This was exactly the point I made to Pmom when she first showed my ridemax. I said, ok so it says here that I have to be in line early so I can be in first, but if the program really is trying to reduce my wait time I maybe am better off showing up 5 min after the park has opened when they have gotten through the big gate line and I can proceed in a flash through that to the first ride. But she convinced me I was wrong (as she usually does).

There are 2 reasons I was wrong:
1) It is always is less waiting if you arrive at the park a bit before it opens. This was Pmom’s point to me (same as her point above to you) and here’s how she proved it to me. First off we created 2 schedules with the same rides in them. One for starting when the park opens and one for starting 10 min after the park opens (I assumed that was how long it takes me to get through the long gate line because I didn’t arrive early) and what we saw was that the extra wait time on the second one was substantially longer than 30 min. So even if I arrived 30 min early I was still better off than if I showed up just as the park opens. Someone with Ridemax can test this out on their own of course. Or you can take a friend to the park on the same day and have them show up just as the park opens and you show up early and you can see who waits longer doing all the same rides. That would be a fun experiment. We didn’t try it though. With Pmom showing me the two ridemax schedules and her also saying that the unofficial guide said it always makes sense to arrive early, we just did that.
2) maybe it depends on the person but the way I think about it this program is all about helping you with the really hard stuff–the stuff you really can’t figure out on your own–trading off stuff…should I walk over and get a fastpass for something on the other side of the park or should I wait in the line right next to me for a ride I also want to do and get the fast pass later or …. there are a million scenarios–which is a better use of my time? Now, for waiting before the park opens, what is the trade-off? you can’t ride during that time, you can’t get fast passes during that time. you can only do one thing during that time as far as the park is concerned–wait. Now what would be nice is if you tell ridemax what time you actually arrive at the park and it calculated what that means. For example: if I said I will arrive at the park 10 min before the park opens it would spit out a schedule showing how long I wait in line for nemo–my first ride. If I said I will arrive at the park 30 min before it opens it would show a schedule with less nemo wait time because I am at the front of the gate line. That would be nice. Not sure though that it is possible to come up with an accurate estimate. In our experience (only 5 days) we could see that not all of the gate lines push people throuh at the same speed and then a lot depends on how much someone jostles between the gate and the line up on main street. Then once they allow you past main street there’s the dash to the first ride. So there’s a lot of other factors than just what time you get to the gate line so I don’t think it is predictable on gate time arrival only.

With all that said, I think it would be a nice addition to have a recommended arrival time for any schedule which starts at the same time as the park opens. If you tell ridemax you want to start when the park opens then it shows a statement right before your schedule saying that if you want to start on schedule you should arrive to the park X minutes early.

1) I don’t see the lack of ability to schedule both parks in a single itinerary as an important shortcoming of the program. I believe that given the necessity of waiting to have your hand stamped upon leaving the park, and then having to go through entry at the other park, plus the distance between the two parks, means that very frequent parkhopping would not be worthwhile for most people.

Although Ridemax is willing to send a runner crisscrossing across a single park, underneath it all the program is trying to minimize walking time because time spent walking is also time spent not riding. This isn’t to say that parkhopping within a single day doesn’t make sense, it’s just to say that I don’t think anyone will do it repeatedly. For example, one morning we went on all the low capacity kiddie rides in Fantasyland at Disneyland (for which waits would be much longer later in the day) and then left Disneyland in order to be some of the first to arrive at Disney California Adventure (which opened two hours later than Disneyland). This sort of plan can be easily accommodated by creating two itineraries: one that plans a 90 minute visit to Disneyland scheduled to start at Disneyland’s opening, and a second itinerary that plans for the family’s arrival at DCA’s opening time. It worked great.

2) I think your second criticism may be your strongest point–at least for people who hope to attend the park on Sunday. As you noted in your review, this isn’t a gotcha type problem. Prospective purchasers of Ridemax are warned about this prior to purchase. Ridemax suggests using the Saturday program for Sunday. This sounds like a reasonable (although not perfect) workaround to me. I suppose if you ended up ahead of schedule, you could just jump on an extra ride and say yee-hah! However, if the data for Saturday proved to be very, very different from Sunday, it would be a big drawback for Sunday attenders. I don’t know if that is the case. In any case, I am impressed with the family’s courage in following their conscience. I understand why it could be a problem though for the many who don’t share their views. As you note, their satisfaction guarantee is generous, so if someone discovered that Ridemax’s Saturday schedule didn’t work well on Sunday, he could at least get his money back.

3) Your third point is mistaken. The mistake lies in focusing on the total wait time for the very first ride you go on. No one goes to Disneyland just to ride a single ride once. So, it is important to look at the wait times for your entire itinerary. Arriving thirty minutes early allows you to hurry on to a ride like Toy Story Mania that will have a much longer wait in just thirty minutes. If the thirty minutes early arrival time were just for TSM, it might not be worth it. However, consider what happens when you get off TSM at 10:10 vs. for example, 10:40. By the time the park has already been open 40 minutes, the fastpass return windows are later and the waits for rides without fastpasses are substantially longer. Also, the wait times start to snowball. If you wait is longer for ride #2 at 10:40, the wait for ride #3 is then even longer than it would have been and this builds until the park is full at 11 or 12 or whenever (I’m not Ridemax so don’t know the exact figures!) You have to add up all of those individual longer wait times. If you do that, it becomes clear that arriving early saves time in the long run.

4) I’m not sure what you mean by e-ticket. Is that another word for fastpass? As I understand it, Disney castmembers are supposed to feed more and more fastpass holders through the ride in front of the standby line to keep the fastpass return wait consistently short. I found the Ridemax predictions for all the rides we went on to be surprisingly accurate. We got ahead of schedule a few times and rode an extra ride and behind once and had to skip something, but all in all it was great. I didn’t expect that their predictions would be correct to the minute–so many variables affect one’s wait.

Perhaps your claim is that the standby line times for fastpass rides are not accurate. That could be true, but for us, thanks to Ridemax, it never came up. With Ridemax’s help, we always had fastpasses for the fastpass rides. It was awesome! and that is why I was very satisfied with Ridemax.

“For each problem they raise, there is either a good response, or at minimum, a reasonably effective workaround.”

I listed four major problems I had with the program, none of which have I seen either a “good response” or a “reasonably effective workaround” for either in your review or elsewhere-

1) Inabilitiy to schedule both parks on the same itinerary. The parks are literally across from each other and walking time between some attractions spread across both parks is quicker than walking time between some same-park attractions. So, why no ability to schedule both parks? You mentioned your park hopping passes in your review, but not that RideMax is useless for these passes. What’s the response or workaround for those only having one day to visit both parks?

2) No Sunday data. As I pointed out, the suggestion of using the Saturday schedule simply doesn’t work, as pointed out by many who love the program. And, I’m sorry, but “we don’t want to give Sunday data” isn’t a “good response” in my book.

3) Not counting “pre-opening” waiting time as waiting time for Toy Story Mania. What’s the workaround for this? Other than ignore what RideMax tells you, of course. But if I’m better off ignoring its advice then why should I give them my money in the first place?

4) RideMax shows no time difference for E-Ticket rides in the afternoon or evening. What’s the response or workaround for this? The wait times for these rides DO vary throughout the later part of the day, but RideMax ignores that fact.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-Ridemax. I’m sure it is wonderful for many people. And the company gets an A for customer service in my book as they quickly and easily honored their 30-day guarantee (as I noted in a comment on my own post). So if anyone’s considering buying the program, go for it. Just make sure you know when it’s too late to get your money back if you’re dissatisfied as I was.

-Aahz
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