Useful MaxPass strategy, park report and pics

WonkaKid

DIS Veteran
Joined
Apr 2, 2009
Brief posting tonight folks because it's late and I'm tired. Incidentally, I know I said my park visit schedule was going to change. Well, circumstance no longer warrant that so I should be back on my regular schedule :-).

OK. As I exited Buzz after my last game of the day (when I finally broke 2M), a woman approached me and asked about my score. When she asked my name and I told her it was Rob, she got excited and said she'd heard about me. So we talked for about 20 minutes on various DL subjects. Towards the end of our conversation she told me something to try with MaxPass to get the best out of it and potentially score more FPs. She explained that MP updates once every five minutes. So: if you're outside of an attraction and you see that the next FP return time is two hours in the future, she suggested that you wait a few minutes and check again. Apparently if a substantial number of FPs aren't used at that time, more may be released. That is, you can be outside of HM at 1:00 and see that there are FPs available with a 4:00 return time. However, you're anxious to get on the ride so you check the app a few minutes later and you may find that much earlier FPs have been released. She said that it worked for her regularly. So -- good time. Certainly I hadn't heard it before.

Park report

Crowds were great! They were low all day. We suspected that was due to most of the out-of-town guests having left that day. In fact, at around 9:30, the line for Buzz didn't even extend to the outside of the attraction.

I was up front for PP and then we were second and third for Toad. I did a number of Buzz rounds but couldn't capture a really strong score for most of the day. In the late morning I made it to 1.9M. As I mention above, on my last ride of the day, that's when I scored 2,061,200. Nice way to round out my day :-)

May post more tomorrow. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

Oh -- it was nice to be approached by @B3rlingirl as we were about to leave Fantasyland at around 8:30. She recognized me from the boards and spent a few hours with us, which was nice. We did several rounds of Buzz, Pirates and then Space Mountain. She had a 1:30 reservation at BB and we met briefly before that. I left shortly thereafter. Overall, a pretty good day.

Park pics!

No captions tonight, BTW. May add them tomorrow. I suspect readers can get along without them at least once.

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Moments after the park has opened.
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Yes, it was fun to meet Rob in person and to enjoy the morning with him.

I actually catchend a glimpse of him at the rope. I wasn’t expecting him to be there so wasn’t quite sure. Next time I spotted him he was walking in front of the mad crowd on the drawbridge. So I knew it must have been him. When he was walking through the queue of PP he wore a bright and happy grin on his face... I lost track of him when I was riding dumbo but as a regular reader I roughly knew where to expect him... I decided to try out Alice (my first time on that ride actually) and spotted him when he was just getting on. Since I knew he hadn’t ridden Dumbo yet I walked back to dumbo and finally cornered him afterwards... :rotfl:
 
I didn't know that about Max Pass FPs! Thanks for mentioning it! Will definitely take advantage of that on our next visit!
 
She explained that MP updates once every five minutes. So: if you're outside of an attraction and you see that the next FP return time is two hours in the future, she suggested that you wait a few minutes and check again. Apparently if a substantial number of FPs aren't used at that time, more may be released. That is, you can be outside of HM at 1:00 and see that there are FPs available with a 4:00 return time. However, you're anxious to get on the ride so you check the app a few minutes later and you may find that much earlier FPs have been released. She said that it worked for her regularly. So -- good time. Certainly I hadn't heard it before.

Did she mean that the time posted at the FastPass distribution kiosks actually rolled back to an earlier return time? Or was it strictly when using MaxPass on the app that she saw an earlier return time after waiting a few minutes?

If she had only seen this while using the app, I would think it is possible that she was actually getting someone else's canceled FastPass for an earlier time (which happens a lot) and then supplying a mistaken explanation that Disney had released more FastPasses. I'd be interested in hearing @Skyegirl1999's thoughts, if she has any insights about Disney possibly releasing new FastPasses with earlier return times than those already distributed.
 


Yeah, this sounds like someone experiencing what have assumed to be canceled FPS to this point and reading into what has been happening.
 
