TouringPlans.com Basic Help

[tstottle]

Hi! Can someone give me some basic tips on Touringplans.com? I signed up, but I just find it really hard to understand and use. Basically, I have my parks and days already picked. I would like the site to tell me what order to do my desired attractions in, to minimize wait (balanced with walking). This is doable, right? Is it then available on my phone so I don't have to print out paper to take it with me?

Also, are there touring plans for the Universal parks? We are doing one day there.

I know these questions are so basic. I don't know what it is about the site but whenever I go on there I just get lost and overwhelmed.

Thanks!

 

[lmtravis]

I would start here: http://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/touring-plans

Find a touring plan that looks like what you would be interested in. Once you pick one out, try adding your ADRs as well as adding or deleting a few attractions to better suit your needs. "Optimize" at first and until you like what you see. Sometimes, I move things around to a more logical order but it doesn't normally need too much work. Then check for attractions that have a long wait time and play around with fastpasses. Touringplans recommends adding them one at a time and "optimizing" after each FP addition. I don't find it that helpful. Don't forget to schedule breaks.

One major frustration for me is that you can't add most character meets. To get around this, I find a restaurant close by and add it to the touring plan. That way I get a little dot on the map and can also control how much time is allocated to the meet. In the notes, I just list who we are actually meeting.

 

[soniam]

There's also a forum to ask questions. They are very helpful and have great customer service.

 

[Kirk]

...? Is it then available on my phone so I don't have to print out paper to take it with me?...

My one complaint, no app for my phone. (At least none that I see.) I can pull it up on my phone's browsers or print it to PDF and save it on my phone for viewing. But since I like to park hop I ended up customizing 2 plans for each day and I know I'll run into kinks here and there. Really need something more interactive IMHO.

 

[Mainemama]

I do use it on my phone. I believe the app is called Lines. It works great. You can mark off each attraction as it is completed, and it will update wait times. One tip I have is to make a copy of the initial optimized plan. You can play around with tweaking things to your liking, but hold on to the original. We never wait more than 20 minutes (and that is rare) using it and we typically travel Presidents' week, which is pretty busy! Be patient, it really is worth it once you figure out the "language" of the site!

 

[Kirk]

I do use it on my phone. I believe the app is called Lines. It works great. You can mark off each attraction as it is completed, and it will update wait times. One tip I have is to make a copy of the initial optimized plan. You can play around with tweaking things to your liking, but hold on to the original. We never wait more than 20 minutes (and that is rare) using it and we typically travel Presidents' week, which is pretty busy! Be patient, it really is worth it once you figure out the "language" of the site!

Nice! Thank you! I never would have seen that. Disney World Lines - App Store or Google Play.

 

[amerikiwiroo]

Once you've added your trip dates and selected which parks you'll be on which days, then you can click on "add touring plan" to each day from your dashboard. You choose the hours that you're going to be in the park and select which attractions you want to see. You can select whether you want to minimize walking or wait times, select your walking speed and click Optimize. You can also add ADRs, and Fastpasses and re-optimize. This is from the PC--I haven't tried the app yet so can't help on that front.

 

[Disney_Alli]

Once you've added your trip dates and selected which parks you'll be on which days, then you can click on "add touring plan" to each day from your dashboard. You choose the hours that you're going to be in the park and select which attractions you want to see. You can select whether you want to minimize walking or wait times, select your walking speed and click Optimize. You can also add ADRs, and Fastpasses and re-optimize. This is from the PC--I haven't tried the app yet so can't help on that front.

The Lines app works exactly the same and updates in real time from the website. I love it! You can even use it to time your waits with the built in timer and send them updates of real in-park waits

 

[tstottle]

Thanks all, I appreciate the advice. I'm in my pre-vacation nervous mode and just get anxious every time I log on there and try to work it out.

Follow up: Once I have created my own touring plan, can I access THAT on the Lines app? When I look at "My Touring PLans" on Lines, I see "MK for Teens", "Copy of MK Unnoficial Guide Selective One Day Touring Plan." SHould I be seeing the one I set up online?

Thanks so much.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Thanks all, I appreciate the advice. I'm in my pre-vacation nervous mode and just get anxious every time I log on there and try to work it out.

Follow up: Once I have created my own touring plan, can I access THAT on the Lines app? When I look at "My Touring PLans" on Lines, I see "MK for Teens", "Copy of MK Unnoficial Guide Selective One Day Touring Plan." SHould I be seeing the one I set up online?

Thanks so much.

Yes you can. Once you save your plan, when you go to plans at the bottom of the app you will see all of the parks listed individually with a ton of plans for each and the last line is Personalized Plans click there and it will show your personalized plans for each park... If you have more than one plan per park you can rename them so you know which is which.

 

[mindale]

I bought the subscription for DW on Touring plans and love it. But I was wondering if adding the upgrade to Universal would be worth the money? Has anyone tried it?

 

[lmtravis]

I don't know for sure but if you love the wdw version, I think you would feel the same about or at least like the Universal one.

 

[tstottle]

I got the Universal one too, we are doing both parks this trip. It was worth it. BTW...a little strange thing that I just encountered...when you open Lines and go to "Plans" at the bottom, it looks like only your Disney plans will be there. But I found my Universal ones, finally, go to Home, scroll to bottom under "Other Lines Apps", and pick the Universal Orlando one...that's where your Universal plans will live. So on the phone it's separate; on the computer, in your Dashboard, they are all listed together under "Personalized Touring PLans."

 

[mindale]

Thanks! I was wondering why the Universal plans were not showing up.