Ridemax v. Touring Plans

[Hisreputation]

Hi All!
We are 4 weeks away from a family trip to DLR, and I've finally decided to jump on board this great forum. The last time we were at Disney was...10 years ago? Maybe more. DCA had just opened. We're very excited.

As the family's Unofficial Travel Agent, I've been doing the bulk of research and planning. I read through the Unofficial Guide, and really liked it. I figured we'd just use their Personalized Touringplans to make the most of our 3-day tickets. However. Then I started seeing things about Ridemax. The only reason I would use either service is for the customizable Itineraries; we don't need Crowd Calendars. I know a lot of folks have said that TP isn't as accurate for DLR as it is for WDW. Is this opinion holding strong or have the TP people made some advances in their research at DLR?

I also just discovered that I can access the Personalized Touringplans for FREE with just a basic membership. Any Touringplans users want to chime in on the advantages of paying the fee to get the full membership?

Lastly, does Ridemax give you an option of splitting up your party? For example, say half our group wants to do Matterhorn, but the rest of us motion-sickness prone folks would rather do It's a Small World. Does Ridemax or Touringplans offer this?

Any other details you can give would be helpful. I'll probably base my decision on accuracy and ease of customization. Thanks

 

[Baxhappyplace]

I use Ridemax, and love it. It works great for my family. I bought both plans last summer and ended up liking the Ridemax plan better. Their wait times were pretty accurate.

Ridemax does not offer a way to split the party up. Each plan requires at least 3 rides. What you can do is make another plan and select the ride that the other half of your party wants to go on along with two others so you can at least see what the wait time would be during the time the other half is riding the fast motion ride. I don't recall seeing the ability to do this on a Touring Plans either.

What Ridemax does offer is you can have the people that don't want to ride the fast motion ride go get a fast pass during that time. You can select to use a fast pass runner and then it will ask which rides does the fast past runner want to skip. This is where you would select the fast motion rides that they don't want to ride. Then Ridemax might have them go grab a fast pass while the others are riding that ride.

 

[pwillunlv]

I currently have a subscription for Touring Plans, but have not used Ridemax. I have used the customized plans once and it was a little opistimic in its projections for wait times, so it didn't really work to form. That being said, it does give a good sense of strategy (i.e. starting out in Fantasyland, especially Peter Pan, when the park first opens).

You do not have the ability to split up parties in Touring Plans either, but you can designate a generic FP runner. Also, you can't "hop" from DL to DCA or vice-versa in Touring Plans (this would be a nice addition), not sure if you can in Ridemax. Touring Plans does integrate well with IOS though, your customized plan can be accessed through an Iphone/Ipad app, which is convenient.

I have read good things about Ridemax, but it is more pricey than Touring Plans. If you don't care about crowd calendars (and I agree with the sentiment that Touring Plans' projections are not the most accurate, at least in my limited experience), then I would probably just use Touring Plans for free, but think of it in a more general strategy sense (or, just review the various plans contained in the unofficial guide).

 

[cmpeter]

I used RideMax twice last year at DL/DCA and with great results. I haven't tried TP for DL or DCA.

 

[momof4fans]

I used Ridemax at DLR last August for a 5 day trip. I thought it was awesome! What I found to be most helpful was the tips it gives you. It's full of really good info. If you do as they tell you the waits will be minimal.

I will certainly purchase Ridemax for our trip next year.

 

[VandVsmama]

I personally prefer Ridemax. Touring Plans would have had us trying to go on rides that were not even open yet during EMH. There was far too much manual moving things around with TP.

 

[Keels]

I did one of the short subscriptions and like it pretty good - just one question, and maybe I'm missing something - but why isn't Peter Pan listed when you go to select attractions for a Disneyland plan?

Nevermind - I'm an idiot. I guess it's down for refurbishment for a couple of days.

 

[millie0312]

I already purchased TP but was thinking about doing ridemax as well- however its my understanding ridemax doesn't schedule your plan on Sundays which is one of our parks days, thus making ridemax somewhat obsolete imho.

 

[BriannaRuth]

I already purchased TP but was thinking about doing ridemax as well- however its my understanding ridemax doesn't schedule your plan on Sundays which is one of our parks days, thus making ridemax somewhat obsolete imho.