If she had only seen this while using the app, I would think it is possible that she was actually getting someone else's canceled FastPass for an earlier time (which happens a lot) and then supplying a mistaken explanation that Disney had released more FastPasses. I'd be interested in hearing @Skyegirl1999's thoughts, if she has any insights about Disney possibly releasing new FastPasses with earlier return times than those already distributed.

I've often wondered if fast passes that aren't used get "auto-cancelled" by the system and fed into the MaxPass app. While I'm sure that there are a lot of fast passes actively canceled by users that wind up there, It seems that with so many of us playing MP-roulette that there wouldn't be enough to go around. I suspect the system knows how many fps were issued for a given timeframe, and how many have been used, and so could periodically release some that just didn't get used. This could include passes that are obtained via MaxPass as well as kiosks, but only released to the MP users who are paying for the perk.

I could be wrong, but in the end the nuts and bolts don't matter much. I am curious to test out the 5 minute theory, though - last time I worked to pick up canceled passes I just sat there refreshing. Never made a note of time intervals at which things popped up. If it really happens every 5 minutes, that will be interesting.
 
I've often wondered if fast passes that aren't used get "auto-cancelled" by the system and fed into the MaxPass app. ...

I could be wrong, but in the end the nuts and bolts don't matter much. I am curious to test out the 5 minute theory, though - last time I worked to pick up canceled passes I just sat there refreshing. ...

A couple comments: I don't think the system would auto cancel fast passes because the person holding them can scan in right at the end of their time window (actually even slightly after). Auto canceling after that would not add more capacity to later time frames. Well, I suppose that unused fast passes would mean that many fewer people in the standby line very briefly. But I don't think the system tries to manage it that closely.

Second thought on the 5 min refresh. If I put the app in the list mode (where you see all the attractions in a text list) I can see when it refreshes - it flashes and redraws the list. They did leave it at the point you scrolled too (thanks) and you can see if it changed without having to manually refresh anything. At least it appears this way when I do it from home. Have not had opportunity to try it at the park.
 
Second thought on the 5 min refresh. If I put the app in the list mode (where you see all the attractions in a text list) I can see when it refreshes - it flashes and redraws the list. They did leave it at the point you scrolled too (thanks) and you can see if it changed without having to manually refresh anything. At least it appears this way when I do it from home. Have not had opportunity to try it at the park.

I have been reverse engineering the Disneyland app a bit for a side-project (more on that soon, hopefully) and it appears they open a persistent connection in the app to get streaming updates (which is related to the behavior you are seeing). I don’t think though the refresh rate on the client has much to do with any backend processes that may be adding FPs to the pool although you never know.
 
Where are the horse and carriage located?

(I don't usually spend too much time in Fantasyland, but now that I'll be bringing a 5-year-old with me on my next trip, I figure I should bone up on the more kid-friendly attractions.)
 
My husband was checking wait times yesterday and remarked that wait times looked pretty good. I wish we could’ve gone!
 
Where are the horse and carriage located?

(I don't usually spend too much time in Fantasyland, but now that I'll be bringing a 5-year-old with me on my next trip, I figure I should bone up on the more kid-friendly attractions.)
I'm 99% sure it's in the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. If it's not, I'm excited to hear where!
 
Where are the horse and carriage located?

(I don't usually spend too much time in Fantasyland, but now that I'll be bringing a 5-year-old with me on my next trip, I figure I should bone up on the more kid-friendly attractions.)
See my answer below :-).
 
Brief posting tonight folks because it's late and I'm tired. Incidentally, I know I said my park visit schedule was going to change. Well, circumstance no longer warrant that so I should be back on my regular schedule :-).

