Ridemax Disneyland software?

http://www.ridemax.com/

Anyone ever use this? It seems like a silly idea, but then again I've been going to Disneyland all my life, so ride patterns are second nature to me. It also sounds like it would ruin the experience having an itinerary made up for you. I can see the benefit for tourists who have never been there and go on a weekend in the summer. It's a shame you have to pay for it.

In the sample plans section it mentions that as of Jan. 2005 there are three attractions with fastpass that are not connected to other fastpass attractions (meaning you can get more than one fastpass at a time). It claims one of them is Star Tours, does anyone know what the other two are? ..or are they simply full of it?

Before I give my mostly glowing review of this program, let me say that for the experienced Disneylander, it's probably a waste of money, but for a Joe Schmoe like myself that only makes it to DL once a year, it's worth every penny, and then some.

My ridemax testimonial follows...

Before our family trip in '03, which was the 1st time we vacationed at the DLR as a family, I read everything I could find about trip planning for DLR. Most helpful to me was a ton of good info on "working" the FastPass system, gleaned from a couple Disney specific message boards. Armed with my newfound knowledge, I impressed the family quite mightily with how well I managed to hook us up on FastPass linked rides. Where I sucked was in not being able to avoid horrific wait times for stuff like Peter Pan's flight, Toad's wild ride, etc. You're gonna' have to give me a break on those kinds of rides. Remember, I've got 3 young kids here. (Truth be known, I like those rides too though) Every once in a while we'd hit a ride with a nice short short line, but it was the exception rather than the rule.

Fast forward to Ridemax day planning for the '04 trip.

We were going to be at DLR for 5 days. There's no way that I was going to trust this program to plan every single day there, nor did I want to tie myself down to following some regimented schedule, so I planned 1 day for DL and 1 day for DCA. I figured if the program was a bust, then I'd just go back to my tried and somewhat true methods that had served me at least reasonably well (for a non DL regular) the previous year.

To my delight and slight surprise, the ridemax schedules worked like a charm. If anything, the program worked better than they said it would. Those couple days of our last DLR vacation rocked the house in so far as the amazing (to me) number of rides we could pack into a day, while still having time to take major breaks. I thought I would have totally overwhelmed the program by selecting a crapload of rides to fit into one day, and several of those rides twice, but we were able to do everything on the list, and then some.

The breaks were really the part that blew me away, and also the source of a valuable lesson. I'd read in several trip planning guides that you should make time in the middle of the day to go back to the hotel, nap, relax, take a swim, etc. I took that with a grain of salt figuring, "By the time this week is over I'm going to have burned up the better part of 3 grand and I'm damn well going to get my money's worth out of every second that I'm here." (Kind of like Chevy Chase in "Vacation" when he says: "We're all gonna have so much f*cking fun we'll need plastic surgery to remove our godamn smiles. You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of your a**holes!") But I digress... Point here being that by following the ridemax schedule, and actually taking the mid day breaks (of like 2-3 hours), I figured out that we weren't missing a damn thing by getting the hell out of the parks for a while when the place is a zoo anyway.

I'm going to use it again this year, but again only for 2 days of the trip, and that's for a very good reason: You do have to stay pretty damn close to the schedule it gives you for it to work well. That isn't really hard to do, but the problem with it is that it doesn't account for shows, parades, fireworks, etc. Well, it does account for them in that it sends you to rides where the lines dwindle when certain things are going on in the parks, but you're ass-out if you happened to want to see that show/parade, etc. That's why I'll leave the other days to mill about as we please, taking in whatever happens to strike our fancy.

Side note: You can schedule your own "breaks" in the program to make time for a show(s) that you want to see, but it all but kills the ability of the program to get you a bunch of rides packed into a single day, effectively rendering the basic point moot.

Just from basic experience, most people (with 1/2 a brain) can figure out that the lines at HM and POTC go to an almost walk on status while Fantasmic is showing. Along those same lines, there are many other more subtle and less noticeable factors that contribute positively or negatively to line wait times for certain rides at different times during a particular day. If you're an AP holder who lives in LA, then you're probably aware of a lot of these things. I'm not, so a little help goes a long way.

I give this program the Billy Hill seal of approval. (Which is worth basically nothing) I paid for the program last year, and I'll gladly pay for it again this year. When I drop the kind of coin on a vacation that I do when I go to DLR, this is a drop in the bucket, and one of the most cost effective parts of the whole deal.

Billy "I dig the ridemax program" Hill