California-Adventure

Should We Purchase the MaxPass at Disneyland?

 We waited no longer than 30 minutes at Disneyland in the Summer!!  How? Read below!

Yes! It’s true. Our family visited our favorite place in August 2017 and initially we were hesitant about visiting during what we consider a very busy time of year. In fact, we’ve never visited in the summer because we avoid those crowds at all costs. BUT it was the only time we could go. And when given the choice between Disney or NO Disney- we always choose Disney! Rather than park hopper tickets, we decided to just spend one day at each park (which is that we usually do. We prefer the ‘one park per day’ tickets.)  We only had two days and to maximize our time, we decided to give Disney’s new MaxPass a try!

SO, WHAT IS DISNEY’S MAXPASS? The quick answer is that MaxPass is Disney’s fastpass system accessible through the app on your cell phone!

DOES IT COST MONEY?  While the Disney App is free, the MaxPass does cost $10 PER PERSON. For our family of 5, it cost $50 per day ($100 since we spent two days total).

IS IT WORTH IT? YES! During peak time at Disneyland we were able to avoid lines and really enjoy all the rides and attractions without any issues.

IS ANYTHING ELSE INCLUDED WITH IT? Yes! Disney’s PhotoPass is also included in that price. We were thrilled to have access to this awesome feature- no more asking random strangers to take your group shots. Disney’s photographers are there for that- and don’t forget those awesome magic shots (our family’s favorite! We love getting those and seeing surprise Disney characters show up in our pictures.) You can also download and share photos from select dining locations, attractions, and Character Greetings.

See our MAXPASS Schedule below!

California Adventure Photo Magic at Disneyand

Here is what our time at the Happiest Place looked like with the MaxPass:

Disneyland – August 14

9:00 a.m. Monorail
9:20 Inside Disneyland
9:30 Astro Blasters and Space Mountain separately
10:00 Astro Blasters again (Max pass temporarily stopped working)
10:15 (Max passes working again, pulled Matterhorn for starting at 10:40)
10:26 Snow White
10:40 Casey Junior
11:06 Matterhorn (MaxPass) – Pulled Max Pass for Indiana Jones for starting at 1:15
11:20 Rider Switch at Matterhorn
11:30 It’s a Small World
Noon Made reservations for Orleans Café
12:06 Winnie the Pooh
12:30 Eating at Orleans – Pulled MaxPass for Splash Mountain at 12:32
1:00 Splash Mountain
1:40 Haunted Mansion
2:05 Indiana Jones
2:15 Rider Switch at Indiana Jones
2:30 River Cruise
2:36 Meet Moana
2:35 Indiana Jones again (Bigger kids)
2:45 Tarzan House (Little kid)
2:55 Pirates of the Caribbean
3:30 Tarzan House again
3:41 River Jungle Cruise again
4:00 Take a rest and save seats for parade
Quick Tiki treat
4:30 Watch parade
5:00 Peter Pan
5:32 Finally ride Peter Pan after technical difficulty
5:42 Mr. Toads Wild Ride
6:15 Storybook Island
6:30 Alice in Wonderland
6:53 Pinocchio
7:20 Pirates of the Caribbean
7:48 Dinner Bengals Barbeque
8:30 Parade (should have gone earlier but still got a decent spot on the side of Tomorrowland)
9:20 Pulled MaxPass for Star Tours and rode 10 minutes later
9:38 Autotopia (5 minute wait)
10:03 Finding Nemo
10:30 Done with Nemo – half asleep
10:44 Matterhorn
10:50 Monorail

