Ever try RideMax?? Secrets of WDW Discuss Ever try RideMax?? in the Trivia and Games Forums forums; Has anyone tried RideMax? It is a computer program that you can subscribe to that calculates best times to ride for shortest waits. You can google RideMax and you will ...

[chuckd3]

Has anyone tried RideMax? It is a computer program that you can subscribe to that calculates best times to ride for shortest waits. You can google RideMax and you will find the link. It sounds too good to be true!!!

[rocknrollercfan]

That is so wierd. I wonder how well it actually works.

[GIOny]

It sounds like a take off on Touring plans.com

[princessariel]

I don't think I would spend $$ on that

[the7thAve]

spam?

[nicks10]

All hail Mr. Testa!

[chuckd3]

Originally Posted by the7thAve

spam?

No spam. I have no connection with the product. I truly would like to hear some experiences!!!

[albino_pygmy]

They seem to like Jungle Cruise and the elephants so much that they have to ride it twice

[KimDWT]

I tried it for Disneyland and it was pretty good.

[chuckd3]

Originally Posted by KimDWT

I tried it for Disneyland and it was pretty good.

Do you think it was worth the money?? I am going to Disneyland in October.

[mritty]

I used RideMax on my October-November 2007 trip. No, it is not a take off of TouringPlans.com. It's both better and worse than TouringPlans.com. Better in that The Unofficial Guide's touring plans do not allow for customization - they don't tell you what to do if you want to ride Splash Mountain three times that day, for example. Worse in that the Unofficial Guide's plans blow Ride Max out of the water when it comes to live entertainment. RideMax doesn't tell you *anything* about when to see shows of any kind. This makes it almost completely worthless for the Studios, for example, where about 75% of the attractions are shows.

If RideMax could figure out how to integrate the shows into its plans, I would probably purchase it again. For Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, the plans it gave us were absolutely spot-on dead accurate. As in, to the minute.

As the OP said, it is a program you download to your computer, and retrieves park information about closures and hours from an internet database, so you need to have an internet connection on your computer when you want to use it. You choose the park you're going to, the day, your planned time of being in line for your first attraction, and the time you want to get in line for your last attraction. You tell it how many breaks you want to take, for how long, and aproximately when. Then you tell it all the attractions you want to do that day, and how many times. Finally, tell it whether or not you're willing to risk trying to use a FastPass after the window has closed. Once it has all that information, it calculates for you the best plan of attack for that day, again down to the minute. A sample plan might be something like:

9:00am - Get Fastpass for Space Mountain
9:01am - Ride Space Mountain. Expected ride + wait time - 7 minutes.
9:08am - Walk to Buzz Light Year. Expected walk time - 2 minutes
9:10am - Ride Buzz Light Year. Expected ride + wait time - 20 minutes.
9:30am - Walk to TTA. Expected walk time - 1 minute
9:31am - Ride TTA. Expected ride + wait time - 20 minutes.
9:51am - Walk to Space Mountain. Expected walk time - 1 minute
9:52am - Ride Space Mountain using FASTPASS.
<etc>

No, that is not a *real* plan, it's an example of something it might give you. Like I said, for Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, it worked about as perfectly as you can expect. For the Studios, it's next-to-worthless. For Animal Kingdom, it's so-so - the lack of Festival of the Lion King, Finding Nemo, Flights of Wonder, Pocahontas, etc, really make it difficult to figure out when you should see those shows without upsetting its plan for your ride attractions.

For Epcot, again, it doesn't have any of the World Showcase entertainment. Instead, it asks you how long you want to spend touring World Showcase (3, 4, 5, or 6 hours), and then fits that amount of time into your plan as one giant block. This is *okay*, but not great.

So if you're going to concentrate on the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, I'd say go for it. If the Studios and Animal Kingdom are on the game plan, probably not. But last time I checked, they did offer a money-back guarantee if you weren't satisfied (I didn't take them up on it, as I went in knowing they didn't have the shows), so maybe that's an option for you too.

[chuckd3]

Originally Posted by mritty

I used RideMax on my October-November 2007 trip. No, it is not a take off of TouringPlans.com. It's both better and worse than TouringPlans.com. Better in that The Unofficial Guide's touring plans do not allow for customization - they don't tell you what to do if you want to ride Splash Mountain three times that day, for example. Worse in that the Unofficial Guide's plans blow Ride Max out of the water when it comes to live entertainment. RideMax doesn't tell you *anything* about when to see shows of any kind. This makes it almost completely worthless for the Studios, for example, where about 75% of the attractions are shows.

If RideMax could figure out how to integrate the shows into its plans, I would probably purchase it again. For Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, the plans it gave us were absolutely spot-on dead accurate. As in, to the minute.

