Disneyland Max Pass - My Review
I just wanted to leave a quick review on Disneyland's Max Pass. We just got back a couple weeks ago from California and I can't say enough wonderful things about Max Pass. We are a family of four (me, hubby, 11 year old daughter and 8 year old son). I had purchased our 3 day park hopper tickets online and decided to add Max Pass to them for the entire duration.
Before we arrived at the parks, I made sure I had the Disneyland app on my phone and that I was logged into it. All of the 4 tickets I purchased for my family showed up in my app, so we only needed my phone to book our fastpasses. And note - I had to pay $10/person per day for max pass...which costed our family an additional $120 for our three day stay....but we got our money's worth IMO.
So our first day, I took our paper tickets (which I had printed out at home) to the turnstile. They scanned them and traded them for those little cardboard tickets. They took our pictures too so that every time they scanned our tickets, they could check that we were indeed the correct people using them.
Once we were through the turnstile, I opened up my Disneyland app on my phone. It now knew that we had entered the park for the day so we were allowed to select our first fastpass. AND because we had park hoppers, we were able to select which park we wanted fastpasses for. At this point, you have the option of selecting all the people in your party, or only one, or two, etc. For this first time, we selected our entire party. Next you are shown all of the attractions offering fastpasses and which times they are for. We selected Indiana Jones and had 1/2 hour wait before we could use them. So we took our time walking over to Adventureland. Once it was time, I opened up the app at the Fastpass entry line to the ride. A barcode comes up that you scan at the reader. For each person in your party, you scan that barcode and then swipe left for the next person's barcode. Super easy. If your phone battery has died, or you're too lazy to get your phone out of your bag, you can also use your cardboard park tickets and scan them at the fastpass line. We did that a few times as well.
In the instance where not everyone wants the same fastpass, that too is simple. At one point, my husband and daughter wanted to go on California Screaming while my son and I wanted something less thrilling. So, we selected fastpasses for just my husband and daughter and they went off with the cardboard tickets to the attraction. My son and I selected Goofy's Flight School for the same time and we went off to that attraction with my phone.
We were able to ride all of the big rides (Space, Guardians, Soarin, you name it) multiple times on our vacation (and even multiple times in a day!). We would select our next fastpass as soon as we had checked in at a ride. Or in the event when our fastpass was several hours out, the app will tell you when you can book your next fastpass.
AND with Max Pass, you also get Photopass, so all of our silly ride photos I was able to download for no additional charge. Thus at the end of a ride, when you can see your silly pic, there is a code number listed. You enter that number into your app, and voila, the photo is yours to download. TIP: Take a picture of the screen showing your photo and the code because it's a big long number and it'll disappear before you can type it all into your app. That way, you can enter the code later...but just make sure you do it that day (or is it up to 24 hours later? Can't remember what they told me).
In my opinion, the extra $$$ was totally worth it. I seriously don't feel like we waited in line for anything. My only complaint is I wish MORE attractions had fastpass in Disneyland! Anyways, if you have any questions about it, let me know. But if you're on the fence about trying it out....DO IT!!!!! :mickey:
