i loved that ride so much I broke my no-more-Disneys-bags rule
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Unfortunately, this is how the system works. You missed nothing. It’s very different from what WDW’s modify feature accomplishes, but in my experience it’s also very rare for DLR to have very many ones that are actually earlier than the “current available” distribution time. So if you do see one that’s earlier, you really have to act then & there before it’s gone.
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So I see a definite theme here about so many WDW visitors who are expressing their wishes that MaxPass be implemented at WDW as well, and I’m curious: How would you feel if it became an extra paid (like it is at DL)? And it has me wondering if with the rumors we’ve had of FP changes (most likely moving to some kind of paid system) if MaxPass is at all an option on the table for that change.
I know for me personally, when MaxPass was first announced I very quickly formed a very negative opinion against it, because of the additional cost, the ability for someone to leave for the day & still book FPs that they may or may not come back to use & may or may not cancel taking up space & also worried it would make the pool of FPs disappear far more rapidly for those of us who chose to walk to the kiosks for the free FPs.
I still don’t love it to the point that I will buy it for our family, but I most definitely see where it makes sense for less frequent visitors or those for whom the convenience is worth the price for their group. But I still slightly resent that it opened the door for the ability to “buy” FPs & am fairly certain that we’ll never be back to a fully free system & am almost counting on the fact that if & when the SW:GE get FPs the only way to obtain them will be through an upcharge MaxPass purchase that I expect will be higher than the current $15/day offering. I believe the phrase I have seen used in regards to the cost with GE rides is “as high as the market will bear”. So, I don’t know about you, but that phrase leaves me thinking ‘I have a bad feeling about this’.
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Yeah, I do remember when it was first announced I kind of resented it. Then I got used to it and I’m forking over all kinds of money for something that I used to expect for free. They got me!
But as a system, I really like it. If it were free, I’d 100% hope for them to adopt it in WDW. If they do charge, I hope they would drastically reduce the number of FPs being distributed so that it would have less of an effect on the lines.
I feel you. I remember a few years ago debating with a friend who had recently gone to DLR and Universal Hollywood the merits of FP vs. Universal’s “front of the line”. She loved the way Universal handled things and I loved the FP system because it was egalitarian in that you didn’t pay your way to the front of the line. Whether you are pinching pennies to get to DLR or booking the best suite at the Grand Californian, we are all equal once we’re in the park and competing for FP’s. So I’m sad to see that now $$ make a difference. I would rather they build the cost into the park ticket, but maybe it’s better not to for those who don’t really care that much about maximizing their rides and those who want to save money. I don’t know.
I think we’ve paid for MaxPass 3 days out of at least 12 days that we’ve been at the parks since it’s inception. It’s definitely not an automatic purchase for us, but we will get it if we’re trying to do a lot with one day and a crowded park. Otherwise, it’s normal FP’s for us and I will be sad when/if that goes away.
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This kind of makes me sad - it will never truly be egalitarian as long as there are VIP tours. But at least for the masses, standby and even FP was pretty fair. I have justified MaxPass because it’s not just about getting to the front of the line - it’s paying for the convenience of not having to run across the park and get a paper pass (which is so helpful if you have little kids!). As long as paper passes are available, I’ll feel better about the equality aspect.
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I think this is right. MaxPass does not give you more or pre-booked FPs, it just allows you to search and book on your phone. That is a convenience, and as a 58 year old i was grateful for it. But everyone can plan for and get FPs under the system.
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I already know the answer to this question, but just to make sure:
MaxPass system only contains attractions that are marked as “FP” on the map, right? So 9 total rides. There’s not some extra layer of rides available on MaxPass that don’t have paper FPs, right?
I only ask because of the everyone’s advice to be flexible, use the app, and just go for whatever comes available. People keep saying they just hammer the MaxPasses all day and that’s the best system. But my question… I’m going to be there with an 11 yr old and a 9 year old - who are in the age range where they will be into both the FP “nine” but also all the other stuff too - Fantasyland, Pirates, JC, subs, etc. As someone who religiously made and followed TPs all 5 days at WDW (to the point where we only waited in a long line once the whole trip - Test Track, natch), how do I know how to order the 80% of rides that aren’t on MaxPass?
