Headed to DL for my 2nd time and CA for my first time on Oct 23 and 24. DL is a 5 for both days and CA is a 3. I’m not doing everything - DL is BTM, Tiki, HM, IJ, JC, MH, SR, Pirates, both mountains, and CA is Guardians, IC, Monsters, RS, and GR - do I need MaxPass or even need to worry about FastPasses? I know Galaxy’s Edge has thrown everything off, but a 5 on two weekdays seems like I may not need MaxPass…but I’ve never used it and I am a WDW person, not a DL. Thanks in advance for the advice.
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Yes, you will need fastpass, or the preferable to most including me, Maxpass. You have mostly headliners and their lines will be plenty long with a CL 5. Fastpass is free, but you have to visit the ride fastpass machine to get it. Maxpass is $15 per person per day, and is wonderful. No more running all over for fastpasses, and the amount of time you have to wait to get another is less with Maxpass than regular fastpass. Fastpass/maxpass is always necessary in my opinion, despite the crowd levels. Enjoy your first trip!
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I totally agree with Wahoohokie. MaxPass is a game changer. Even if you aren’t trying to squeeze in all the rides, it makes it so you can be anywhere in the park and grab your next fastpass while standing in line for a churro, or a ride, or watching a parade. It’ll save you millions of steps and soooo much time standing in line. If it meant you stood in line for BTMR for 5 min instead of 45…that would be worth it, right? And if you did that over and over…
It’ll save so much stress for you. And I would recommend running a personalized TP, then when you are in the park continue to optimize it as you go. Don’t forget to select the option for using MaxPass in the TP. The overloads know what they are doing. 
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Thanks - that’s what I figured, but good to hear. I have used TPs for years at WDW and it has been great. My first time at DL about 1.5 years ago it was horrible…our TP was not accurate in the least little bit - it was shocking considering how great it is at WDW (used for Spring Break and Thanksgiving trips and it is perfect). But I have made some and it is coming up very very small amounts of waits so far for both days - so hopefully the DL TP has improved. Thanks again
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As someone who is often on a budget and buying MaxPass for a family, I would probably not get it if the crowd level is truly a 5. We would, however, definitely use fast pass. For me the cost of MaxPass is always a factor because even though $15/day seems like so little, it adds up fast with multiple people over multiple days. So if cost is a factor, I think you’ll be fine without it. As a matter of fact my daughter and I did two days at the end of April (crowd level 8 both days) and did not use MaxPass and did literally every ride in both parks (that was operating). We used fast pass and a lot of single rider.
I love still having a TP to track/check things off, but with low user input + DLR being at the whim of a more local/casual less predictable ebb & flow of crowds + the relative newness of MaxPass data to factor in, a TP using MaxPass if often WAY offbase from what you can actually accomplish.
However, it does seem to be that you can in fact accomplish more than what the TP estimates using MaxPass, it’s just not very good at helping you determine when & what FPs to grab using MaxPass to really maximize your use of it. A lot of what that comes from knowing the system & knowing your priorities & working them in accordingly (i.e. knowing that the FP for Racers in CA is almost always the first one to be distributed out for the day so that should be one of the first 1-3 FPs you grab depending on when you’d like to ride it).
As frequent visitors we don’t purchase MaxPass either because like @Julianne_fki the cost for a family is ludicrous (at least to me it is lol) so we still make do with paper FPs & DH & I take turns doing FP runs & DS8 is old enough/knows the parks better than our neighborhood now that he will occasionally make the run for us as well.
But for infrequent visitors and especially for shorter trips (less than 3 days) I do usually recommend the additional cost of MaxPass bc you’ll likely end up with more FPs than you can use in a day, especially with CLs at a mid-lower level.
And regardless of if you purchase MaxPass, I would definitely use free FPs for any of the headliners as, especially midday, it will cut out a lot of your wait times so instead of 30-60 min. waits you’ll be in 5-20 min. waits most of the day.
I think MaxPass is worth every penny, even on a low-crowd day.
BUT, if you are cost conscious, you can absolutely do without it. In fact, looking at your list, you could easily ride each of those rides once in two days between two parks, even without the free FastPasses. But you’d spend all day waiting in line. The longest line would probably be RSR at 60+ min. At a 5, you could get on most other headliners in 30 minutes each if you timed it right with a mix of RD, time of day (e.g., don’t go to Splash or GRR when it’s super hot), and park closing.
