touringplans or ridemax for disneyLand?

[cjnix29]

Want the best bang for my buck. Been to WDW loads of times, but never to DL, and probably will be our only trip. Thinking of getting this, but not sure which is the better deal.

 

[tasha99]

When I went to DL a couple of years ago, I bought Ridemax and made a spreadsheet of all the rides and how long the average line was by the half hour. This was super time consuming, but oh so valuable. We followed the basic knowledge I learned rather than an exact Ridemax plan. It was interesting how certain rides had their less busy times, even in the evenings.

If your kids are older, don't forget the single rider lines. We ended up doing mostly that. They even had single rider lines on a couple rides that weren't listed as such in Ridemax.

 

[cjnix29]

Thanks! For some reason I feel totally lost at DL! I want to make the most of our experience. One of my pet peeves on vacation is the eternal..."What do you want to do...I don't know, what do you want to do?"

 

[mydisneyobsession]

We just went to Disneyland in February. My timing was such that I was able to get a touring plans membership for free (they had just recently added touring plans for the California parks) and I found the information to be somewhat helpful, but very limited. They didn't have many touring plans to choose from, and the Fastpass information that was available was also not reliable, and would have been a disappointment if I'd relied on it to plan the trip.

Ridemax was really a great planning tool, and I was happy I invested the money to have it. A lot of the rules that work at WDW do not work at Disneyland, and I would have done some things in the wrong order without a planning tool.

The best part of the Touring Plans site was a chart that showed wait times for all the attractions at specific times (10AM, noon, etc) and that was great for showing the "why" behind the RideMax plans. So I used the two in conjunction with great results, but would have been fine with just RideMax.

By the way - we had a really fun unplanned day using the MouseWait app on my husband's iPhone. It has a great "around me" function that shows wait times in your immediate area.

 

[mad hatter fan]

I'd suggest heading down to the DL boards. You'll find many more DLR experts down there. Make sure you read all of the stickies. There is a wealth of info there! Have Fun!

 

[pudinhd]

We've been to Disneyland many, many times, but I am considering one of these for our trip in a couple weeks because of Star Tours, Little Mermaid, and World of Color. Also, because the whole family will be taking my nephew & nieces to Disneyland for the first time in November. Does anyone have any information on how these compare with the new attractions? Thanks!!

 

[*Seanaci*]

If you have a smart phone (ie iPhone or droid)...I would go with Touring Plans. They actually have short memberships (I believe the shortest is a week...might be a month though). Either way...buy it just for the time you'll be there...and you'll have ride times at your fingertips. Without a membership, you don't have the access to all the ait times. Times are submitted by users...and from what I can tell, they're pretty accurate (I have the app on my phone for DL and WDW).

Good luck!

ETA: Mousewait is also a great app for iPhones or droid phones. They have one for DL and one for WDW. What's really great is, I follow Mousewait on Twitter, and at least once a day, find a tweet with a picture of a celebrity visiting the park...submitted by mousewait users.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

We've been to Disneyland many, many times, but I am considering one of these for our trip in a couple weeks because of Star Tours, Little Mermaid, and World of Color. Also, because the whole family will be taking my nephew & nieces to Disneyland for the first time in November. Does anyone have any information on how these compare with the new attractions? Thanks!!

We just got back from DL and used Ridemax and Mousewait. Ridemax is now available in beta for the iPhone and iPad. Even though the new rides had been open only 3 weeks, we thought RM did a good job, as well as with Soundsational viewing tips. -- Suzanne