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Goofy'sDad
04-29-2002, 07:49 PM
[This is a review of RideMax, an attraction-planning software program for Disneyland Resort available from Funplans.com. The author is in no way affiliated with Funplans.com or Ridemax.]

There are three bits of advice you’ll consistently see on trip planning guides and books: 1) arrive early, 2) use the Fastpass® system, and 3) have a plan. RideMax for Disneyland is a nifty little software program available from FunPlans.Com that really helps the planning and Fastpass® parts of this. Now, don’t get turned off by the name “ridemax” or by the notion that this will put you in some frenetic and rigid marathon. The planning just provides you with a strategy to help you experience the attractions YOU want to experience with a minimum of line time and wait time. In doing so, you’ll find yourself with MORE free time to shop or relax, to see things not on your plan or have time to visit attractions over again.

I hate standing in long lines when there is so much I could be enjoying. The several times I’ve gone to Disneyland with my family I planned our days with the help of Bob Sehlinger’s Unofficial Guide to Disneyland. It’s a very informative book. But although Sehlinger updates this best-seller every year, things change quickly and often without notice at Disneyland. Park opening times, Fastpass® rules, ride closures, etc. Unfortunately you can’t even entirely trust the official Disney site on some of these things.

The RideMax for Disneyland software stays ahead and on top of most of these changes and insider tips. Each time you start the software it goes on-line and downloads the latest information about ride closures, line wait times and other ride info. Then when you start the program you select a park (Disneyland or Disney’s California Adventure), the date, and which rides you want to do that day. You can choose some break times, when you’ll arrive at the park (it defaults to the official park opening time), and when you’ll get on your last ride. RideMax for Disneyland then comes up with a plan for your day. You can run and rerun plans as many times as you wish, adding and subtracting attractions and adjusting break times and arrival times.

One of the best aspects of the program is how it makes use of the Fastpass® system. The skillful use of the Fastpass® can make a big difference in your Disneyland / Disney California Adventure experience. RideMax for Disneyland inserts when to pick up Fastpasses, taking into account expected Fastpass® return times, which also determine when you’re eligible for another Fastpass®.

RideMax for Disneyland also takes advantage of many of the latest special rider programs at Disneyland Resort, many of which are not well publicized. For example, some popular attractions such as Indiana Jones offer an expedited entry for single riders. At these attractions, if you are willing and able to split off from your group and go by yourself, you just tell a Disney Cast Member at the entry to the ride and they’ll give you instructions where to go. You’ll avoid the regular line and save time. That’s an option I haven’t seen mentioned in Sehlinger, the popular Birnbaum guides, the official Disney web site or even the park map and info. RideMax for Disneyland offers you the choice of selecting “single rider” for the attractions where it is available, and takes this all into account as it produces your plan.

Walt Disney said Disneyland would never be completed because it can always be improved. And so it is with RideMax for Disneyland. Here are some improvements I’d like to see in the program:

o Openings in advance of the “official opening.” When we arrived at DCA on Friday, a half hour before the official opening time, the Condor Flats area of the park had already been open for a half hour. Folks who were there early could ride Soarin’ Over California while the unknowing ate breakfast. At 9:30 when we arrived (and later at 10am, the official opening), the line for Soarin’ was already 40 minutes long. So rather than get in a nearly ride on a great attraction, we grabbed a Fastpass® – as RideMax for Disneyland suggested. This didn’t throw off the plan at all, but it would have improved it had we known. This early opening isn’t publicized anywhere that I know of, but it seems routine. It’d be great if RideMax for Disneyland knew about this and took it into account.

o Shows. The current version of RideMax for Disneyland doesn’t offer any of the shows with announced times as choices. In Disneyland these currently include: Mickey’s Detective School in Fantasyland, A Buzz Lightyear Adventure in Tomorrowland, The Fab Four at Club Buzz in Fantasyland, Billy and the Hillbillies at the Golden Horseshoe. In Disney’s California Adventure the scheduled shows include: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Goofy’s Beach Party Bash, Chance to Shine and many more. Some of these shows are not to be missed. Plus, there’s parades and fireworks including the Disney Electric Parade in DCA and the wonderful “Believe” at Disneyland. I was determined to see many of these shows, but RideMax didn’t have them as options in the plan.