OK. As I exited Buzz after my last game of the day (when I finally broke 2M), a woman approached me and asked about my score. When she asked my name and I told her it was Rob, she got excited and said she'd heard about me. So we talked for about 20 minutes on various DL subjects. Towards the end of our conversation she told me something to try with MaxPass to get the best out of it and potentially score more FPs. She explained that MP updates once every five minutes. So: if you're outside of an attraction and you see that the next FP return time is two hours in the future, she suggested that you wait a few minutes and check again. Apparently if a substantial number of FPs aren't used at that time, more may be released. That is, you can be outside of HM at 1:00 and see that there are FPs available with a 4:00 return time. However, you're anxious to get on the ride so you check the app a few minutes later and you may find that much earlier FPs have been released. She said that it worked for her regularly. So -- good time. Certainly I hadn't heard it before.

Park report

Crowds were great! They were low all day. We suspected that was due to most of the out-of-town guests having left that day. In fact, at around 9:30, the line for Buzz didn't even extend to the outside of the attraction.

I was up front for PP and then we were second and third for Toad. I did a number of Buzz rounds but couldn't capture a really strong score for most of the day. In the late morning I made it to 1.9M. As I mention above, on my last ride of the day, that's when I scored 2,061,200. Nice way to round out my day :-)

May post more tomorrow. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

Oh -- it was nice to be approached by @B3rlingirl as we were about to leave Fantasyland at around 8:30. She recognized me from the boards and spent a few hours with us, which was nice. We did several rounds of Buzz, Pirates and then Space Mountain. She had a 1:30 reservation at BB and we met briefly before that. I left shortly thereafter. Overall, a pretty good day.

Park pics!

No captions tonight, BTW. May add them tomorrow. I suspect readers can get along without them at least once.

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Moments after the park has opened.
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Brief posting tonight folks because it's late and I'm tired. Incidentally, I know I said my park visit schedule was going to change. Well, circumstance no longer warrant that so I should be back on my regular schedule :-).

OK. As I exited Buzz after my last game of the day (when I finally broke 2M), a woman approached me and asked about my score. When she asked my name and I told her it was Rob, she got excited and said she'd heard about me. So we talked for about 20 minutes on various DL subjects. Towards the end of our conversation she told me something to try with MaxPass to get the best out of it and potentially score more FPs. She explained that MP updates once every five minutes. So: if you're outside of an attraction and you see that the next FP return time is two hours in the future, she suggested that you wait a few minutes and check again. Apparently if a substantial number of FPs aren't used at that time, more may be released. That is, you can be outside of HM at 1:00 and see that there are FPs available with a 4:00 return time. However, you're anxious to get on the ride so you check the
Par
 
Did she mean that the time posted at the FastPass distribution kiosks actually rolled back to an earlier return time? Or was it strictly when using MaxPass on the app that she saw an earlier return time after waiting a few minutes?

If she had only seen this while using the app, I would think it is possible that she was actually getting someone else's canceled FastPass for an earlier time (which happens a lot) and then supplying a mistaken explanation that Disney had released more FastPasses. I'd be interested in hearing @Skyegirl1999's thoughts, if she has any insights about Disney possibly releasing new FastPasses with earlier return times than those already distributed.

Hi! It was me that met Rob!! And I am terrible at social media and posting things lol. I have no idea if this will work or not but my name is Rachel and my son Jackson and I met Rob at the Buzz lightyear attraction on Sunday. It was our FIRST ride of the day lol. I might add the fact that I am pretty good at Buzz and was right next to Rob...which is how I knew EXACTLY who he was lol. I’ve been chasing his score for years! And I was chasing his targets on Sunday. HOW he does it, is beyond my comprehension!!

My son Jackson got his first million yesterday!! We were 6&7 on the board (ironically we have Bengal cats named six and seven lol).

I am not going to explain the useful max pass strategy because I am still totally trying to figure this out. It’s just something I happened to notice on our last trip and I DID utilize it to my advantage this trip. When we were in our uber to LAX last nite I was able to keep taking screenshots. I will post these pictures and LET YOU DECIDE???!!! PLEASE tell me what you think!? This is NOT for beginners at maxpass. This is highly advanced stuff. Behold! (Wait how do I add pictures?)
 

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