Is there a thread somewhere on the forums that lists optimal times / order for the non MaxPass rides and how to start blending in the MaxPass rides throughout the day? The pre-made TPs keep saying “go get your paper FP for so and so for later in the day”, so I’m not sure how accurate they’ll be for a MaxPass world.
And when reading all the descriptions of each ride on TP, it seems there are way more “ride before 10 am” rides than would be physically possible to actually do. And scary stories of how slow loading many of the nonFP rides are. Luckily we’ll be there for 4 days so that should make things more manageable.
Thanks!
I didn’t try a TP for DLR. I had read a lot about the park on blogs and had an idea about where bottlenecks occur. Other than Peter Pan we never waited in lines on our June 2018 trip. It just didn’t happen. We nailed Fantasyland in the mornings and then just toured freely after that using MaxPass three of our four days.
For DCA Pixar Pier was under refurb. We hit Carsland at RD and just did the other things as we wanted to, using MP as much as possible.
With Maxpass at that time we could book 90 minutes after, not 2 hours. That made a difference, I think. We love re-rides and did GOTG five times and some of our party did RSR four times (others just twice).
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Correct, every attraction that has MaxPass also has paper fastpasses.
In your situation, I would go ahead and create a custom touring plan. You can select that you are using MaxPass and it will tell you which rides to get MaxPass for and when. As we have noted above, the TP system isn’t perfect, but it should give you decent advice for the must-have MaxPasses.
As your trip progresses and you get more comfortable with the way MaxPass works, you may feel the urge to deviate from your plan, and that’s fine. Most rides that don’t have MaxPass, other than Peter Pan, rarely have long lines (30 minutes max) so you should be able to squeeze them in if your plan goes to the wayside.
After the first day and a half of using your custom touring plans, you will have hit all the major attractions and will be pros at using MaxPass. You will be ready to do repeat rides and will be able to go with the flow of whatever is available so you can maximize your MaxPass usage.
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Here is a sample custom touring plan I created showing how MaxPass is integrated. As you can see, it knows that getting a MaxPass takes zero time because you can do it while you are in line. Also, it knows approximately when the return time will be and told me to get the MaxPass so that the return window will open right before I am supposed to be at Matterhorn.
The reason the TP system isn’t perfect is because if you are flexible, you may, for example, be standing right next to Big Thunder and can get a MaxPass with a window starting immediately, meaning zero wait. It’s hard to be more optimal than that! It’s hard for TP to know exactly where you’re going to be and what mood you’ll be in and exactly what the FP return window will be (though they do a pretty good job at two out of those three). So if your focus is headliners, you are sometimes better off just following MaxPass rather than a TP.
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I will be devastated if a totally free FP option goes away or is rendered meaningless by a plussed up MaxPass offering. I also really dislike that the 2 parks are now 1 connected FP system rather than 2 separate systems. We would routinely have one of us do a FP run for Racers FPs mid-morning on days that we started in DL and it didn’t entangle with any DL FPs that we were already holding or wanted to hold. And it just felt like we rode Racers a lot more often that way. So yeah, I definitely feel you!
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Yes to all of this! I do also agree with putting together a custom plan to give you a sense of walk times, attraction times & I like having the showtimes in one place in front of my face too without having to piecemeal search them on the app for each show I may be interested in. For a lot of the smaller shows though, especially if you did your plans more than 2 weeks in advance you need to double check the showtimes are accurate. You can either Evaluate (or make a copy & Optimize) the plan the night before or pull up the entertainment schedule on Disneyland.com and compare the showtimes for the ones you want to see. When they used to print an Entertainment Guide, I would grab one the first time we entered a park & double check any shows I had planned for that day/trip had the same times I was expecting them to have.
As for what rides to do before 10am… a lot of those can also be accomplished with lower waits after 9-10pm as well as during parades or fireworks or Fantasmic! or World of Color. So if rides are your focus & entertainment a little less so then there’s those times as well.