Many of these show schedules (for example the excellent “Chance to Shine”) are not even posted on the official Disney web site, so it’s tough to know in advance how one might work them into a plan. RideMax for Disneyland could be a great help by getting this info and including it in its on-line update process.

Most shows are easy to get into with a little advance arrival. In fact, if you want to avoid lines, they are exactly the thing to do during the busiest park times, late morning and afternoons. Putting them into RideMax for Disneyland as options isn’t likely to reduce the wait or walk time on anything – but it would save the user from having to add them in manually, and from discovering too late that … oops … there’s not enough time here or there or anywhere to see the shows I wanted to see and do the rides I wanted to do.

Using the current version of RideMax, one could try to provide time for shows by scheduling a break time or expecting to go during free time that the program may come up with during the afternoon. But unfortunately, the program doesn’t handle this very well. When you put in for a break period, RideMax for Disneyland schedules the break within 20 minutes of your request. For example, if you want to be at the Golden Horseshoe 30 minutes before the 1:15 pm Billy Hill and the Hillbillies show, it’s near impossible to get the program to come up with a break that starts close to 12:45 pm. The staff at FunPlans.com (the makers of RideMax for Disneyland) say they hope to add in shows with the next version of the software.

o Sundays. The RideMax for Disneyland staff is unable to conduct surveys on Sundays for personal reasons. Consequently, RideMax for Disneyland does not provide plans for Sundays. As they suggest, one can simply run a Saturday plan and adjust the opening times accordingly, but this is second best to having actual Sunday data which may be different – in part because the park opens later and so people’s arrival patterns may be different.

o Go Home Time. For whatever reason, the program doesn’t allow a user to select an end of the day stop time. You can chose a time for “I will get on my last ride at …”, but I found that the program would sometimes schedule a lengthy attraction like Animation or the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail at that time, eating into my dinner hour, bed time, or time I was trying to block out to get set for the fireworks show or electric parade.

o “Let’s Do the Water thing Later When It’s Hot.” In a case or two there were some rides I just wanted to do at a different time in the day than RideMax for Disneyland came up with. For example, I knew the weather forecast was cloudy with possible clearing mid-day, so I wanted to do Grizzly Rapids (with Fastpass®) in the early afternoon. In practice, we made some changes like that, but having the basic plan was still very helpful.

o Different Strokes …. Of course, in most families not everyone wants to go on everything. In our case, my 7 year old was a no go on Indy, Star Tours and Screamin’. My wife wanted to go on Indy, but didn’t have the stomach for Star tours or Screamin’. My 10 year old and I wanted to do everything – well … except for the little kiddie rides including Gadget, Alice, Dumbo, and the kiddie carnival rides in DCA. So my plan was to send off my wife and 7 year old to the Jellyfish and Triton Carousel while my 10 year old and I did Screamin’, and (in DL on the next day) have wife and 7 year old do Dumbo and Alice while 10 year old and I did Star Tours. RideMax for Disneyland doesn’t allow for group splitting (that’s getting very complicated I’m sure) so you have to sort of work it out yourself running it with different combinations. I just scheduled the more popular rides (the ones the 10 year old would do) and then planned to send off the others at those times.

o DLRR and Monorail. In addition to shows and parades, there are two “attractions” that are absent from the RideMax for Disneyland list: the Disneyland Railroad and the Monorail. Many folks simply consider these as transportation around the park (especially the monorail). But they are both worth a trip just as an attraction if one has time. Moreover, the lines for these do vary and get long at times during the day, so some RideMax for Disneyland scheduling would be help avoid delays. Of course there are many iterations as to how one can ride these attractions because they each have multiple stops. We rode the DLRR one afternoon when we were done with things in Frontierland and had some time to go over to DCA for a few re-rides. We caught the DLRR at New Orleans Square (missing the first train due to the length of the line) and got off at Main Street Station, ¾ of the way around and including the Grand Canyon diorama and dinosaurs.

