Dear MaxPass - I miss you

[LanceQ]

Man, I used to give those away left and right with indecisive children..

Should have given away the children instead!

 

[Congo Queen]

We too used to build our family Dland trips around heavy optimization of EMH then FPass/MPass. We got very used to short wait times and would look askance at queues longer than 20 mins. We'd skip it rather than wait that long. It will certainly be different when we visit next month. I have been watching and reading recent trip reports to try to devise a new game plan. Luckily my kids are young adults now so we can lean on the single rider lines where available.

 

[whoever]

Should have given away the children instead!

But what would the parents do?

 

[LanceQ]

But what would the parents do?

Enjoy life.

 

[ClaudiaKincaid]

I think that's per person too! So if you have a party of 6, it's $6 per person per ride, so $36 just to ride like, Big Thunder Mountain

Yeah, that's when my family finds another place to vacation, permanently.

And I say this as a stay-onsite, 5-day ParkHopper, MaxPass/PhotoPass, eat-every-meal-in-the-park, Blue Bayou Fantasmic package person; we already pay the top-tier full rack rate for every dang thing you can do there, and I'll be [redacted] if I'll pay PER RIDE. You talk about killing the "Disney bubble," hoooooooooooooo boy. It'd be like some rinkydink local carnival, but breathtakingly expensive.

 

[DisSurfer878]

Yeah, that's when my family finds another place to vacation, permanently.

And I say this as a stay-onsite, 5-day ParkHopper, MaxPass/PhotoPass, eat-every-meal-in-the-park, Blue Bayou Fantasmic package person; we already pay the top-tier full rack rate for every dang thing you can do there, and I'll be [redacted] if I'll pay PER RIDE. You talk about killing the "Disney bubble," hoooooooooooooo boy. It'd be like some rinkydink local carnival, but breathtakingly expensive.

People are speculating they are only doing this in DLand Paris because they are millions of dollars in debts over that park and there's rumors its not super profitable.

 

[ClaudiaKincaid]

People are speculating they are only doing this in DLand Paris because they are millions of dollars in debts over that park and there's rumors its not super profitable.

Possibly true, idk, and if so, that would mean less imminent danger for Disneyland in CA -- but no matter where it is, chiseling the guests out of the magic is reeeeallly not the way to go. I'd actually pay double for MaxPass as it was -- just don't remind me, at every single ride entrance, of how much $$ I'm spending, and please don't make this a thing where people who don't have that money to spare (aka me growing up, whose family absolutely did not ever have the means to go to DL at all, much less like this!) have to watch those who do, scan some stupid app and breeze on through at $x/per ride, while they stand in the 2-hour line because they're less well off. What an awful experience for both! Here's hoping none of this will come to pass; it's stressful, enraging, and terrifically sad to think of.

 

[Sun_soakin]

I’m with you. As much as we miss DL, we are debating canceling our Nov trip for a variety of reasons, including the lack of FP/MP. My family rarely waits more than 20 min in a line.

 

[gelatoni fan]

Shanghai and Hong Kong both have priority admission (basically paid FP) right now but no fastpass. I believe Tokyo is still offering fastpasses with vacation packages but not to general guests. Even before the pandemic, Hong Kong had been phasing out Fastpasses for a while. In the past, Iron Man Experience and Astro Blasters had fastpass. Ant Man and the Wasp which replaced Astro Blasters opened without fastpass and they also got rid of fastpass for Iron Man Experience.

Given that people visiting Disneyland lately seem happy to pay for VIP tours, I can imagine that the math may come out to not selling Maxpass making them more money. They could bundle fastpass with hotels or sell them by themselves like Paris, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I like Maxpass but I don't really think it'll return anytime soon.

 

[beachdreamr1229]

I have to say, if the Disneyland Paris system comes here, I'm not going to be taking frequent Disney trips anymore. Maybe once every 5 years, but definitely not the 2-3 per year I currently take. That's one of the reasons I'm currently hesitant to buy the keys passes. I have a family of 5 and we usually have a party of 7 or 9 because we bring grandparents and siblings with us. So, spending $60-$180 per ride is just crazy. I don't mind standby lines, but when it's crowded and FP exists, the waits can be much longer than anyone in my family can handle. I'm hoping MP will be back, even if it's more money than it used to be. I'd even take a system similar to other parks like Universal as long as the price point isn't too ridiculous.

 

[Bossy22]

I just miss the good ole days of paper fastpasses. We loved paper fastpasses as I was able to leave my phone in my pocket all day. I find if I'm getting my phone out for 1 thing I end up looking at other things. DL was just going to a zombie like state (everyone on their phones all day) and I miss it. Paper fast passes were the best!!!! We will never get back there but I think they made good money off of paper fast passes with max pass! Hope that is the way they go again. We never got maxpass due to we could not afford that luxury (we budget elsewhere) but it didn't really hinder our vacation not to have it.

 

[SherylLC]

I’m with you. As much as we miss DL, we are debating canceling our Nov trip for a variety of reasons, including the lack of FP/MP. My family rarely waits more than 20 min in a line.

We've been 5 or 6 days since reopening and have not waited longer than 30 minutes even when posted wait times are much longer. That may all change when Key passes come into play....

 

[snakeyp23]

My family just got back from a trip to Disneyland and DCA...needless to say Maxpass needs to come back ASAP! The trip was much less entertaining, and a lot more work without it. I hope it doesn't stay gone forever. Anyone have any insight on this?

 

[Lillebelle]

Everyone was really worried about what they'd do with APs and for the most part what they announced is pretty similar to before... which is good news. Maybe we can hope the same for MaxPass? Most of the strongest rumors surrounding FP being replaced are more focused on WDW.

Thank you for this point -- you're right, I was also very anxious about the fate of annual passes and was envisioning it would be some burdensome thing of having to pay for a certain number of days or getting points for visiting or something, and in the end it was more or less what we had before. Let's hope this ends up being the same.

I, too, was disappointed with the lack of FP/Max Pass upon my return to DL. I’ve been twice since reopening and before each visit I would see all these comments on my Facebook groups and whatnot talking about the short wait times. It just wasn’t my experience. Sure, wait times in general were lower than most of my other trips, but not always. Cars was consistently 75-120, Space was 45-75 most of the day, big thunder was always at 25-35 mins, etc. Those waits weren’t horrible but once you really get the Max Pass system down, know all the little tricks and how to stack them, etc, I would very rarely in a line longer than 10 mins. Between going to the park early, utilizing Early Magic Hour (when I stayed onsite - and which has yet to return either!), and FP, we would just hit ride after ride after ride. It was awesome. I would GLADLY pay a bit more for max pass. I agree with you that having to stop and think about each ride and whether you want to spend the money really sucks the fun out of it.

Yeah, I too had heard that wait times weren't so bad, but when we were there, we saw lines snaking all over the place. Granted that was in social distancing days but the waits were still not fast. In the 'old days' I'd see people in the Radiator Springs Racers standby line with a 90 minute wait and scoff and wonder who the heck would wait in such a long line for a ride. Fast forward to this year and there I was, standing in line for that ride because it was the first time my son was tall enough to go on it and he's a huge cars fan and I never saw the wait time shorter than 75 minutes. They told me that it would be 90 minutes and I refused to believe that it would take that long. It didn't...it took 120 minutes because the ride broke down when we were close to the front and we had to wait for them to fix it. 2 hours in line with a four year old. 2 hours. That is just not a fun vacation.

But, would I have been any happier if at that point I'd been offered the option to pay $60 for myself and my husband and my son to go on the ride faster? Not when that plays out every time we want to go on something. Sucks the fun out of it is a perfect way to put it.