What is RideMax?
How Do You Use RideMax?
Then you select the rides you want. It helps if you prepare this in advance, but a description of each ride appears at the bottom of the page when you click on it.
In the Plan Options, you choose what time you will start and end your day. You can also schedule two breaks.
Additionally, you can select whether your group will be walking at a normal or slow pace and whether you have someone in your group willing to act as a "runner" to go get FASTPASSES for the group.
Another variable is whether you are willing to allow late FASTPASS scheduling. This means you could be scheduled to use a FASTPASS after the hour-long window printed on the PASS has expired. This is safe to do. We were informed by a Disneyland cast member that all FASTPASSES are good from the beginning of the start hour until the end of the day.
You can also schedule water rides during the warmer hours between 10 am and 4 pm.
Checking "Display tips on plan" will provide additional tips related to the rides you choose.
What Do You Get?
When the program has finished its calculations, a web page will appear with a timed itinerary telling you when to show up for each ride, how long the wait should be, how many minutes the ride will take and the time you need to walk to the next attraction. If you checked "Display Tips," the tips relating to your rides will be listed at the bottom of the page.
Go ahead and check “Display Tips.” Some are helpful hints on navigating the park and others provide interesting tidbits about specific rides.
Does it Work?
It works like magic. We used RideMax in August on a Thursday for Disneyland and Friday for California Adventure and felt smarter than everyone else in the park. Some lines were actually shorter than projected and we sometimes walked faster than the "slow" that I predicted, so we got ahead of schedule and were able to fit in a couple extra rides.It was incredible to see how just a few minutes before or after our scheduled time, the line was significantly longer than in that brief window when we breezed through it.
Doesn't It Take All the Fun and Spontaneity out of Disneyland?
In fact, once the kids saw that all the attractions they wanted to go on were already on the schedule, and they experienced how quickly we got on the rides, that eliminated any complaints about passing up a ride they wanted to go on. We also didn’t need to waste time discussing what to do next. We stepped off each ride and headed straight for the next one.
Continue to Making the Most of RideMax.

