Fastpass with Youngsters [Disneyland]

[OneDisneyCrazyGirl]

Hi,
We are planning a trip to DLR Dec. 21-27. I purchased the Ridemax to help us plan because we went Dec 21-24 of 05 and we were completely lost with the crowds and wait times. To the point now. Our kids are 2 and 6. My Dh and I would like to leave the kids with the grandparents for one afternoon/evening to do the big rides. When should we obtain our fastpasses if we are not going to be able to ride the rides until afternoon or evening after dinner? When I use ridemax it wants to spread the rides throughout the day. That won't work for us. The rides we wish to ride without the kids are: SM, Indiana Jones (2x), BTMRR (2X), TOT (2X), and possibly Star Tours (haven't done this one yet).

Thanks so much for all of your help!

[Bytebear]

You can get all your fast passes in the morning and use them in the evening, no problem. If the grandparents or the 6 year old is not going to ride, you can still use their tickets to get additional fastpasses. Anyone can use anyone else's fastpass, so double up. The two year old gets in free, so has no ticket to get a fastpass with. Hope this helps.

You can also use the extra entry tickets to get additional passes that have a closed window of time. Example: Get two Space Mountain fastpasses using your and your spouses tickets, and then get two more fastpasses at Autopia with the grandparents tickets. Then when whichever time window opens up, repeat on another set of attractions. Or... get four fastpasses for Indy and the two of you ride it twice in a row.

[samsma]

Get your fastpasses as early in the day as possible. The wait times are shorter to be able to collect another fastpass. When we were there , we got our SM fastpasses at 9:05 and the return time started at 9:40. You don't need to come back until you are ready, but at 9:40, you will be able to collect another fastpass!

[JustMe29]

With ridmax you can specify the time that you want to ride the first one to be whatever time you like. Eg. 1pm or 6pm.

[Donald Duck Fan68]

Hi,
The rides we wish to ride without the kids are: SM, Indiana Jones (2x), BTMRR (2X), TOT (2X), and possibly Star Tours (haven't done this one yet).

Thanks so much for all of your help!

You will not be able to collect FP for Star Tours, as that one is off the FP system, so you will have to wait in the line, whatever the wait time may be. However, for everything else on the FP system, you can collect fast passes as soon as you enter the park and not worry about the end time, only the beginning time. Also, I would gather all the tickets from everyone in your group to collect your fast pass tickets with. For example, if there's 4 people that have passes, you can use those 4 tickets to collect the 4 fast passes on a ride allowing you and DH to ride 2X later that night.

I would collect FP in this order:

1. Space Mountain
2. Indy
3. Splash (although you didn't list this ride)
4. Haunted Mansion Holiday
5. BTMRR

Also, you can collect a Roger Rabbit FP at any time as it is not on the same network as the other rides. You can also have a FP runner hop over to DCA at any time and collect the ToT Fast Passes (s/he will need to take others' ticket media to insert into the FP machines) since the DCA rides are also on a different FP network.

Darkbeer wrote up a great Fastpass thread a few years back; and there was a Fastpass Strategy thread just a couple of weeks ago that references that same thread. If you read those threads, you'll have all the information you'll need and then some.

[OneDisneyCrazyGirl]

Thank you so much! I didn't list Splash Mountain and Haunted Mansion because we will kid swap to go on these rides. I just can't bring myself to put my 6 year old on TOT,Space Mountain, or BTMRR. I have never been on Star Tours so we might take him on that.
Thanks again.

[Bytebear]

I would get FP for Soarin' and not ToT (given the choice). The line is usually longer, and the ToT queue is more interesting.

[lbrackjo]

My 2 cents: My 6 yo loves TOT, Space Mtn., Splash and BTMRR. My 4 yo, who is pretty reluctant, did BTMRR this last trip and loved it.

[VickiC]

My youngest went on Space Mountain, Big Thunder and Splash Mountain wihtin weeks of turning 5 and loved them all. She's now been on Space Mounaint about 20 times and cannot get enough of "rockin" She is neutral on Star Tours, didn't hate it but doesn't want to ride again.

[acpalmer]

Our three year old was tall enough for Splash, Space, BTMRR, Star Tours, Soarin' and TOT when we went in November and he liked all of them except for TOT, which was scary because "my bum went in the air"!