As the OP said, it is a program you download to your computer, and retrieves park information about closures and hours from an internet database, so you need to have an internet connection on your computer when you want to use it. You choose the park you're going to, the day, your planned time of being in line for your first attraction, and the time you want to get in line for your last attraction. You tell it how many breaks you want to take, for how long, and aproximately when. Then you tell it all the attractions you want to do that day, and how many times. Finally, tell it whether or not you're willing to risk trying to use a FastPass after the window has closed. Once it has all that information, it calculates for you the best plan of attack for that day, again down to the minute. A sample plan might be something like:

9:00am - Get Fastpass for Space Mountain
9:01am - Ride Space Mountain. Expected ride + wait time - 7 minutes.
9:08am - Walk to Buzz Light Year. Expected walk time - 2 minutes
9:10am - Ride Buzz Light Year. Expected ride + wait time - 20 minutes.
9:30am - Walk to TTA. Expected walk time - 1 minute
9:31am - Ride TTA. Expected ride + wait time - 20 minutes.
9:51am - Walk to Space Mountain. Expected walk time - 1 minute
9:52am - Ride Space Mountain using FASTPASS.
<etc>

No, that is not a *real* plan, it's an example of something it might give you. Like I said, for Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, it worked about as perfectly as you can expect. For the Studios, it's next-to-worthless. For Animal Kingdom, it's so-so - the lack of Festival of the Lion King, Finding Nemo, Flights of Wonder, Pocahontas, etc, really make it difficult to figure out when you should see those shows without upsetting its plan for your ride attractions.

For Epcot, again, it doesn't have any of the World Showcase entertainment. Instead, it asks you how long you want to spend touring World Showcase (3, 4, 5, or 6 hours), and then fits that amount of time into your plan as one giant block. This is *okay*, but not great.

So if you're going to concentrate on the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, I'd say go for it. If the Studios and Animal Kingdom are on the game plan, probably not. But last time I checked, they did offer a money-back guarantee if you weren't satisfied (I didn't take them up on it, as I went in knowing they didn't have the shows), so maybe that's an option for you too.

I go to very few shows, so this should work fine for me.

[KimDWT]

I used it specifically for DisneyLAND, not WDW. It really helped as I had never been to Anaheim before and was unfamiliar with the layout of the park. I was also going from 2pm to close on a weekday about two weeks before Christmas. I thought it was very accurate and worth it as I had very specific rides I wanted to experience in an unfamiliar park within a limited time frame.

I found their times prettty accurate and their tips good. I was able to see all the rides that aren't in the MK and compare all the ones that were in both. And I had fun! I would have been a little flustered trying to do it on my own (I've been to WDW 10 times and I got turned around in Disneyland - you can't always "get there from here" in Disneyland the way you can in the MK).

I think for WDW it would have be too much for me. (I can't handle that many choices) I love touringplans.com and that works really well for me in Orlando.

[mike72688]

I used Ridemax at DL and DCA in 2005. I am considering using it in June 2008 and WDW. The above comments are correct. I would like to add that it is somewhat customizable. Because the program outputs a HTML table you can import it into MS Excel and move things around a bit. For MGM I am planning on getting the times guide from the Steve Soares site ahead of time and then using the show times to input breaks into the Ridemax program. I did this at DL and DCA. What you have to do is run the program a few times with different scenarios. First put all the attractions you want to see into the program to give you a general layout of when to do what for the first two hours or so. Export this and set it aside. Then run it again but take out the first two hours of rides and set your arrival time for two hours later. So if the park opens at 9am, you run the whole thing from 9am to close. Then clear it out and run again with the first two hours of rides omitted and an arrival time of 11am. This will give you an idea of when to go on what rides after the first two hours. If you don't input too many rides you will see that it gives you a big block of time in the middle of the day because this is the worst time to ride. Check the times guide and insert breaks into the ridemax program at the showtimes you want (if it is recommended that you wait in line 30 minutes before showtime to get a good seat then factor this in also. Run the program again. Now you import these into excel to get an idea of when to do what for the first half of the day. In excel you simply replace the break times with the show times. It sounds a bit complicated but if you know a bit of excel it's not that hard. It does take some patience and trial and error. You can also use this same method to input your dining reservations. I was ecstatic with the results. We went on all the attractions we wanted as well as saw the Snow White and Aladdin stage shows, the parades, AND went back to the hotel each day for a 2-3 hour break! Okay, it wasn't perfect. The line at pirates was 20 min. when ridemax predicted a 5 min wait. But this was at the end of the day and didn't throw us off at all.

[Keasmom]

This sounds great, but for those of us who really need the geek squad because our computers baffle us, this sounds pretty complicated. Can you program in some spontaneous hours of fun, or does it all need to be neatly regimented? I am generally just so happy to be at WDW that what I do there is whatever my DD wants at whichever park-except AK which I don't like.