MaxPass on Grizzly River Rapids

California Adventure – August 15

10:20 Inside California Adventure – Pulled MaxPass for Radiator Springs Racers for starting at 12:20
10:25 Grabbed World of Color MaxPass
10:30 Grizzly River Run (10-minute wait in standby line)
10:55 Registered for Avenger Training
11:05 Monsters Inc.
11:15 Jeff waited to meet Spider Man; Emily and kids rode Monsters Inc. again
11:45 Met Spider-Man – Pulled Toy Story MaxPass
11:50 Bug’s Life – Meimlich
12:05 Bumper Bugs
12:20 Radiator Springs Racers (bit of a wait – not more than 30 though)
1:00 Lunch at Flo’s — pulled MaxPass for Guardians of the Galaxy for between 5:15 and 6:15
1:35 Toy Story
2:00 Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
2:15 Bus Life again
2:30 Jeff in line for Frozen play
3:00 Frozen play
4:00 Pulled Max Pass for Screamin’ California
4:15 Screamin’ California
4:20 Check-in at Avenger Training
4:45 Avenger Training – Kids on stage – Pulled MaxPass for Toy Story for starting at 7:55
5:02 Guardian of Galaxy (down to three cars – slow 30 minute wait)
6:15 Watch Pixar water parade in shade (Emily saved seats while we were at Guardian)
6:46 Tow Mater
7:02 Luigi’s dance
7:29 MaxPass on Soarin’
8:10 Kids and Emily ride toy story, while Jeff save seats for World of Color
8:30 Kids and Emily ride King Tristan’s carousel
9:00 World of Color

World of Color with MaxPass

The Long Answer to what exactly is Disney’s Max Pass is that any ride that has a FastPass  option, you can ‘reserve’ your spot through your phone. Instead of running around to each of the FastPass rides and scanning your ticket to reserve your spot, you simply reserve it on your phone! The cool thing is that when you open the app to reserve your spot, you can see what the available FastPass options are. Some you may be able to reserve and ride almost immediately! It is quite efficient! It’s important to note that ONLY rides with FastPass options are available in the MAX pass option- so if ride (like Peter Pan) doesn’t have a FastPass option in person, it won’t have a MaxPass option either.

Here are a list of the current FASTPASS Ride Options:

Disneyland Park
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
Fantasmic!
Haunted Mansion
Haunted Mansion Holiday
Indiana Jones™ Adventure
“it’s a small world” Holiday
Matterhorn Bobsleds
Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin
Space Mountain
Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy
Splash Mountain
Star Tours – The Adventures Continue

Disney California Adventure Park
Goofy’s Sky School
Grizzly River Run
Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!
Guardians of the Galaxy – Monsters After Dark
Radiator Springs Racers
Soarin’ Around the World
Toy Story Midway Mania!
World of Color

How to Purchase and Use Disney MaxPass If You Have Tickets:
1. Download the Disneyland app.
2. Enter the park you wish to visit using your tickets. ***This is an important step.  You MUST be inside the park to purchase the MaxPass. ***
3. Open the Disneyland app.
4. Tap the circular character icon at the bottom of the screen.
5. Sign in with your Disney account.
6. Tap “Get FASTPASS with Disney MaxPass”.
7. Select all Guests in your party who wish to use the Disney MaxPass feature—if someone is not listed, link their ticket or pass.
8. Purchase the Disney MaxPass feature for any Guests who do not already have it.
9. Make your FASTPASS selections and enjoy your Disney PhotoPass downloads.

Other Disney questions you may have:

Where is the best deal to buy Disney Tickets?  Our favorite place that always has the very best deals is Getaway Today!  It is the only place we buy our Disney Tickets. Not only do they have the best deal, they have the best customer service. We accidentally reserved our tickets for the wrong weekend (my bad! In my excitement I didn’t double check our dates). Not a problem for Getaway Today, though. They quickly worked with Disney to get our tickets ready for us. If you have any questions or issues, give them a call. They frequently visit the parks and nearby hotels and can give you a personal account and help answer any questions you might have!  We also buy our Character Dining Vouchers from them. For more information on Character Dining at Disney, check out our post about that here.

Where is the best place to stay? Well, it really is just a matter of preference, but we prefer to stay as close to the parks as we can for cheapest price we can find. For more details on where we like to stay, check out our post on that here.