MaxPass for a 3 year old

[meredith55]

We will be going in November with our kids and parents. My son is 3 years old so we will obviously pay for his ticket, but what about MaxPass? He is small and will not be 40” by then, so he won’t be doing any thrill rides. But I’m wondering about Buzz, Small World, and HM? Does he need MaxPass? Or since he’s most likely on one of our laps, are we okay to not get it? I want to be honest, but if I don’t need to spend $10 a day for him I’d rather not! What do you guys think? Thanks!

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

We will be going in November with our kids and parents. My son is 3 years old so we will obviously pay for his ticket, but what about MaxPass? He is small and will not be 40” by then, so he won’t be doing any thrill rides. But I’m wondering about Buzz, Small World, and HM? Does he need MaxPass? Or since he’s most likely on one of our laps, are we okay to not get it? I want to be honest, but if I don’t need to spend $10 a day for him I’d rather not! What do you guys think? Thanks!

If everyone else is getting MaxPass I’d probably get it for him too to make it easy to go on non-thrill fastpass rides all together like HM, Buzz, IASW and Roger Rabbit. Unless you dont foresee yourselves riding these. You could also grab fastpasses with his ticket for other adults... it would give you an extra FP.

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

Btw, I'm pretty sure he won't be able to lap-sit on any of the rides.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Btw, I'm pretty sure he won't be able to lap-sit on any of the rides.

Hmmmm I missed this. For your 3 year old to enter the fastpass line with you, he needs a fastpass too.

 

[whistlinmickey]

I think you can also mix regular FastPass with MaxPass. If your son doesn’t have MaxPass associated with his ticket, you should be able to get regular FastPasses for everyone by scanning the physical tickets at the kiosks. The reason I would recommend scanning tickets at the kiosks is because MaxPass reservations often have return times available for them that are not available for regular FastPass users. But I think the kiosks would help make sure the return times are the same or close to the same for all tickets.

 

[smartlabelprint]

You could get fast passes from the kiosks for all of you just for those rides.

 

[agamble]

You can buy MP on a day by day basis. You could try it the first day without buying him MP. As a PP mentioned you are able to use both MP and regular FP. So you could pull Buzz, Smallworld, etc. the old fashioned way. Keep in mind this does kind of negate the benefits of MP as you would have to physically go to a kiosk to get his FP. We used 3 MP a few times for our family (kids were 7, 4, and 2). This worked for us because we were not using FP on rides like Smallworld (doesn't really need FP except at Christmas) and we had to do rider swapping since our 2 y/o was not tall enough for coasters. That is also something else to consider. If you and your spouse are rider swapping you may not even both need MP. It would really depend on what you are doing.

To answer the actual question of if he needs MP/FP. Yes, to get in a FP line a ticketed guest is expected to have their own FP. So it really comes down to how you plan to use the FP system.

 

[disneymom0104]

We got Maxpass for our 3 year old last year. It just made everything easier to have everyone coordinated with return times, etc. No regrets for us.

 

[meredith55]

Thanks all! My parents aren’t big thrill riders so we probably won’t use child swap this time. We’ll go on a day to day basis for MaxPass for the 3 year old since we probably won’t ride those other ones every day. Always so nice to get everyone’s advice on here!

 

[geekswearlpstk2]

I think he needs a fastpass if you want to rider switch too. . .not 100% on that though. (and I got Maxpass for my mom last time and used it like a bonus fastpass as she didn't go on many of the "thrill" rides)

 

[starshine514]

We were in the same situation, but not for our 3-yr-old (who was 40") last year. My mom only rides Small World, Buzz and Toy Story with FP. We went ahead and added it to her AP anyway. We do use her FP for others at times and it's still worth it to not have to walk across the park to pull manual FPs for those rides.

 

[starshine514]

I think he needs a fastpass if you want to rider switch too. . .not 100% on that though. (and I got Maxpass for my mom last time and used it like a bonus fastpass as she didn't go on many of the "thrill" rides)

Only the people riding the first time need a FP to rider swap (and then only if going into the FP line). subsequent riders will use the rider swap passes and do not need FP.

