So who's tried a personalized touring plan?

[soniam]

Thank you, I know the MDE app has the wait times but from what I'm reading they don't seem too reliable. I know we are going during a busy time (no other option for us) and I think this will really help me out.

The Disney app just lists what is posted on the attraction at the park. It's hit or miss. I think late in the evening they overestimate. RD can be hard too. I think during the day for average rides, not 7DMT, the times are not bad, but I wouldn't stake an ADR or FP+ on it.

 

[kguenther8]

I have always used the touring plans in the back of the book, and they are awesome. This will be my first time ùsing personalized ones, and I was wondering how well they worked. What exactly is the difference between optimize or evaluate? Do I use one, or both?

 

[hpriamson]

I have always used the touring plans in the back of the book, and they are awesome. This will be my first time ùsing personalized ones, and I was wondering how well they worked. What exactly is the difference between optimize or evaluate? Do I use one, or both?

When you do a personalized plan, first you pick all your attractions, shows, meal breaks, and enter any fastpasses you already have. When you click "Optimize", it puts everything in what it thinks is the best order for you, and tells you how long each wait will be, how long it will take to get between each event, etc. It will try to get you to your meals as close to your selected time as possible. But say you realize that you don't want to go on Splash Mountain at 9:30 PM in February - you can drag that particular event to wherever you want it in the schedule. Then, you click "Evaluate", and it will recalculate all the waits, walk times, etc based on your new schedule, but will NOT move anything around. From that point on, you never want to click "Optimize" again, because it will reshuffle everything back to its "best" plan.

"Evaluate" will pop up a warning if something time scheduled - a meal or a break - is no longer doable because of your schedule - e.g. if you pick Soarin twice and Test track twice before your 11:00 scheduled lunch, it will tell you you're not going to make it. At that point, you can either move the lunch, or change around the schedule.


Short version -

"Optimize" - rearrange everything as it likes to come up with a "best" plan.
"Evaluate" - take things in the order you've selected, and just calculate wait/walk/free times.

 

[kguenther8]

Thank you! That really makes sense to me the way you explained. I was wondering if once I optimize my plan, but then want to move a couple things, if that totally messes it up. But now I think I can do that. I am still 184 days out, so just about to make ADR's and then I have awhile for fastpass reservations. But, I wanted to get an idea for ADR on what park, what day, etc. I am a total planner, but the amount of planning for Disney is really almost overboard! But I feel, necessary.

 

[hpriamson]

One piece of advice - if you get a plan you're pretty happy with, but think you might want to tinker with some more, either print it out or make a copy of it on the website. Each time you Evaluate or Optimize, you lose everything you've done in the past, so if your tinkering turns out to be terrible, there's no easy way to go back to what you liked before.

 

[Lovetherodent]

Or just make a new plan with a new name. I do have a subscription (don't know if things are different with a free account), but I have several alternative touring plans for each day.

 

[hydrotony]

I'm curious to where people are seeing a free personalized touring plan? When I go to touringplans.com it says I must be a subscriber to do a personalized touring plan?

People may be confusing terms. Touring Plans has dozens of pre-made plans based on your situation i.e. Family with children, Couples with no children, Seniors with no thrill rides, start at rope drop, start at 11am, etc. Personalized plans are part of Lines, the app that comes with the subscription. This is where you pick your attractions and Lines arranges the plan. It also has a "Done" button for when you do something (FP+ rides cause this or unexpected short lines when you walk by). I have a subscription so I don't know all the free stuff you can get since I get everything.

 

[hpriamson]

Personalized plans are available on the website too. You can create, optimize, shuffle around, Evaluate all from the website. You have to have an account to use personalized plans however, and you can see the the personalized plans from the website or the Lines app.

http://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/touring-plans/personalized

 

[DisneySOS]

I purchased it and have been playing around with it. Thank you so much for explaining the optimizing and evaluate so clearly! I was doing it wrong and was getting aggravated that it kept moving my stuff around. For instance if at all possible we would like to ride RNR and ST twice (don't have little kids so we won't be doing a bunch of other time consuming stuff) and it kept putting them back to back!
I downloaded the app too, but I need to figure out the website version first.

 

[may1787]

I love these, but I haven't used them in action yet. My inner type A is just enjoying the planning aspect.

 

[Good Deeds]

I subscribed yesterday and spent some of my snow day playing with some plans. I am going during Spring break and know that the wait times will be much longer than are listed on my plan . Do I optimize when I get to the park to get the best plan or am i missing something? The wait times are currently under 5 minutes. That can't be right !! Help please...

 

[SafariTigger]

I set up personalized touring plans for the first time two years ago and everyone thought I was crazy and teased about things like "did you schedule time to go to the bathroom?" but when we used them we got more done in a day then we ever have before! We weren't able to stick to it minute by minute but it at least gave us an order to follow and the wait times were pretty close. I'm definitely using them again this year!

 

[nat8199]

I love hearing good touring plan stories. I have mine made for our Sept 2015 trip and I am excited to use them. I had them the last trip, too, but that one was a bit of a disaster. Hoping for a great time!

 

[hpriamson]

I subscribed yesterday and spent some of my snow day playing with some plans. I am going during Spring break and know that the wait times will be much longer than are listed on my plan . Do I optimize when I get to the park to get the best plan or am i missing something? The wait times are currently under 5 minutes. That can't be right !! Help please...

You're sure you set the date of the visit to the park correctly? I have personalized plans for April 21-25, and they all have the kind of wait times I'd expect - 40+ minutes in the afternoon for headliners.

 

[Good Deeds]

You're sure you set the date of the visit to the park correctly? I have personalized plans for April 21-25, and they all have the kind of wait times I'd expect - 40+ minutes in the afternoon for headliners.

I thought I did my dates correctly I'm going to try again. Mine are only showing 5 minute wait times for March 30 when the parks are at a 9\10 for crowds I wish...

 

[DisneySOS]

I plan to use them as a general guide. Except for one ADR per day I didn't block out any meals nor did I even attempt bathroom breaks - my family already teases me, if they say I scheduled bathroom times I'd never hear the end of it!

 

[Lovetherodent]

You can not schedule them and tell them your new motto is Bathroom Breaks are for the weak!

 

[ekatiel]

So, I think touring plans is smoking some wacky-tabacky this morning. I made a "just in case" morning plan for the morning after our post-midnight arrival, and it tells me there will be an 11 minute wait for Peter Pan at rope drop (8am), and only a 9 minute wait an hour later at 9am. Not possible, right? Or am I missing something?

 

[disneyfantotheend]

I made mine for our upcoming trip. No matter if I use them or not, they were super fun to make. LOL!!!

 

[soniam]

So, I think touring plans is smoking some wacky-tabacky this morning. I made a "just in case" morning plan for the morning after our post-midnight arrival, and it tells me there will be an 11 minute wait for Peter Pan at rope drop (8am), and only a 9 minute wait an hour later at 9am. Not possible, right? Or am I missing something?

Seems completely reasonable. It's a popular ride, and people may want to save their FP+ for the mountains and A&E. They could do PP at RD instead. A lot of people may rush over there and cause a bit of a blockage. Once people have started going through and clearing out and more people are not rushing over from RD, then yah, it could ease up a bit. I have seen it in TP before and have seen it in person. They do use the actual wait times info from Disney and other mathematical algorithms. I would trust what it says. Except for weird anomalies where it might stick a bunch of free time between something, it has been pretty incredibly accurate for me.