RideMax Software For Disneyland Resort Is Sorely Disappointing
Posted on August 3, 2008
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I first heard about RideMax software in January while researching Disneyland information prior to Z’s birthday trip there with her mother. My early impressions were both positive and exciting – software to schedule your day at the Disneyland Resort (Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure Park) in such a way to maximize the number of rides while minimizing the wait time. All based on historical data gathered over the last six years. Absolutely brilliant! However, I also knew that it wasn’t going to be useful to X on their trip, so I simply filed it away for when Z and I visited the “Happiest Place On Earth” ourselves.
That time came about a month ago as we neared our July 20th visit to Disneyland and California Adventure as the last stop on my California CoasterQuest. Although the $14.95 price for a 90-day subscription seemed pretty reasonable, we needed every free cent for our trip so I did more research before actually plunking down my cash. Whenever I’m researching a new (to me) product or service it’s always the negative reviews that I seek out the most. People who are happy with a product typically gloss over any problems it may have. For RideMax, however, I couldn’t find a single negative review, no matter where I looked. So, I visited RideMax.com and ordered the software.
It installed easily enough, but I was immediately struck by what would become my biggest problem with the software. You can schedule your day at Disneyland or your day at Disney’s California Adventure, but not both, simultaneously. Given the proximity of the two parks and the ubiquitous nature of “park hopping” passes, this makes absolutely zero sense to me. We weren’t just visiting one park, but both and had “absolute must” rides in both. But apparently we had to decide in advance what times we would be in each park instead of taking true advantage of the data at hand and hopping back and forth as necessary.
But this wasn’t actually the first problem I had with the program. No, that was brought to my attention by the following blurb on the official website-
Planning a Sunday Visit?
We’re still just a small, family-owned business, and have made the personal decision not to gather wait time statistics on Sunday, so you will not be able to select a Sunday visit when using the RideMax software. For planning a Sunday visit, you should be able to select the previous Saturday when creating your itinerary. Just be sure to change your plan’s starting and ending times to correspond to the actual park hours if they differ from Saturday.
We apologize for this inconvenience!
Unfortunately, we were visiting on a Sunday. Frankly, the “small, family-owned business” excuse just doesn’t hold water for me. if you’re going to charge for a product that you advertise with lines like “[t]his schedule is tailored to the expected crowd patterns on the day of your visit, for the attractions you want to ride”, then it should actually be able to create a schedule based on the day I wish to visit! All of the reviews I could find that mentioned this (serious) flaw in the program mentioned that they wound up ahead of schedule when using Saturday data for their Sunday visit. Personally, I don’t see much difference between waiting in line for a ride and waiting in the park for my itinerary to get back on schedule – either way we’re waiting.
Speaking of unnecessary waiting, that brings me to my third problem. Take a look at the screenshot to the left. It’s the output when selecting Toy Story Mania in California Adventure. 
At first glance it seems like Toy Story Midway Mania should be the first stop on our visit to DCA as the wait will only be 25 minutes at that point. However, the mentioned tip reads as follows-
1. In order to board Toy Story Mania with minimal waiting, we recommend arriving at the front turnstiles no later than 9:10AM. When the turnstiles open at 9:30AM you should then be directed to a separate waiting area for this attraction, which should open with the rest of the park at 10:00AM. If you arrive late enough to find the line already too long for your liking, and you’re willing to be separated from the rest of your group, we recommend asking the Cast Member at the attraction entrance if you may use the “single rider” line. This may help reduce your wait considerably. For more details please press the “Tips & Hints” button in RideMax, and review the page titled “Toy Story: The Mania!”
In other words, RideMax recommends that you be in line nearly an hour before the park opens for the day. But, somehow this isn’t counted as waiting time! If you follow RideMax’s advice you’ll actually end up waiting (at least) 75 minutes for your first trip on Toy Story Mania, rather than the 49 minutes it lists for later in the day. For our itinerary the wait time was listed as 15 minutes in the first slot (65 minutes total) and 40 minutes throughout the rest of the day. How, exactly, is this saving us time?
