Accuracy of Touringplans?

[Snow White Wanna Be]

Hi All!

I'm planning a trip for the last week of this month (Aug 25-30). I'm trying out Touringplans.com to plan my days, and I'm finding the wait times much shorter than I expected. For example, Aug 26th, I'm getting results of 0-5 minutes wait to ride the Safari and Expedition Everest in the evening.

Does anyone have experience using Touringplans? Can you tell me how the plans worked out for you?

thx

 

[markmcalear]

I have used it and found it to be very accurate overall. There were a few times I turned up expecting a 5 minute wait but it showed 10-15 at the actual ride entrance. No big deal.

If you are using it to plan your entire day then just slow the walking pace down a notch to allow you extra time for unexpected wait times.

 

[Snow White Wanna Be]

Thanks that's a great idea!

 

[Disney_Alli]

I LOVE the plans. The fact that they also eliminate the endless "now what?" conversations literally saved my sanity during a large family trip and that I've never waited in a line longer than 30 minutes makes me like them even more!

 

[oceanmarina]

I love thier lines app. I'm here now and it has been spot on for every ride I checked.

Also I used them to fax in a room request (another service they offer) and I got a fantastic room at boardwalk villas.

 

[Klayfish]

For the Lines app, it's fantastic. It gives a pretty good real time indication of what wait times really are. It's a bit more accurate than MDE. For predictions, I don't use it, as it's just generalized guesses. It depends on the definition of "evening" from what you posted above, but for me I don't need the app to tell me that AK is empty an hour or two before closing. That's pretty common knowledge for those who do some basic research.

 

[Laura's Dad]

The good things with the Lines app is that once you check something off as "Done" its will reconfigure your next steps to real time. I used it once at DHS on a November trip and it was pretty much spot on.

 

[Gillbob316]

I tried to use it on our last trip, and found it very useful... when we actually stuck to it.

That said, I was in a party of 7, so we didn't stick to it nearly as much as I'd have liked, nor enough for me to think I got an honest and thorough impression of it.

As was mentioned though, I LOVED the feature that allowed us to check off rides, and would then re-configure the plan. It made it easier to course-correct, when someone insisted we ride something off-plan.

Never underestimate the power of a large group to throw the best laid plans into disarray. And frankly it caused a lot of friction, because arguments would break out as some of us tried to steer things back on course of following the recommendations of the app, and some of us would rather have stowed the app entirely and flown on instinct. Whichever way things went, one half of the party was often angry with the other for not following their lead.

BUT... as part of the pro-app party, as I said, I do think it worked well when we stuck to it.

The only complaints I have were twice we arrived at its next recommendation, only to find it was temporarily down (Space Mountain and Country Bear Jamboree for the record). And believe me, arriving at broken rides twice on the advice of the app wasn't helping our argument on the pro-app side, lol. But at other times, it gave us a pretty good direction to run in.

If you have a group that will follow your lead, I say go for it. If you have a group likely to rebel, it may cause more headaches than its worth.

 

[andyman8]

I tend to suggest easyWDW.com as a free and often more accurate alternative when it comes to crowd calendars, but I'll admit both the Lines app (haven't used it since MDE came about though), the Optimizer, and the Reservation Finder are all great tools. That said, the Optimizer has been problematic lately in the parks. I wouldn't use it to plan my entire day.

 

[Geoff_M]

I tend to suggest easyWDW.com as a free and often more accurate alternative when it comes to crowd calendars...

Plus I love Josh's wicked sense of humor at easyWDW!

 

[kangamangus]

We have always had great results when using touring plans. Sometimes it was eerie how accurate they were....like get in line at 1:53 pm for Space Mountain and I remember thinking there is no way this plan is going to work that precisely....but it did and going forward we followed them up until our break. In the evenings we do more relaxing style touring. Plus I love the lines app as well!