Frustrated With Using Personalized Touring Plans - Please Help

[Kari-B]

I purchased a Touring Plans subscription for the sole reason to utilize the personalized tour plans. I've been playing around with plans for quite a while. I can't seem to get something that works or makes sense in my mind.

Whenever I use the optimize option it puts things in orders that I don't think make much sense. For example ETWB it keeps putting it middle of day with large wait time, Merida meet it puts mid-day and tells me zero wait. On an Epcot plan I want to ride Soarin' twice, but it puts them right in a row. If I move the second ride to another spot the wait time is huge (understandable), but how do I add that I want to get a fast pass for this second ride?

Can anyone help with tips on figuring this out. Advice? Thanks!

 

[LisaTN]

I'm just getting started with touringplans as well. I love it mostly, but I'm having some of the same issues.

I know that the wait time for Merida will be at least 30 minutes, but it shows most meet and greets as zero wait.

It also has me picking up fast passes one after another and I'm pretty sure I can't get another fast pass until the time for the next FP passes.

I think your best bet is to not use the optimize button for what you want to do. You can manually add in Fast Pass pickups.

I really do like TP, but hope they get some support for those of us with questions. I sent an email to the contact email, but never heard back.

Good luck and if you figure it out, let us know!!!

 

[Kari-B]

Could you explain exactly how I add the fastpass? I must be dense and can't seem to figure that out. Thanks!

 

[LisaTN]

To add the fast pass pickup, goto the bottom of the plan and find the button for "Add attraction"... when the box comes up with the drop down menu, click the arrow, and then scroll all the way down to the bottom where the "Fast Pass" booths are and click add. Then you can drag it to the part of your schedule you want to pick up the fast pass...

Hope that helps

 

[Kari-B]

Thank you!!!

 

[clandoc5803]

I'm a big fan of the personalized touring plans. Our family used them to great effect on our last few trips. I'm guessing that the reason for the longer waits in the afternoon are the trade-off for minimizing the wait times on all of the things that you've selected for later on in the day.

In my experience, if you focus on using the plan for the first 5-6 attractions of the day, you will have more opportunity to wing it later on. The plans are most effective early!

 

[TinkerbellinLouisian]

IF You want to ride Soarin twice... then I can understand why it would place them back to back because that would be most efficient....

I've never used any touring plans... just done them myself....

But for Soarin'... most times early in the day you can FP then ride then use your FPs... OR mix in other LAND attractions and come back...

Have a magical visit !
Mary

 

[outlawstar223]

Hello Kari-B I think that you should remove both"Characters from The Princess and the Frog" and "Brave Meet and Greet" if you are using them. They both report 0 wait time even though we all know there is a line. I have already emailed the touring plans people but they have not fixed it. Once you do that try the optimization again. Maybe if you post your TP we can make sense of why it is doing what it is doing.

 

[LisaTN]

I just heard back from Touring Plans... they gave me a great way to add in "wait times" for those meet and greats... she suggested adding a "Break" after the meet and greet to accomodate for those waits... she mentioned that they cut off the lines -so the wait for all intermitent characters *should* rarely be more than 45 minutes. So I'm adding a 30 minute break after each greet... just to be safe.

 

[Kari-B]

Thanks for all the replies!

I realize doing Soarin' first, twice in a row would be the least amount of waiting, but I just don't want to do again right away. Or am I making a mistake doing that?

So what are the first attractions you would suggest for Magic Kingdom? I guess am I just a little thrown by what Touring Plans is suggesting (although I do understand the logic). It seems like everything I've read here is different. Like doing ETWB, Merida, Peter Pan, and the mountains first. Touring Plans is saying things like Astro Orbiter (I get this is slow loading, but it a low priority to me), Winnie The Pooh, Buzz...

Thanks for any and all input!

 

[erincon23]

This isn't a hopeful reply... I've tried using Touring Plans a couple of times, and bought a year subscription (at a discounted price, thank heavens), and while the people who work there are very nice and helpful, the system just doesn't work well. When I tried to use it for my June trip, it showed 500-minute wait times (during a non-busy day); it would put my 5 pm dinner at 9:30. For a while, until the Touring Plans people contacted me and we worked back and forth together, they had all the buildings in Epcot labeled wrong (The Land was labeled as where Figment is, etc). For my Oct. trip, I only used it to make the list I wanted, didn't bother trying to do a timed plan of any kind because it didn't work out.

