Someone explain touring plans to me

[Lavitz]

So I consider myself a planner. Making sure FP+/ADR times will match the general area of the park we should be in at a given time in the day so we're not running like crazy, picking parks based on crowd calendars etc.

I just don't get the idea of touring plans though. They tell you where to be every 15 minutes, when to take lunch, and I can see how people might get stressed if they fall behind schedule.

What's the benefit of using a touring plan instead of say, heading to Fantasy Land at rope drop and working clockwise as the day goes on. Because that's basically how I do it, pick an area, keep moving and stopping at interesting rides/stores/shows as we go along. I feel I'm missing out on some obvious fact that other planners have discovered, and if so let me know so I can start looking up those touring plans.

 

[Alesia]

Having a good touring plan allows you to see what you want to see with minimal waits, avoid standing around trying to figure out what you want to do next, and have a realistic idea of what you can do in a day. It doesn't have to be a death march.

 

[Ladcassidy]

I use it to double check my own ideas about what and how much I think my family can accomplish in a certain time frame in the parks. It's also useful to see how the computer would optimize our plans. But I don't look at the output as a schedule that we have to follow -- just another piece of information to consider.

 

[siskaren]

Having a good touring plan allows you to see what you want to see with minimal waits, avoid standing around trying to figure out what you want to do next, and have a realistic idea of what you can do in a day. It doesn't have to be a death march.

This. Also, a touring plan doesn't have to be timed to 15 minute increments, all it really has to be is an order in which to do the attractions.

 

[NavyDad]

A touring plan is about optimizing your time by keeping you one step ahead of the crowds. There is some pretty solid data you can find in multiple places about where, when and why crowds build and flow.

As someone else pointed out - you really don't have to follow it to the minute. Just follow the steps and you will stay ahead most of the crowd. If you feel like you are falling behind or if there is something you just don't want to do you can easily skip a step to make up time.

I personally have gotten a ton of value out of our touring plans subscription but if you just want to try one I would recommend using one of Josh's cheat sheets (his version of a "touring plan") and giving it a try. I think you may be amazed - if you followed it exactly you will likely get more done in less time than you ever have before if you are just walking around...

 

[soniam]

I don't know about Josh's. We have only used Touring Plans. They use queueing theory algorithms based upon past park data to determine where the crowds will be at a particular time and put you where the crowds are not. Their personalized plans are especially great. Even though we have been multiple times now, I still use them every trip. Their Lines app is really good for wait times and FP+ availability.

 

[Anesthesia Fine]

Their Lines app is great because you can adjust plans on the fly if you need to. We've had to make unexpected changes due to kids suddenly desperate to meet Pluto, etc., and at the end of the day we were still pretty much on track. It's also useful for an unplanned day; our last day in the parks the only thing I'd scheduled was a late morning ADR at CP, and we were able to use the app to hit several attractions (no headliners though) before hopping to Epcot for the afternoon.

 

[Mouse of Mystery]

We just make detailed plans from Rope Drop until lunch. We have our FP reservations right after lunch, and then we just slow down and do whatever we want for the rest of the day.

That's just 2-3 hours of detailed plans for the day and it saves us many hours in line. By the end of the trip we've done everything we wanted to do, had plenty of time to relax, and minimized line time. It's totally worth it.

We use EasyWDW plans, but I'm sure any of them are better than none. We're also realistic and are prepared to skip something until later if the time just isn't working for whatever reason. We use the plans but we aren't married to them!

 

[eeyore45]

I really like how Josh at easywdw shows pictures as well as detailed calendar plans, I'm looking forward to using his cheat sheet for our June trip because I feel lost compared to how we toured years ago!

 

[1234lucky]

With touring plans you can also make a plan and then click "done" for the attractions you finished. For us on a day when we fell behind, I recaliberated our plan and got rid of two things we didn't have time for and we went on to finish everything in a slightly different order but without a wait.

 

[kamik86]

I have never used premade touring plans but kind of make my own. Sounds like you do the same. I know what rides I want to hit and where I want to start and what to go to next. Then if I finish early we just wing it from there.

 

[OhThePain]

We have also never used any of the touring plans and really don't get the hype about them. We get our FP+s and ADRs but that's about it. We pretty much just go with the flow and have never missed out on anything, whether we wanted to see it or could take it or leave it. We also don't really do any backtracking either. We also don't mind lines so much, they are what they are. We just think of them as bonus entertainment (who doesn't love good people watching and what better place to people watch then on a line?). We are on vacation and the last thing we want to do is stress ourselves by trying to keep to a strict schedule.

I guess that's the beauty of a WDW trip. There are so many different ways to do it that there is no real right or wrong way.

 

[Ava]

This is my first trip using Touring Plans so I haven't "field tested" them yet but I like that it shows you the duration of the actual attraction and the approximate walking time between locations. I think that will be helpful in making sure we get to our ADRs & FP+ reservations on time.