And lastly, if your group is able to use single rider (everyone must be 7 yrs or older, be able to ride alone getting their own seatbelt etc. fastened, following all CM instruction, sitting where they tell you to sit i.e. no requests for “front row” etc. & doesn’t mind not being with the rest of the group for the ride), that can be a great way to get through even more headliners quickly. A lot of the single rider lines are good for mid-late morning but know that as the afternoon/evening go they get more backed up and in some cases can get longer than a FP line and in some cases (Incredicoaster at night) longer than the standby line.
So definitely flexibility is key & a plan can only enhance your preparation to make those on-the-ground decisions. Another thing I do when I know my plan has tight timelines or very high priority musts is to watch the Disneyland app on a day with similar operating hours (within 2 weeks of my trip) and see what the app quotes for wait times compared to what my plan says & adjust accordingly or have notes on a back-up.
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Thanks so much for all this helpful info! I was gonna start doing the customized version earlier but then got caught up reading all this forum info. We’ll see what kind of plan I can come up with.
The language of the TP descriptions makes it seem like all of the following non-FPs need to be done in the morning or during parades/fireworks. I can’t imagine us ever skipping a parade or FWs so gonna try to fit all this in the mornings on 2 days:
JC
PotC
SWSA
Dumbo
MTWR
PPF
AiW
GGC
NEMO
Autopia
Then start hitting FPs for bigger rides and seeing shows during the afternoon.
and of course Star Wars, though best time for that seems 1pm.
Actually my kids are BIG BIG show fans - that was their favorite part of WDW hands down. Of the big headliners, I highly doubt I’m gonna convince them to go on Space, IC, or GOTG. Hoping to get them on at least Matterhorn and Big Thunder. I have them convinced that Splash will be ok (they wouldn’t go on that at WDW but that was 2.5 yrs ago).
So we won’t be missing any parades!
Sorry to hijack your thread, OP. I’ll probably start posting sample plans for comment as we get closer (going Nov 3 - 6).
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My husband and I are the BIG BIG show fans & so it’s very rare you’ll see us riding rides during that time too, but if the kids got a solid 2-3 hr midday nap, after we’ve watched a show, they’ll close down DL until midnight or beyond riding all the rides and that’s always a fun time to be there as the parks empty & some rides are only better at night (all the dark rides so your eyes don’t have to adjust as much between the daylight & ride darkness; Big Thunder, teacups, carrousel). All the more reason for a midday break when you really aren’t missing much except the peak crowds & in the warmer months peak heat of the day.
I have to admit, I’m stumped on this one…
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Ok, since you admitted it, I’ll admit I’m also stumped on a few:
SWSA
MTWR
GGC
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HAHA that’s what I get for making up my own abbreviations instead of researching whatever is the parlance of these forums. Sorry, I’ve only been reading for a few weeks here.
Snow White’s Scary Adventures - SWSA
Mr Toad’s Wild Ride - MTWR
Gadget’s Go Coaster - GGC
Basically all the non FP rides that had the strongest warnings about big lines in the TP writeups.
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Oh dear, I knew I’d feel stupid after you posted it! I don’t feel too bad about forgetting GGC though. But I swear I thought of MTWR but it just didn’t compute that those letters matched those words. 
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Thank you @shermND for responding so I didn’t have to wonder forever!!! I don’t think any of those have any wide-enough use to establish a norm. So we can start one, ha!
I often abbreviate Snow White’s to SW so that one came to me after I thought about it. And my kids are still heavily in the GGC demographic so that one did as well.
As for Mr. Toad’s I usually just call it Toad’s or if I’m being super concise MrT.
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Interesting… my first go at a personalized TP, for my day where I’m hitting up Adventureland, CC, Frontierland, and SWGE - and it immediately suggests MF:SR as 1st ride of the day, with an anticipated 22 min wait time. Having read so much about how the best time is actually 1 pm-ish, does this seem reasonable?
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