OR, you could get MaxPass and not wait longer than 15 minutes for any ride, ride each favorite multiple times, have leisurely meals, and have plenty of spare time to go shopping and stake out a spot for evening shows and parades. Personally, I’d do MaxPass, but the choice is yours, of course!
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I totally agree with this. MaxPass is like driving a car - not very hard for a human with some lessons and practice, but very tough to teach a machine. The user interface is very easy to use. The art comes when you have to make on-the-fly decisions about which attraction to pick up based on how fast availability is being used up, where you plan to be at a particular time, etc. You have to be very flexible to get the most out of MaxPass. And conditions change constantly. That’s hard to program into TP, but they will probably get there someday.
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As somebody who’s already shocked at how low all the estimated wait times are in my TPs, this is fantastic. We’re taking this trip on a whim – we’re traveling to LA for another reason at the start of the week and I figured, why not go to Disneyland, too – and I haven’t done any planning other than spending 15 minutes making a couple of rough-and-tumble TPs. If we can even squeeze a little extra out of that with MaxPass, I’ll be thrilled.
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Another vote for MaxPass. It cost a small fortune for my family of 8, but it was so worth it. We did it three of the four days. The fourth day was not a mess, though; we did still actively use FastPasses - I just did the old fashioned “running.” If nothing else, please do still utilize that feature.
MaxPass also includes Photo Pass (or it did) so there’s a little bonus. That’s fun for rides like RSR and GOTG.
Enjoy your trip. It was the best.
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I am here at DLR for the weekend and so excited to give MaxPass the test!
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so between 4:30pm and 8:30pm with MaxPass I was able to ride:
Snow White
Toad’s Wild Ride
Pinochio
Dumbo
Big Thunder (MaxPass-MP)
Indiana Jones MP
Pirates of Caribbean
Haunted Mansion MP
Tea Cups
Autopia
HyperSpace Mountain MP
Small World MP
Plus I wandered in Fantasyland and SWGE
I probably could have done more but I stopped at 8:30 to get a place to watch Main Street Electrical Parade. And now to go get some sleep for 7am opening tomorrow!
I’m sold. And slightly bitter that WDW does not have maxPass!
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Maxpass is amazing, I so miss it when I plan WDW. I love just showing up whenever, with no plan at DL and still being able to ride all/most of the headliners. Have a wonderful day tomorrow!
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X[quote=“qwerty6, post:10, topic:62343”]
the old fashioned “running.” If nothing else, please do still utilize that feature.
[/quote]
^^So much this^^
We are stingy with the splurge for adding the cost of MaxPass for an annual pass for a family especially in light of the fact that we do get to come more often so there’s less pressure to get all the headliners every time. But we still totally make use of the free system & a plan which results in us generally feeling that any line over 25 min is a chore & most anything over 40 min is a hard pass.
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You don’t mention how many are going. The fact that your user name is Jakefamily6 makes me think you’ll have a few folks. If not, IJ, both mountains, IC, RS and GR have Single Rider lines. They’re a game changer for my friends and I, however, I will admit it’s just not as fun going by yourself. Sometimes, two of you will be put in the same car.
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i had a great day with MaxPass but i can see it being of diminishing value as the party size grows. if you have multiples in your party, you can take turns to get the paper passes
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I think maxpass is even more valuable if you’ve been to WDW, you already know how to use the interface, it’s just slightly different. You really can do so much more per day. We used it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. My only real complaint is, unless I missed something, you can’t directly modify one you are already holding. you have to back up, cancel it, and then (re) search for the replacement one. I usually checked for what I wanted first, before I cancelled what I already had. I seem to remember at WDW you could search for what you wanted and then it would give you the option of cancelling the existing one prior to grabbing it. On a side note, I gave up on using TP at DL, even though I stuck to it so much at WDW.
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After a couple days we gave up using the TP and MaxPass and just went with whatever we could get with MaxPass. It was great. This next trip with MFSR I’ll try making some TPs again to see how the new ride fits in, but I’m guessing that the TP will again not be that valuable. Using MaxPass seems to negate the need for the TP. Best part is when we left the park for afternoon rest we could keep making MaxPass reservations. I hope WDW gets MaxPass as well!
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i agree. For Sat in DL and Sun yesterday in DCA I made TPs as a framework but used MaxPass as you describe. Yesterday I rode all the headliners at least once —- GOTG 3 times — had time for all the non-FP rides, Frozen show, and was done by 5pm.
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You are my people.
(Five times in two days. Just sayin’.)
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