ridemax

[srp1103]

Has anyone ever used the ridemax website to plan out their day at disneyland and/or DCA? I have used Tour Guide Mike in the past for trips to WDW and it has worked out wonderfully. However, this is our first time to Disney in CA and we happen to be going the busiest time of the year. We can go to the parks any three days from Friday Dec. 28th through Monday Dec. 31st. I would like to use early entry on Saturday for Disneyland. From my past experiences with disney parks I am not happy with what ridemax is telling us to do. They have you jumping all over the park. Just wondering if anyone has an opinion or advise on what order to ride the rides or go from land to land. My children are 7 and 10.

I also need advice on where to eat. I am not real big on character meals however I would like to do at least one. Had planned on Goofy, but read a lot of bad reviews lately. I have also seen certain suggestions for restaurants to eat at for watching fantasmic. What restaurant and where do you need to sit?

Any and all suggestions are welcome!

 

[DangerMouse]

I have used ridemax and recommend it, especially during the busiest week of the year. Walking all the way across DL or DCA is really not all that far in comparison to WDW. DLR is much, much smaller. Your goal each morning should be collecting FP's while riding the rides that are slow loaders and don't offer FP's (Peter Pan, Dumbo). The ridemax plan is going to get you on the most rides with the least amount of waiting.

For character meals, I recommend Storyteller's in the GCH. I have had nothing but great experiences there. The characters are mostly furry animals (Chip, Dale, Brer Bear, Timon, Turk, Koda, Kenai, Meeko), and the food is excellent. You may have a difficult time getting PS ressies at this late date though.

As far as seating for F!, the only place I know where you could actually see the show while eating would be River Belle Terrace, and since I've never tried to eat there while viewing it, I'm not sure how good the view is.

I'm sure others will be along adding their advice for you.

Take a pocketfull (or two) of patience with you and have a magical Christmas trip!

 

[bradk]

ridemax's sole objective is to minimize waiting time. this means, in effect, criss crossing. this isn't ridemax's fault, this is disney's specific plotting 'e-ticket' attractions to be separate from eachother so that traffic flow is optimized. if all the biggies were in tomorrowland, guess where the masses would be going? (well, nemo aside).

it has an option to switch from normal walking speeds to slow. according to ridemax, slow is the option for large groups or to minimize walking. so you may want to try that option if you haven't already.

if you still aren't happy, contact feedback@ridemax.com for some additional input (there actually have been some known anomalies with it)

also, with EE, read all the tips ridemax provides. ridemax doesn't cover EE itself but offers EE-specific advice (where to tour during and where NOT to tour after, especially if you don't have EE access that day).

i've only done goofy's and minnie's for character meals (will be adding a couple more in april) but i would definitely do minnie's again in a heartbeat. remember with character meals (along with other things disney), the latest times are the best as nobody is stressed to making rounds all over the place since nobody new is coming in to eat.

no idea on F!, i'm not sure I'd even recommend such a thing (eating while watching F!) unless you're doing the reserved seating by HM. F! at Disneyland is quite a bit different than the one at MGM and in most ways, much, much better.

 

[goldwest]

We used ridemax when we went for the 50th at Christmas time. I recommend it highly. This ws our third trip in 10 years. My boys were 8 and 12. As a control we did one day of our 5 without ridemax and my boys begged me to never do that again. (Even though they laugh at me for my excessive planning!)

 

[stef_blu07]

My family used Ridemax this past summer and it worked really well. The longest we had to wait in line was 20 minutes. The thing with Ridemax is that you don't necessarily have to go exactly by the schedule they give you. After looking at it a couple of times and puting a few different options in there, you can get a pretty good idea of where to be and where not to be at certain times in the day.

For F!, we neded up eating dessert and watching it at a restaurant right across from the water. It was a really good view. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of it, but if you get to the site about 30 minutes before the show starts, you can find a spot with a good view. I don't know if you have bought Ridemax yet, but it gives you pointers on where to sit for F! and the best spot for the fireworks and different things like that. Really good pointers!

 

[HydroGuy]

ridemax's sole objective is to minimize waiting time. this means, in effect, criss crossing. this isn't ridemax's fault, this is disney's specific plotting 'e-ticket' attractions to be separate from eachother so that traffic flow is optimized. if all the biggies were in tomorrowland, guess where the masses would be going? (well, nemo aside).

Actually Brad I do not think this is correct. I believe RideMax minimizes the sum of line waiting time and walking time. So if it has you moving all over the park that is because it is optimal to do so. However in my experience RM tends to not have you walking a lot. So I am not sure what the OP is referring to specifically.

 

[bradk]

maybe, i'm just going by what ridemax says:

'Slow speed is recommended for large groups, or groups who are willing to spend more time in line in order to walk less.'

as opposed to

'Normal speed is appropriate for most small groups and for those who are willing to walk a bit in order to save time standing in line.'

 

[HydroGuy]

maybe, i'm just going by what ridemax says:

'Slow speed is recommended for large groups, or groups who are willing to spend more time in line in order to walk less.'

as opposed to

'Normal speed is appropriate for most small groups and for those who are willing to walk a bit in order to save time standing in line.'

Yes, the do have two options for touring speed, and it will affect itineraries.

On this page www.ridemax.com/howridemaxworks.php they say

How Does the Software Work?