 

[loves to dive]

We have also never used any of the touring plans and really don't get the hype about them. We get our FP+s and ADRs but that's about it. We pretty much just go with the flow and have never missed out on anything, whether we wanted to see it or could take it or leave it. We also don't really do any backtracking either. We also don't mind lines so much, they are what they are. We just think of them as bonus entertainment (who doesn't love good people watching and what better place to people watch then on a line?). We are on vacation and the last thing we want to do is stress ourselves by trying to keep to a strict schedule.

I guess that's the beauty of a WDW trip. There are so many different ways to do it that there is no real right or wrong way.

We do the same thing, except we make our ADR's on the fly either the night before or the morning of. We pretty much know which park we are going to be in because we have FP so we go with whatever is available. We have even been known to decide in the morning we really don't want to go to that park, cancel all our FPs and either make new ones or go without. We are pretty laid back though and we've been surprised a time or two with just going with the flow.

 

[smiths02]

This is my first trip using Touring Plans so I haven't "field tested" them yet but I like that it shows you the duration of the actual attraction and the approximate walking time between locations. I think that will be helpful in making sure we get to our ADRs & FP+ reservations on time.

This is not my first trip looking at TP, but this will be my first trip having an app on my phone, so I will probably use it more b/c I can constantly update it.

What I'm finding for us is that it is helping someone who only goes every 3-4 years get a good grasp on walking distances and wait times and attraction duration for our time of year. I now have a better idea of what we might get done. I also have a better idea of when we have openings for things that we can't plan ahead like JTA and it helped me plan our FP+ a little better
I also like the idea of being able to press DONE and having a little record of a our trip without having to write it down as we go.

But for us, I didn't let TP make my schedule. I had an idea, like Monday we will have pre-park CRT breakfast then hit rope drop and Fantasyland, Tomorrowland. When we go on Wednesday, we make rope drop and start with Frontierland and have some FP+ to do some things in Fastasyland and Tomorrowland.

 

[Lavitz]

Based on your responses I think I might try out what a few of you suggested and use a cheat sheet on EasyWDW as a loose guide for a day to see if I notice any improvements. Thanks everyone!

 

[Ava]

But for us, I didn't let TP make my schedule. I had an idea, like Monday we will have pre-park CRT breakfast then hit rope drop and Fantasyland, Tomorrowland. When we go on Wednesday, we make rope drop and start with Frontierland and have some FP+ to do some things in Fastasyland and Tomorrowland.

Same. I used crowd calendars to choose my park days, then made ADRs based on which parks we'd be in. Now I'm working on touring plans so I can have our FP+ needs figured out before my window opens next month. I have a pretty good idea of what we want to see in each park, so I'm just using TP to help me figure out how to best fit it all in and where FP+ will save us the most time.

A lot of the pre-made touring plans (easyWDW, KtP, etc.) don't really work for us because they don't plan for an afternoon break outside the park, and have you scheduling your FP+ in the 1-3pm range. This makes sense from a time-saving perspective, as those are some of the busiest hours in the parks, but that's when we need to be back at the hotel for our 2yo to take a nap. That's one thing I like a lot about TP, you can enter in a break outside the park and it will arrange your attractions & FP+ recommendations around that break time.

 

[agavegirl1]

I have used Touring Plans in combination with my own ideas. I found that you CAN schedule a midday break in Touring Plans as well as set park arrival and departure times. I do hoppers so I will often have separate plans for each park on the same day. I like the fact that you can choose your walking speed and choose to minimize walking or standing in line or determine a balance of the two.

 

[kathy884]

I'm a big fan of touring plans. I start with one of their plans and then customize it to just include what we want to do and use their optimization software to come up with a good order to do things. There typically too, really isn't a whole lot of back tracking. If you aren't traveling at a super busy time, it is probably not that big a deal to just do your own thing. But Christmas week -- OMG -- rope drop on my own and my own thoughts about the order to do things vs. rope drop with my touring plan on a same crowd level day (same park the MK) -- touring plans won by so much and that turned me into their biggest fan forever. The plan saved me hours of line waiting time literally. // As others have said too, it's a order to hit things and you don't have to worry about it being a minute by minute schedule. Also, too, if some things are more crowded than we expect, we have sometimes ended up skipping an attraction or two on our plan that we really didn't care that much about if we want to stick to the time schedule a little more. // A plan too has never kept us from stopping and smelling the roses. We're happy to stop and listen to street performers, jump into a shop quickly to see something, etc. Although, we do for example, hit mainstreet USA shops, for example, at the busiest most crowded times for attractions, etc. // With a big group it's really nice too because you make decisions ahead of time for a core group and don't have everyone saying -- gosh what should we do next, as you already have that figured out.

Again, if you're happy with your park days without it, no need. If like me you thought you'd never want to go again at a busy time, you might want to try a touring plan at that same busy time to see if it changes your mind and increases your enjoyment of the parks. If it weren't for touring plans, since the one time we can visit are busy times, I probably wouldn't be visiting Disney at all.

The other thing touring plans does for me is level set expectations about lines. Their predictions are pretty spot on.

 

[IrishNYC]

I am here now and using touring plans and the Lines app. Like someone else said, I like it because it let me see in advance what was realistic to accomplish in a given time. I found it extremely useful today at HS because I didn't find the layout of the park to be logical at all. There was still plenty we didn't see.