Ridemax

[EjandMD]

Okay so I am a loyal UG reader and this past year I have been using TGM for three trips I have or will be taken. Previous to that, I have been to WDW gobs of times. So I signed up for Ridemax...the general secrets...not really secrets...seen them already on TGM. As far as the ride times, I'm hesistant to trust them..they have me waiting in line for 29 min at Big Thunder! Okay I have NEVER waited 30 min in line for anything at MK! Anyone else use Ridemax yet?

 

[HydroGuy]

Used RideMax at DLR, and am planning to use WDW version to some degree in May. Wait times are typically conservative to make sure you can achieve the itineraries. But not super conservative. Are you saying you do not like that the itinerary came out that way? Same thing happened to me. I moved some things around to pick up a BTM FP to save me a wait in line.

 

[EjandMD]

yea, actually just the types of rides it chose first I found odd. So the trade off appears to be that for 90% of the rides there will be a less than 10 minute wait then for two of the rides you will wait 29 minutes. What surprises me is that they didn't appear to use FP for everything either. I don't know, it's hard to convert and have faith.

 

[HydroGuy]

My DLR experience with RideMax taught me these things.

1. Aside from RideMax, it is good to know park and people patterns. Some things are beyond RideMax like ride breakdowns or weather.

2. It is good to know FastPass thoroughly. That means knowing how inefficient it is (typically) to ride FP rides early in the morning thru standby when you could be riding non-FP rides with little or no lines.

3. It is good to know ride popularity on the non-FP rides so you know which ones to hit early morning or late at night (and conversely, to avoid mid-day)

4. It is good to know which rides make good afternoon "fillers" - like Tiki Room - never much of a line any time of day

5. It is good to get to the parks early and concentrate on rides for the first few hours


At WDW I have used TGM and related DLR experience to help me with all of the above. With the above as a good starting point, the rest follows:

6. If RideMax makes you more stressed than before, you should use it differently or not use it.

7. Follow RideMax more strictly in the early morning on rides that are harder to fit in.

8. Collect all the FastPasses you can - even when RideMax does not tell you to (e.g., BTMRR)

9. After the first 2-3 hours with RideMax, transition to a more relaxed pace and use the FastPasses you have collected.

10. After 2-3 hours continue to follow the RideMax itinerary if you want, or be more spontaneous. We never followed RideMax the whole day. We let it help us with early rides and then transitioned. My family is not too thrilled with a 10-hour structured experience, but they are willing to go commando for a few hours if it will save time in line later in the day. Plus they know we will make time after a few hours for shopping, characters, and unstructured time.


At WDW we are planning to use RideMax similarly. In fact, the most help it gave us was with MK. We will be fairly strict until about noon at MK, and then we will probably still do the same rides after that we had planned, but maybe in a different order.

Another thing that helped me on the MK itinerary was to eliminate afternoon fillers like Tiki Room and Hall of Presidents. We still plan to do these, but we did not have RideMax schedule them. When I did this, the itinerary looked much "cleaner" to me, and left a 4-5 hour break mid-day where we will insert afternoon fillers as we feel like it.

 

[EjandMD]

Excellent advice! Thank you. Yea, I have to look at the schedule a little closer. interestingly they have me scheduled to hit the Snow White, Peter Pan, Pooh all before Space Mountain. When normally I do it in reverse. So i will trust my judgment but by the same respect I would love to see how it stacks up against the UG and TGM.

The biggest mistake I made during my Feb trip (Pres weekend) was hitting Dumbo first! My 8 year old nephew was with me and he wanted to ride it ( I wish they didn't show it in commericals that much!) by the time we got to SM the line was already out the building! And we arrived for rope drop! So we couldn't ride it without a FP. To me there's something about sneaking in one SM ride when the park opens then when you ride it later...it's an extra!

 

[Michelle2]

There is a Ridemax for WDW too?? Cool!
I used the ridemax for DLR, but my problem was, we went in September (one of the slowest seasons) and never even had to use it---let alone fastpasses. I just wanted a good pecking order for the morning for DL...the rest I never really looked at it much.
I have also been to WDW in September too, and crowds did not seem that bad at all....Is the WDW Ridemax even worth getting in September? I already have TGM, so I think that would be good enough?

 

[cruislovin]

We used Ridemax extensively at DLR in August 2005 and it was the BEST! Wait times were very accurate. We talked to others who could not believe how many rides we had been on and in such a short amount of time. When we went to WDW in October 2005 and found that Ridemax was not available we were disappointed.

However I am wondering just how accurate Ridemax will be in May and June since it is so new for WDW...

 

[Selket]

I subscribe to TGM (used him for the past 4 trips) and also Ridemax cause I was curious about RM. I plugged in many different scenarios for our Spring Break trip a couple of weeks ago for arriving at the MK at 7am (we were resort guests and MK had EMH every morning). And I plugged in the usual rides in Fantasyland - plus some of the things in Frontierland and Adventureland. What I could not figure out was that at rope drop at 7am it had me going to the TEACUPS first rather than Dumbo - of all things! Teacups aren't that hard to ride later in the morning and we all know what Dumbo is like.

I like the RM concept - I think once they get the kinks worked out it could be a very useful too.

 

[HydroGuy]

RideMax for WDW was released early April. I have not heard any reports of users yet at WDW. WDW presents more challenges to scheduling than DLR, and so RideMax has its work cut out.

The less you know about the Disney park, the more helpful RideMax is. And the more crowded it is, the more helpful RideMax is. If you go in Sept when crowds are lower, it will not help you as much and may not be worth it.

The author is moving to Orlando this year. I suspect RideMax WDW will improve over time. The effectiveness of the current version is still TBD. I will find out in about 10 days.

FWIW, even if RideMax WDW is extremely effective, I think it is still worthwhile to have a broader understanding of WDW and so I will continue to subscribe to TGM on future trips. I think these two resources complement each other and each provides some unique capabilities.