If it doesn't end up working for you, at least it didn't cost very much.

 

[Kari-B]

No, not hopeful, but truthful. Thanks!

I am a little frustrated that I bought it right now. I was not going to, haven't used touring plans before. But since they added the personalized plans I ended up finally having a moment of weakness and buying it.

I frustrated also with how I have to choose a restaurant to eat at and then when I have touring plans make a plan it has me running all over Epcot. For example touring Mexico, then eating at Sunshine Seasons, then touring Norway.
I guess I'm expecting too much with these and should just let it go, huh?

One more question. Those of you have used touring plans at least once and also gone without using plans, what do you prefer now? Thanks

 

[smellyia]

I got touring plans last year. One day we tried that and another used easywdw. Easywdw was much more efficient, less work and FREE. now we know what we want and I find easywdw more flexible to helping me get through the mornings with lots of afternoon free time.

 

[davedmaine]

My advice is not to bother with touring plans..

 

[mom2ntbj]

I have been playing around with the touring plans site also, but I was setting up using the free Disney World touring plans. What is the difference in the free plans that site offers and the ones that you get for $12? I agree that it is a wonky site but I figured it was because I was on the free plans??

 

[DakotaRose]

Try using the Evaluate button instead of Optimize. I generally only use Optimize in the earliest stages of planning. Once I click and drag the order of a few things around to my preference, I just use Evaluate. Checking the total times on the bottom, you'll see the effect of your changes.

I found my personal touring plans to be VERY accurate, especially for the first several (4-6) hours of the day. However, no plan can account for unexpected ride closures and backtracking, the line at lunch being super long due to a cash register issue, extra bathroom breaks, show schedules being changed, etc. So at some point in the day, reality is going to drift off of your schedule. If you've taken care of your higher priorities in the AM, then it won't matter if your afternoon touring plan is 5 or 20 minutes off. You'll still have the general order of things, and will know walking and wait times. Adjust as needed. For me, they made things much simpler since I didn't know my way around.

 

[smellyia]

I have been playing around with the touring plans site also, but I was setting up using the free Disney World touring plans. What is the difference in the free plans that site offers and the ones that you get for $12? I agree that it is a wonky site but I figured it was because I was on the free plans??

The recommendations for easywdw are real time tested by people who frequent the parks. In the forums you can post your plan and they will critique- granted they are pretty staunch about certain things. They're rec days are spot on. They will always tell you to avoid EMH parks or if you go to a morning EMH rec hopping elsewhere later. For example if ETwB is on your MK list, they will ALWAYS rec you to hit that first. I didn't wait more than 10min for anything last year in June following their free advice. The tp for sale just didn't work for us and led to too much crossing the parks.

This is a great post with some sample touring
http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...an-update-and-epcot-ideal-morning/#more-10174

 

[TJDisneymama]

i agree the optimize feature seems wonky lately. i make my own plans using the Evaluate feature, and change it accordingly. i want as little backtracking as possible. if something comes up with a long wait time, i know to put in a FP for it. i tweak it until its perfect. i like that i canfigure out exactly how many attractions we can do before our lunch ADR or before the show times at HS, etc.

 

[Mainebound]

I got touring plans last year. One day we tried that and another used easywdw. Easywdw was much more efficient, less work and FREE. now we know what we want and I find easywdw more flexible to helping me get through the mornings with lots of afternoon free time.

I really like the EasyWDW site, too, but I don't see any touring plans on that site. Can someone point me in the right direction?

 

[WaDiWo]

I have played around with the TouringPlans optimize and evaluate options as well, and have found that you can enter the same set of attractions for the same day two different times and get two different plans.

You can even try to enter the same attractions as an existing published plan but when you optimize it still comes out different.

I was worried about this, and about this being buggy. However, in practice, and in our experience, it worked perfectly --- (that was september though, anyone have any experience during a peak time?)