Their theory on this that you can use a Saturday touring plan for Sunday. Personally I've never been on a Sunday, so couldn't say how that works. They do have tips for adjusting your Saturday plans for Sunday ontheir website.

I have used their plans for every other day and have found them to be pretty accurate. I also have Touring Plans and have found I liked RideMax better, but I do sometimes use both.

 

[Baxhappyplace]

I already purchased TP but was thinking about doing ridemax as well- however its my understanding ridemax doesn't schedule your plan on Sundays which is one of our parks days, thus making ridemax somewhat obsolete imho.

Most of our visits are Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. We use Ridemax and work our Sunday schedule off of Saturday. It always works great for us.

Plus I have to agree that the tips are great.

 

[Hisreputation]

I appreciated coming home after a 12 hour work day to find all your responses waiting for me! Thank you!

It sounds like RideMax might be the way to go. However, I know one of the downers about RideMax is the lack of an app. How many of you, who use RideMax, really miss this? Do any of you make a hybrid and use the RideMax to schedule and then supplement in the park with the Lines app? Is the information in the app just as...ahem... optimistic... as the information in the TouringPlans themselves? Do you find that you have all the details you might need from the RideMax schedule alone?

Thank you, thank you!

 

[NiceOneSimba]

I run several different versions of the plans, print them out, and being them with me into the parks. (Different lunch times, longer breaks...)

My smartphone get horrible reception in the parks, but there is a web-based deal for Ridemax. Theoretically, you could probably use that, but I've never tried.

In all honesty, I use the Ridemax schedule in a quite regimented way in the morning, then kind of throw it out the window in the afternoon. Because, ooh! Cinderella! and Peter Pan! And Merida!

If you make an unplanned stop along the way, pick the schedule up at the proper time--don't just proceed down the list. Like, if the stop took 20 minutes and it's now 11:20, go to whatever attraction is listed at 11:20 (or the one after that). It's all about the times. Especially if they're bold. You will likely have some free time in the schedule to go back and ride what you missed,

 

[momof4fans]

I printed out the plans and brought them along. The first day (a Monday) we were very far ahead of schedule, which was awesome because we just did most of the rides twice. For example, on day one our plan started in Tomorrowland. My family rode Star Tours, Space Mountain and Buzz and because it was still early and lines were short, they rode them again. Then we continued on with the plan and moved on.

I played with the rides quite a bit on the program. Our first day in DL I deliberately left off Peter Pan. I found that too many of those slow loading, popular rides really added up wait times. I think Matterhorn was one of those too. If I'm remembering correcting, Matterhorn was down during our first morning in DL.

During our next morning in DL (a Wednesday) Peter Pan was on our schedule. We arrived prior to park opening and were in the hub at rope drop. This is one of the tips on Ridemax. Don't sleep in! We walked briskly to Peter Pan and were one of the first on. We only did PP once just because the line gets so long as the morning goes on. I just wanted to do it once because we'd never been on it. I was happy.

It's a very helpful program and the investment is so minimal. When I purchased it, I got the longer subscription for $25. I was just so eager to see what it was all about. I'm totally sold on it now!

 

[VandVsmama]

I used Ridemax on our last trip to DL. I did what the other posters mentioned...

• printed the plans out and brought them with me. Did this because my phone battery wouldn't have lasted all day and I found having a paper copy to be more convenient than...."Wait a sec while the app loads."
• Made a couple of different plans based on us arriving at the parks at different times (in case we decided to sleep in). I printed these out ahead of time and packed them in my suitcase.
• We had planned on going on Matterhorn, but then it was down when we were going to ride on it. So we just skipped it and went to the next ride on the list.
• Once or twice, we got hung up doing something else, so if it was 11:00 am then we just did the attraction that was at the 11:00 am time slot and we'd try to fit the missed ride in during another part of the day.
• Arriving at park opening totally made a difference in reducing our wait times.
• Follow the advice that Ridemax has on its website...only pick up to 13 attractions in your plan for the day. Their application's algorithm works best up to 13 rides/attractions. If you want to do more, then create a second itinerary with a different time slot for that day and select the other attractions that you want to go on.

 

[BriannaRuth]

I print mine out and take them with me. I also have Lines and MouseWait on my phone as a backup in case I decide to go off my plan for some reason.