on the two rides I am talking about doing this for do any of you experts have any opinions/advice on this?

Thanks,
Sydnerella's Mama

 

[gnome1b]

Hi Sydnerella,
How I usually handled it is that if my next FP on the ridemax plan was 2 hours or more away then I got a FP. This allowed me to ride some rides more times when I might have rode them only once. I save them and use them in the afternoon, this way I can stay on my plan. I also found that by afternoon, I had done most of the major things and I veered from my plan and just did what I wanted.
HTH
Brad in Ma.

 

[redheadx3]

I'm not sure to use the normal or slow mode. If I use the slow mode and get ahead of the times, will that be ok or will that make me wait in lines in the morning and afternoon? Now I know if arriving too early to a ride in the evening may have a longer line.

 

[bellebookworm9]

I'm not sure to use the normal or slow mode. If I use the slow mode and get ahead of the times, will that be ok or will that make me wait in lines in the morning and afternoon? Now I know if arriving too early to a ride in the evening may have a longer line.

If you use slow mode and get ahead, your wait times should be shorter than predicted in the morning/afternoon.

 

[MurphyJoe]

I'm not sure to use the normal or slow mode. If I use the slow mode and get ahead of the times, will that be ok or will that make me wait in lines in the morning and afternoon? Now I know if arriving too early to a ride in the evening may have a longer line.

Due to how RideMax works with the two modes, I think it's better to think of them like options in road directions software.

Normal Mode = Optimize for Time, then Optimize for Distance
Slow Mode = Optimize for Distance, then Optimize for Time

Also, the BOLD faced times are the most important. If you arrive latter or sooner on a non-bold faced attraction it doesn't matter as much (supposedly.)

 

[sandym718]

Play around with both methods. We definitely preferred SLOW in the MK, even though we can move fast, because we did not want to be jumping around from land to land.

 

[Sydnerella]

Hi Sydnerella,
How I usually handled it is that if my next FP on the ridemax plan was 2 hours or more away then I got a FP. This allowed me to ride some rides more times when I might have rode them only once. I save them and use them in the afternoon, this way I can stay on my plan. I also found that by afternoon, I had done most of the major things and I veered from my plan and just did what I wanted.
HTH
Brad in Ma.

Thanks Brad - so I guess we will be not grabbing the BL FP around 9:50 since RM has us getting the BTMM one an hour later... and this is the more "important" ride for my DS5. I just thought the first hour FPs would potentially mean that the return time would be early enough that an hour later I could grab another - prob wishful thinking but if anyone thinks it's poss let me know

Sydnerella's Mama