At its core, RideMax is an optimization program whose goal is to minimize the amount of waiting and walking someone does at Disney's theme parks.

 

[bradk]

yes, but the point is it's a give and take. to minimize waiting, you must do more walking. to do less walking, you must do more waiting.

not to suggest it's an extreme in either direction, but for the sake of the OP's question, the slow mode should mitigate criss-crossing in the parks in favor of 'longer' wait times.

 

[srp1103]

Thank You to all for the suggestions! I just had to play with it for a while to get a schedule I felt comfortable with. It also helps to know that Disneyland is not quite as large as the Magic Kingdom.

This is truly a wonderful site for trip planning! We leave for or vacation on Christmas day and I have completed our itinerary finally!

Arrive LAX Christmas Day - meeting up with family for dinner.
Driving to San Diego Christmas evening to stay in La Jolla
Wed. -San Diego Zoo
Thur. -Sea World - Driving to Anaheim n the evening.
Friday -DCA
Saturday - Disneyland
Sunday - Disneyland
Monday - Tour of Rose parade floats/ watching bands practice
Tuesday -back home to Alabama!

 

[HydroGuy]

yes, but the point is it's a give and take. to minimize waiting, you must do more walking. to do less walking, you must do more waiting.

It has always been my understanding that RM minimizes the sum of the waiting and walking time. As a professional in the field of numerical optimization, it is an important distinction to me. It is also why the "FP Runner" option in RM can be effective, in that it removes the walking time for the runner from the optimization criteria unlike other walking time which it does include.

Whether you do more or less walking depends on how long the wait times happen to be.

This is a screen cap you will recognize from RM when you run an itinerary:

not to suggest it's an extreme in either direction, but for the sake of the OP's question, the slow mode should mitigate criss-crossing in the parks in favor of 'longer' wait times.

I would tend to agree. Longer walking times would more heavily weight walking in the waiting+walking minimization and have the effect of reducing walking. However, it would depend on how full the itinerary is. With a more full itinerary, it could force rides into busier times of the day and make things worse (both waiting and walking). Users would need to experiment.

 

[bradk]

srp, you ought to play with ridemax a bit more and try creating plans with being at DCA on the weekend and DL on Friday. DL should be quite a bit busier on the weekend.

i'd probably try DL on Friday and Sunday and DCA on Saturday

 

[Anater]

We just returned from a three day trip to DL. I ordered RideMax and printed the itinerary, although it was fairly slow during our visit. We did follow RideMax suggested itinerary for the most part, and it seemed that we were about 20-30 minutes ahead of crowds at times. The longest we waited was fifteen minutes for any ride (Nemo was 25 minute wait for EE), and many were walk on. Even though it wasn't as useful as during "busy" season, I felt it was money well spent. they also offer little tips re parade viewing and fireworks that were very helpful. We had the Plaza Inn Minnie breakfast and it was fantastic! Excellent food and wonderful character interaction. We had also PS for the Chip and Dale GC breakfast, but we had so many character opps during our trip that we ended up canceling. Have a wonderful trip, the Holiday decor is just stunning!

 

[luvsTink]

I have just purchased ridemax for our upcoming trip. We will be there on New Years Eve day It appears that the program takes the busy-ness of that day into consideration...is that correct, does it recognize the importance of specific dates?

Anne

 

[HydroGuy]

I have just purchased ridemax for our upcoming trip. We will be there on New Years Eve day It appears that the program takes the busy-ness of that day into consideration...is that correct, does it recognize the importance of specific dates?

Anne

Yes, sort of. It does account for crowd differences on different days, but on very busy days like NYE I do not think it treats that differently than other days which are very busy.

 

[bradk]

you can PM RideMaxMark or email feedback@ridemax.com for the real specifics on how it determines crowd levels (if he'll share that) but I know it's heavily based on statistical data and then just weighted accordingly. the only exceptions are there's never any data recorded for Sundays and when an attraction is brand new (like Nemo and Monsters, Inc. before that), there's no real statistical data so it's compensated for.

the real key aspect is (and I believe HydroGuy's experiences may not completely agree with it) that it's supposed to overestimate wait times in order to error on the side of caution. so the underlying concept is it's meant to guarantee you that you can visit every combination of attraction you feed it, but it's not necessarily a rigid schedule of such.

 

[HydroGuy]

you can PM RideMaxMark or email feedback@ridemax.com for the real specifics on how it determines crowd levels (if he'll share that) but I know it's heavily based on statistical data and then just weighted accordingly. the only exceptions are there's never any data recorded for Sundays and when an attraction is brand new (like Nemo and Monsters, Inc. before that), there's no real statistical data so it's compensated for.

the real key aspect is (and I believe HydroGuy's experiences may not completely agree with it) that it's supposed to overestimate wait times in order to error on the side of caution. so the underlying concept is it's meant to guarantee you that you can visit every combination of attraction you feed it, but it's not necessarily a rigid schedule of such.

I agree with all of this. What (I think) happens is that when you get to NYE-type days then the margin you describe tends to disappear. When you get to busy but not super busy days, then the overestimates start to show more.

My only specific experience with this at DLR was Thanksgiving week where we followed an itinerary for about half a day. We had to hustle to stay on track because it was so busy and RM did not have much fat in the schedule that day.