Ridemax

[punkinsmomma]

Is Ridemax the best way to go for DLR park touring plans? I know it is not really recommended for WDW, but I thought I read that it is good for DLR. We only have 2 1/2 days, so I want to make the most of our time.

TIA!

 

[taniapacheco]

I just used it for disneyland and it was great. The first day didn't work out so well because of the people I was with not because of the plan. I don't know if I would trust it for carsland because it is so new but I didn't even bother going there.

 

[kayleigh83]

I used it for our trip and it was awesome. We got on tons of rides even when the park was fairly crowded.

 

[punkinsmomma]

Thanks for the help...I will definitely use Ridemax!

 

[BriannaRuth]

I used it on my trip a couple of years ago and it worked GREAT. I'm using it again for my trip later this month.

 

[punkinsmomma]

I have a couple of questions after purchasing Ridemax.

1. Why can I not put in specific times for our break(s)? It has oddly scheduled breaks in my plans, but we will take 1 afternoon break with my 2 boys.

2. How can I make an accurate half day plan? We will arrive after lunch on Wednesday and will go to the parks then. However, when I put in a start time of say 3pm and an end time of park closing, it tells me to get 1 FP then a "scheduled break" for approx 3 1/2 hours. I understand that this is the most crowded part of the day, but we will be in the park since we will have just driven in from San Diego and do not want to take an afternoon break. How do I get rid of this break?

3. For DCA...it suggests getting a RSR FP, then NOT riding the other Carsland attractions until late morning. It seems like we should get these rides out of the way first thing instead of waiting until the lines are extremely long?!?!

Maybe I just don't understand DLR touring strategies since I have never been!

BTW- we will be staying offsite with 3 day hoppers, so we will have 1 MM entry to DL, correct? I am planning to do the MM on Thursday if that makes a difference.

Any advice?

 

[Eeee-va]

I haven't used Ridemax in a few years, but if I understand it correctly, Ridemax basically just takes your requested time periods and rides and tries a bunch of different combinations. So it probably won't give you the very best possible combination. If you try it enough times, you should get a few very good ones, though.

If you're getting too many random small breaks in the day, you can try to add more rides to fill up those spaces.

Ridemax says you can schedule breaks so I'm not sure why that's not working.

For the afternoon/evening plan, the reason you have that large break is probably because it's the busiest time of the day for the rides. So you may want to try to add in more rides to hopefully force it to let you do something around 3. If that doesn't work, I'd keep in mind what FP you get at 3, then just run a separate plan for the 3.5 hours it's insisting on doing a break.

Or, you can just treat it as a break and go over to Tom Sawyer's Island, see a parade, Aladdin, 3-D shows, etc.

Ridemax will sometimes make suggestions that seem baffling. I remember ages ago, it told us to ride Small World FIRST! The reasoning being that you can get FPs for the thrill rides and ride them later, so spend the uncrowded time riding non-FP rides. Not a bad idea by any means, but it blew my mind. Still does.

Cars Land is so new, I'm not certain Ridemax understands the best strategies just yet. That said, TSMM and Mickey's Fun Wheel are a lot less busy early in the morning, so there could be some logic to skipping the Cars Land madness. I don't know about going back later, though.

I know people are reporting that Mater's has decent lines in the afternoon (30 minutes or less?) Luigi's may be best to do in the morning. For Cars Land itself, I think I would spend some time reading plans on the DISboards before I'd take Ridemax as gospel. For Disneyland proper, Ridemax is reportedly great.

If you go to Cars Land on a day when Disney hotel guests get in early, Luigi's will probably have a line before you even set foot in the park. So maybe that's what Ridemax is thinking there.

 

[BriannaRuth]

I have a couple of questions after purchasing Ridemax.

1. Why can I not put in specific times for our break(s)? It has oddly scheduled breaks in my plans, but we will take 1 afternoon break with my 2 boys.


Any advice?

You have to click on "Plan Options" to put in specific times for breaks. I just tried it and it's definitely still there!

 

[NiceOneSimba]

Yep--you have to go to Plan Options to schedule your breaks, your touring speed (pick normal unless you have someone on crutches, it leaves plenty of time), and your Fastpass options. Are you using the web-based interface? If so there are tabs up at the top for those options.

I didn't pay too much attention to it this time, but there may be some "flexing" of your breaks, by 10 or 15 minutes. So they may start 10 or 15 minutes earlier or later. That's so it has more flexibility with scheduling rides at the best possible time.

If you are getting lots of "free time" breaks throughout the day, you need to put in more rides. Or, like other folks said, use those breaks for something like Tom Sawyer Island or to ride something again that you didn't plan for.

I will be the first to admit that sometimes some of the suggestions seem counter-intuitive. But that's kind of the point, I think. If you do things in a different order than everyone else, you miss the long lines.

We didn't follow our DCA plan very well--but that was our fault, not the plan's. But it was rock solid in the morning, when we were following it to the letter. We walked on ride after ride in Paradise Pier. We rode the Golden Zephyr twice without getting off, with zero initial wait. We then walked on the Silly Symphony Swings and were shocked to see that the Zephyr was not only full, but had a line down the stairs! The line had grown that much in less than 10 minutes. The order and times really can make a huge difference!

My guess is that it is going to be accurate for Cars Land. It worked great for us, even though we didn't follow it to the letter. The reality is that you're probably going to wait for 60 minutes for Luigi's Flying Tires and 20-30 minutes for Mater's Junkyard Jamboree no matter what time of day you ride them, plus about a 45 minute wait with your RSR FPs. The beauty of the Ridemax plan is that it lets you maximize your other rides so you're not waiting in crazy lines for those, too.

Let the plan work! It did for us. Honestly, the only line we waited more than 20 minutes for all day was the RSR Fastpass line and the line to actually ride RSR at night. We rode everything my daughter was tall enough for except TSMM, Monsters Inc, those dang Tuck and Roll bumper cars and It's Tough to Be a Bug. And, in all honesty, we would have had time to ride all of those if we had wanted--and we took a 3 hour afternoon break, a break for lunch and a dinner break. The plan will work. I swear.

Oh, and Ridemax won't let you schedule your magic morning in your plan. I just started at the regular opening time and left the rides I knew we were going to ride off our plan for the rest of the day, unless I knew we would want to ride again. Search the threads--I know there's one that has the order of the rides that's most efficient for MM.

Hope this helps!