o Multiple Days. RideMax for Disneyland schedules one day at a time, but to really do all the rides at Disneyland (and the good shows) one really needs two days. Oh, it’s possible to do it in one day – all the rides at least – and RideMax for Disneyland will show you how, but it’s not easy, so most folks who want to really see & do everything will schedule two days for their Disneyland vacation. So for this sort of Disney guest, it would be ideal to be able to choose the two (or more) days (rather than just one) and the rides and let RideMax for Disneyland go to work. Based on prior experience and a reading of Sehlinger’s latest plans, I figured it would be best to generally do the eastside of the park, Fantasyland, Toontown and Tomorrowland on day one and Adventureland, Frontierland, Critter Country and New Orleans Square on the other. Disney California Adventure can pretty much be done in one day – although it’s a full day if you do the shows (– and one should NOT miss BLAST! at the Hyperion).

Some folks ask if they ought to get RideMax for Disneyland instead of a guidebook like Sehlinger’s Unofficial Guide. RideMax for Disneyland certainly improves on Sehlinger’s plans, but it’s a scheduling program, not a substitute for a guidebook. RideMax for Disneyland gives you choices of which rides you want to do, but it doesn’t provide any descriptions, ratings or advice on individual attractions. But nowadays one doesn’t need to buy a guidebook to find good information in this vein. There are several good sites on the internet with helpful guides to park attractions. I’d like to see RideMax for Disneyland partner with one of these sites or come up with it’s own on line guidebook with descriptions, ratings and advice. Since the program accesses on-line data already (for “help” and on start-up for the latest data, etc.), putting in hotlinks to the program would seem to be a simple improvement with great benefits to the user.

A big unexpected plus with my purchase of RideMax for Disneyland was the customer support. I received very quick response to my questions and some “heads up” tips about breaking news and ideas to make our day go well.

A ride plan from Sehlinger’s book or RideMax for Disneyland is not a substitute for your brain. Inevitable things will vary a bit when you’re there. Wait times may be shorter, giving you extra time to maybe throw in another or wander. Rides might breakdown unexpectedly and not be available when you schedule them. A rush on Fastpasses might make your return time a little later than RideMax for Disneyland anticipates. Your child might need a potty break NOW … not later when RideMax for Disneyland scheduled that “freetime.” You have to be able to roll with it. If you do a little homework on what’s available at the park, and how the Fastpass® system works, you can take the great resource of a RideMax for Disneyland plan and make it work with your good common sense. Good planning can bend to the unexpected – and a RideMax for Disneyland plan shouldn’t be viewed as ironclad.

I’ve already recommended RideMax for Disneyland to other folks. Unless you have an annual pass and can go to the park anytime and multiple times – so that ride lines are not a big deal to you - , I think you’ll find RideMax for Disneyland a great asset to a great vacation at Disneyland Resort. :)

MonorailMan
04-30-2002, 02:27 AM
I'm sure Mark is very happy. :)

Iceman
04-30-2002, 07:51 AM
Umm... not too many people I know in the general public bother to put that little copyright sign after the term "fastpass", nor do they use such flowery language in a "review" written for other regular folks. This smells like a paid advertisement to me, and as such I recommend the moderators take it off of here.

RideMax Mark
04-30-2002, 08:04 AM
Thanks for the "extensive" RideMax review -- I'm glad you liked the software, and I think you have some good suggestions for future enhancements!

(To Iceman -- Goofy'sDad may want to respond, but I can assure you that this was NOT paid for! He represents himself correctly when he says he isn't affiliated with RideMax, other than as a customer!)

Goofy'sDad
04-30-2002, 11:08 AM
Yep. As I noted at the beginning of the post, I'm not connected with 'em. I did write the article with the intention of submitting it as a review - - a la other articles on this site. So that's why it may sound a bit formal or flowery (that's just my style I guess).

Honestly, here's my only personal interest: overall I like the concept and the software. If folks don't know about it and don't use it ... it might not be around the next time I go to DL.

Iceman
04-30-2002, 12:04 PM
My bad, then, but I suggest this be moved to one of the other sections of the site and not left in the MousePad.