Protip: Use Maxpass and your physical ticket to conserve your battery

I suppose Maxpass is too new and not a lot of people know how to use it properly. There were a lot of confused people in the park last week when we visited. The most important thing that I discovered was that you can begin making your selection BEFORE rope drop, that is after your tickets have been scanned for the day and before the official opening time. I managed to secure FastPasses at a very early hour last September 15 when Holiday Haunted Mansion opened for the first time. So while everyone was rushing to the ride reaching 90 minutes mere moments after opening we very casually strolled other rides which were completely empty.

Since you can also make new FastPass selections after your return window starts this allows you to accumulate a lot of passes very quickly but your mileage may vary in DCA which seemed to be a FastPass black hole.

Another protip is NOT to use you smart phone to scan your FastPasses. Use your physical ticket. You might think this is old school but it is more efficient. This way you can conserve battery and avoid holding up the line because you are trying to open the app and adjust the brightness settings.

Sadly, I found that the touring plans are not very efficient with the new Maxpass system. The plans assume you will be around a certain area of the park to pick up the FastPasses and that the return times happen much later in the day. However, the truth of the matter is that since you can choose which attraction is more convenient then you can end up in an area of the park that is completely opposite to that of the plan.

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Thanks for reporting!

Thank you! This is very valuable information for people planning a trip!

Great info - thanks for sharing!

Very helpful - thank you!

Yes I agree the touring plans need to be totally revamped with the use of max pass. When we were there at the end of August we were in line for Guardians first thing before rope drop and I had purchased our max pass on my phone and gotten FP for RR before the park was even open.

“Since you can also make new FastPass selections after your return window starts this allows you to accumulate a lot of passes very quickly but your mileage may vary in DCA which seemed to be a FastPass black hole.”

To clarify, do you mean that you can all at once line up all of your fastpasses for the day with Maxpass? Or do you still have to wait UNTIL your first FastPass window begins to whip out your phone and make the next FastPass reservation?

When you make your FP selection it will tell you when you can make your next selection. There were times when I had three FP on my phone at one time!

I too was using my actual ticket to scan when i returned. It just seemed so much faster. I think alot of people were actually holding up the line by using their phone. Its a great system and I fell in love with it and the photo pass is really cool too. I also heard the park was supposed to be offering wifi but i never found it once.

To clarify, do you mean that you can all at once line up all of your fastpasses for the day with Maxpass? Or do you still have to wait UNTIL your first FastPass window begins to whip out your phone and make the next FastPass reservation?

No, you can’t line up all of your FP at once. You still have to wait for the FP window to begin before you make your next selection but the process is so efficient that you can end up with several selections. For a super combo use in conjuction rider switch and you can truly end up with more FP than you can handle.

You can also retrieve a new FP via MaxPass as soon as you scan your FP at the first reader at the ride. In August we were often scanning for Soarin’ and I was immediately booking the Grizzly River Raft Ride and we walked off Soarin’ directly onto our next FP. If the windows are near, you can stack them that way.

For higher demand rides you might have to book the FP for a few hours out and then the App will show you when you can book another FP. You can stack them that way and have 2 or 3 scheduled as a result. We found MaxPass great to use when we were there in August and allowed us to hit the headliners with minimal waits…

Correct! You said it better. MaxPass is awesome!