For those of you who haven’t been to Disneyland since before early 2017, your experience with FastPasses included the following: you’d rush to the FastPass kiosks for the ride you wanted a FastPass for, check the FastPass return time to see if it works for you (or if there are any FastPasses left for the day), wait in line for a FastPass, insert each park ticket (meaning you had to have physical possession of each person’s park ticket), and then hold on to a paper FastPass for each person to scan at your return time.

For those of you who have only been to Disneyworld, you probably don’t understand why people would do any of the above and just wouldn’t get their FastPasses 60 days in advance!  In Disneyland, FastPasses are only available once you’ve arrived at the park, and that’s not going to change any time soon because of the dependence on the southern California residents who might decide the same day that they want to go to Disneyland (as opposed to Orlando where most people are traveling from out of the area and planning 60 days in advance isn’t out of the question).

Starting in 2017, Disneyland got a technology upgrade with the introduction of the MaxPass- a way to get FastPasses on your phone through the Disneyland app.  The general information on the MaxPass can be found here:  https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/maxpass/

We were excited to try out the MaxPass on our most recent and it did not disappoint!  I don’t think we can ever go back to paper FastPasses after our experience.  It made our trip more efficient and more enjoyable.  So we wanted to share with you our top seven reasons that you should consider using the MaxPass at Disneyland and California Adventure:

1. It’s cheap (for now). As of the date of this post, the MaxPass is $15 per day per person, or if you have an annual pass, it is $100 per person to add on the MaxPass.  Yes this can add up with large families, but the benefits you get (described below) make this price a bargain.  When you’re spending $100-$200 per day for a ticket, wasted time is wasted money, so conversely, saving time is…well, you get it.
2. It comes with PhotoPass. You can currently buy a PhotoPass for a week for $78, and we really recommend adding PhotoPass to your trip every time, so getting this for free with your MaxPass is a great value.  PhotoPass allows you to get EVERY ride picture and to take advantage of the awesome photographers throughout the parks without worrying about an additional expense.
3. You save the time going from one area (or park) to another to get your next FastPass. This is the biggest game changer of them all.  Once you’ve entered either park you can get FastPasses for any FastPass ride in either   So, while I’m in line about to jump in Lightning McQueen for a race in Radiator Springs, I’m also booking a FastPass at the Matterhorn.  This is a tremendous convenience and helps a ton with planning your day and using time wisely!
4. You don’t have to carry around everyone’s tickets (and risk losing them). Before MaxPass, I carried all of our family’s tickets (plus my mother-in-law’s) so I could run to a FastPass distribution machine, pull out all the tickets, run each through the machine, and put them back in my wallet, all while keeping the park tickets separate from the FastPass return tickets.  It is a miracle I didn’t lose our tickets going through this process ten times a day.  With MaxPass this whole process is on the app, so everyone can hold onto their own tickets, and you’re not constantly pulling tickets out in the parks.
5. You can get a FastPass as soon as you walk through the turn styles (including during Extra Magic Morning Hour). This is the best with Extra Magic Mornings.  For example, as soon as we get into California Adventure during the EMM, I can get a FastPass for Radiator Springs Racers with a return time of the first hour the park is open.  So while the general public is entering the park, I am already going back for my second ride through the FastPass line.
6. Get more FastPasses sooner. Paper FastPasses are available at the earlier of (a) 2 hours from the time you got your last FastPass; or (b) time your current FastPass return hour  (unless your return hour is less than 30 minutes from the time it was issued, in which event it is 30 minutes from the time the FastPass was issued); or (c) the time you use your FastPass.  With MaxPass, that two hours is reduced to 1.5 hours.  This is a huge benefit when you are looking at those rides (e.g. Radiator Springs Racers) with far out return times and you can get your next fast pass 30 minutes earlier.
7. When a ride breaks down during your return time, your FastPass automatically converts to a universal FastPass returnable at any of the FastPass rides in that park anytime the rest of the day. This is an impossible system to plan, but when it works out, this is a fantastic perk.  Imagine you have a Fastpass for Haunted Mansion, which is great, but not that hard to get.  Then you get a text that the ride is down and your FastPass has been modified.  Now, that Haunted Mansion FastPass is a Universal FastPass that you can use anytime that day at the Matterhorn, Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, Star Tours, Thunder Mountain or Roger Rabbit.  That’s a serious upgrade and a really nice gesture for the inconvenience of a ride going down.

We hope these tips were helpful.  Subscribe below for updates when we upload new posts.  Our next post will be our top tips (including our #1 top Disneyland tip) for navigating Disneyland with infants!