 

[agamble]

I think he needs a fastpass if you want to rider switch too. . .not 100% on that though. (and I got Maxpass for my mom last time and used it like a bonus fastpass as she didn't go on many of the "thrill" rides)

Definitely not. In fact if you ride swap and have two adults and one non riding kid you could buy just one Max Pass. For example I had MP on my AP. If I wanted I could have ridden Star Tours with a MP on my phone and asked that my husband get a rider swap pass if he was staying off with the baby. Then he could ride with the swap pass. Then we could repeat with Indiana Jones, etc. That is what we did (back in old FP days) when we had just one young child. No need to pull two FP. HOWEVER, you can also use MP with two adults to avoid the hassle of swap passes. They often want to see the non rider and "baby". So this means that Mom, Dad, and baby have to all go to Space Mountain to get the rider swap. If they both have MP though one could stay with baby in Fantasyland while the other goes to Space. So it is about what works for the family.

 

[geekswearlpstk2]

Definitely not. In fact if you ride swap and have two adults and one non riding kid you could buy just one Max Pass. For example I had MP on my AP. If I wanted I could have ridden Star Tours with a MP on my phone and asked that my husband get a rider swap pass if he was staying off with the baby. Then he could ride with the swap pass. Then we could repeat with Indiana Jones, etc. That is what we did (back in old FP days) when we had just one young child. No need to pull two FP. HOWEVER, you can also use MP with two adults to avoid the hassle of swap passes. They often want to see the non rider and "baby". So this means that Mom, Dad, and baby have to all go to Space Mountain to get the rider swap. If they both have MP though one could stay with baby in Fantasyland while the other goes to Space. So it is about what works for the family.

Odd. . when we were there last month - we did Indy and they made sure all adults had FP on the app when I asked for Rider Switch before they would issue. (He was 2 at the time, so he didn't need a ticket obviously) So I think all riders actually do need a FP. (but probably not the kid)

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Odd. . when we were there last month - we did Indy and they made sure all adults had FP on the app when I asked for Rider Switch before they would issue. (He was 2 at the time, so he didn't need a ticket obviously) So I think all riders actually do need a FP. (but probably not the kid)

They've recently changed the RS policy to work this way at Disney World (or started enforcing it, at least?), and it's wreaking HAVOC there because people book those FPs months in advance and only booked one FP for headliners they planned to Rider Swap when now they need more... lots of confusion and different CMs doing different things... seems like a bit of a nightmare.

We have friends who Rider Swapped last week as agamble described, so it's still working that way at DL at least some of the time, but they really need to get a firm, universal Rider Swap policy going on both coasts!

 

[agamble]

They've recently changed the RS policy to work this way at Disney World (or started enforcing it, at least?), and it's wreaking HAVOC there because people book those FPs months in advance and only booked one FP for headliners they planned to Rider Swap when now they need more... lots of confusion and different CMs doing different things... seems like a bit of a nightmare.

We have friends who Rider Swapped last week as agamble described, so it's still working that way at DL at least some of the time, but they really need to get a firm, universal Rider Swap policy going on both coasts!

Yikes! That would be pretty crazy at WDW where people booked 6 months out and were not expecting that. Also odd at DL. There is little point to rider swapping if you are just going to use a FP unless the wait for FP was super long. In that case don't bother with rider swapping except on the few rides with height requirements that don't have FP. It doesn't really make a lot of sense.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Yikes! That would be pretty crazy at WDW where people booked 6 months out and were not expecting that. Also odd at DL. There is little point to rider swapping if you are just going to use a FP unless the wait for FP was super long. In that case don't bother with rider swapping except on the few rides with height requirements that don't have FP. It doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Well, the two remaining "benefits" are that if you have older children, they can ride twice on one FP (so they could ride with both parents), and also, say you have 10:00-11:00 FPs, but you don't get over there until 10:45... the "swap" gives you a little more flexibility on time.

But overall, yeah, rider swap is significantly less useful than it used to be. And yeah, when we went to WDW in 2016, we travelled with another couple who had a one-year-old... so each of them made 3 different FP reservations, which they then swapped on, so they got a total of six FP rides that way. Whether people think that's "right" or "fair" or not, that's how it worked, so it sounds like a lot of people this summer booked FPs accordingly and got burned!