Our final major problem with the RideMax program is really the reason I’ll be taking advantage of their 30-day guarantee and asking for a full refund. After running about 50 different scenarios for the day of our visit I started to notice a pattern – the “big rides” had the exact same wait time throughout the afternoon and evening. What are the odds of this being realistic? And even if it is, then I certainly didn’t need to pay someone to find this out. The first piece of advice given to anyone visiting an amusement park is to hit the E-ticket rides early in the day as the lines just get longer after lunch. I’ve used California Screamin’ in the example screenshot at right, but it held true for the vast majority of major rides at both parks.
Those four problems were the reason this software gets a failing grade from me. All of them can be resolved rather easily by the programmers if there’s a genuine will to do so. While their at it they might also want to make the program far less clunky, add shows to the list of attractions one can select, allow multiple break times (to mimic shows and parades that aren’t included), permit schedules to be made without FastPasses, and write up a little documentation to guide people through the best use of the program. Unfortunately, despite all the rave reviews on the web and my personal excitement over the program, RideMax was a complete waste of money. Even though I hadn’t been to Disneyland in more than a decade and never been to California Adventure I was able to schedule our time much more efficiently on the fly at the park then any of the itineraries generated by RideMax.
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[...] Philaahzophy Copyright © tax sc_project=3641399; sc_invisible=1; sc_partition=43; [...]
[...] actually submitted anything to them since February until a a slight variant of my recent RideMax review. That article was rejected because “[c]ontent submitted as Non-Exclusive must be published [...]
I too think RideMax is a waste of money. People gush over it because hey, you end up having a nice day at Disneyland as most people do, and the software doesn’t actually make your visit worse.
But people had fun at Disneyland before RideMax and they will have fun without it. I doubt the average family has a better time at Disneyland with this software than without. An overpriced program will never replace doing the research before your vacation.
There are tons of people in the Disneyland community that will gladly help you plan your trip FOR FREE. Any information that this software can give you is already out there and this company is simply taking advantage.
Welcome, Spokker!
While we agree on the value of RideMax (little to none), I think that saying “this company is simply taking advantage” is pushing things a little too far. The people behind RideMax have clearly put a lot of work into it.
$15 isn’t a lot to pay for a piece of software these days and receiving my refund (as promised in their guarantee) was quick and simple. So the company itself receives high marks from me. The program, however, could use some serious work.
What would be truly wonderful would be if they were to drop the code out as open source under some sort of GPL license. They could still charge for the data service, but allow interested programmers to make the software run that much better. And I’m sure they could find reliable volunteers in the online Disney community to help supply the data for Sundays. All they’d need to do is ask.
Maybe taking advantage is a little much, I admit. But there are plenty of people online who live for giving Disneyland advice. Some Disney fan communities are better than others.
There is something in the book Designing Disney by Imagineering legend John Hench that goes against the whole concept of RideMax. He says that Disneyland is (or was) designed to facilitate decision making, and that wide open spaces were developed for families and friends to huddle together over a park map and decide what to next. That kind of spontaneity and anticipation is part of what I loved about my first visits to Disneyland in my youth.
To be honest, RideMax’s appeal is helped by the concept of the all-day unlimited pass and Fastpass. During the days of ticket books, you could take as little or as long as you wanted to meander through the park, deciding what to do next. In fact you could decide to do nothing at all, as the modest entrance fee at the time left you feeling satisfied if all you did was smell the roses. You could save your tickets for another day. Today, it’s a race against the clock (until your all-day pass expires at closing, that is)!
Fastpass now adds another element of confusion and frustration to your day. Now you’re planning your day around these little tickets. It’s a constant struggle to get in the most rides, acquire the most Fastpasses, and zig zag around the park like a maniac. Fastpass was designed to get people out of lines and into shops and restaurants, and now the park feels more crowded and chaotic because of it.
If you want to meander and not take advantage of Fastpass, you are now at a disadvantage because you have to wait in longer standby lines. You HAVE to use Fastpass when you visit Disneyland or you’re one-step behind everybody else the moment you enter the park.
I’m not saying we should go back to ticket books, but I do lament the addition of Fastpass to the parks. I wonder how much time we are really saving at all, and if the value they provide is just an illusion. You can’t create capacity out of nothing after all. Space Mountain still takes in and spits out the same number of guests before and after Fastpass.
The application is horrible slow and does not have Sundays. Also everytime comesback after 5 min, you have selected more stuff. How I know how many is right at least should give options at the time of adition.
Amazing software, i looking for software for vacation homes reservation, can anybody advice me?
I haven’t tried Ridmax yet. I am just trying to get information about it. Thus this review.
To me it seems like once the bad came, you just wanted to keep on rolling with it.
I don’t have a problem with them not getting data on Sunday. That is there choice. They let that be known from the start. Yes I would think they could pay somebody to get some sunday data, but be it as it may, its known when you buy the software.
It is strange that they don’t have both parks together. I’m not sure how close they are. But I will say the point of this software is to avoide waiting time and walking around or walking back and forth. I can see why that isn’t a major concern for those wanting this problem (Probably mostly those with little kids, that you don’t want to be taking them back and forth).
As far as telling you to get there early. I don’t see the problem with this? From what it sound like you just wanted the program to tell you what time to get in line for the Toy story ride, and you figure out the rest! (Which I’m sure if it did, you probably would still not like it) But because the program figured this out for you, you want the program to take a hit against waiting time? From there website
“Arrive early.
Have a basic “game plan” in mind of which attractions you want to visit, and some idea of the order you will visit them in.
Take maximum advantage of FASTPASS.
While we can’t help you kick yourself out of bed for that early opening time, RideMax can help you with the other two important tips!”
At least they are trying to help you get there on time! I would find a bigger flaw in the program if it DIDN’T do this.
The biggest problem with this review is you don’t even explain if you even used the program.
Did you follow it for a day, half a day?
Its seems like because the program was some how flawed (didn’t have sunday data) there was no reason to even try it out?
I do agree Ridemax is probably not for everybody. I haven’t even tried it yet. If and when I do try it, I’ll keep these consernces in mind.
Great..story..thanks
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Bookmarking it now. thanks for sharing.
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For me, as long the software could accommodate my needs, it’s more than help
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Thanks for this critical review. It’s nice to see someone share this!
Funny I got an e-mail responds about comments posted here. I was just talking to somebody today about this program. I did end up paying for it last year when I went to Disneyland.
Really quickly here is what you need to know.
If you have been to disneyland recently, you probably have enough knoweledge to know how navagate the rides.
If you haven’t been to disneyland for some time, ridemax does a good job of getting you started. Really you aren’t paying for just the ride layout, but also the little suggestions and tips the program gives. These are probably more helpful long term then then really the actually program.
The bad is, after you have figure out how Disneyland works with the fast pass and the early morning days, you kind of know what you are doing and Ride max ends up just staying in your backpack. For example when I was going, because California Adventure opens an hour later then disneyland we decided to go to Finding Nemo ride that hour. This was a smart move and something ride max never would think about. Its really just being smart with your time.
Also for me, going on an early day, I was able to do way more rides then ride max had figured I would be able to complete. I had done so many rides by even 2pm that I had enough time to go over to California Adventure and ride some of those rides again.
So the question is, would I buy it again. I wouldn’t because I already know the little tips and have been to disneyland. If you haven’t been, I do think its a good starting point. with that said, just know
1. Always have some fast pass ready. For most part you need to know which rides you can go on fast pass with.
Also know that even your kids can’t go on the ride, the fast pass for them can be used by anybody. This does alow for more in your party to go on the same ride twice really quickly (especially if you use it with the parent swap pass).
2. For the most part have a plan. Warning the park is not a good use of time.
3. The earlier in the day the less people are in the park. This is kind of a no brainer. But this means you can get through a lot of rides if you know what you are doing. (If you don’t, ride max can help). Also if the ride was really fun and the line is still short, go on the ride again. Ride max told us to go on the Rapids ride in California Adventure in the morning. You do get wet, and thus not many people are thinking of going on this ride. We did it, it was fun, and the line was still pretty short so we did it again. It was worth it.
Last, if you really want to go on the small world after all ride, go on it in the morning. If you wait later in the day, its pretty long wait (an hour) and probably not worth it.
[...] without Ridemax.* I would not even go to Disneyland without Ridemax if someone else were paying. Not everyone will like Ridemax. For some people, vacations and regimentation are simply opposites that cannot be reconciled. [...]
Sounds like an interesting idea, but seems to be some pretty fundamental flaws with the software, using different data and making assumptions. No matter what happens inevitably you’re always going to have to queue for a large portion of the day, that’s just the way it is at Disneyland unfortunately.
Hitting the park early is a must, especially if you’ve got little ones in tow.
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