I'm just going to pay $15 or whatever it is now and subscribe to touringplans.com for my next trip WDW. They keep up on everything and have always made it easy for me to key in what I want to do at the park, let me know the best way to do it, and keep me up to date on stuff. It is important to go back into plans even as late as a week before your trip to get updates from them about stuff in case things have changed. You can even do that night before and with the app even at the park.
When there were paper fastpasses, they would say when to grab one and later when to use it (like clock work - didn't even have to think about it) - what made sense to fit in between. When there were advance FP reservations, they would tell me what ones to try to get, have me key them in, and in some cases tell me not to even bother with what I had and I'd change them to something else. One time with their advice I only bothered getting two. I usually only do two Disney parks or so per trip FYI too. Sometimes based on estimated wait times the plans would give me for attractions, we'd decide to skip certain things we were thinking about doing. On the personalized plans (I usually start with one of there customized plans, add things not on the plan I am interested in that aren't on for example the one day adult best attractions plan that we really like, take off things on the plan I am not interested in, put in my thoughts for meals for a particular date, optimize, maybe move the order and do a refresh. With the refresh I see expected waits and sometimes decide to eliminate stuff (maybe I had too much stuff vs. time, day might look too tight, or maybe line waits for too many things are longer than I like). With this I can play around with stuff and find taking certain rides with long waits that I didn't care about doing and re-doing the plan came up with something that looked like a great day, way more doable and fun for the day ( I build some slack in too and don't hesitate to deviate and change on the fly). Here is an example of something the plans helped me to decide to skip: Peter Pan at the MK, not an important enough ride for me to waste a fastpass on, too long a wait to make the ride worthwhile, took that out of my plan. I usually do that with 7DMT too (expect one trip when I wanted to try it as I had never done it). That really opened things up and meant shorter lines for everything else on my plan. With the plans I get a good idea of what to expect in terms of lines and play around with plans to keep lines short enough to my liking.
I have been using the their book (manual plans before) and later the computer program, and the app too since the early 80s (almost 40 years). It's something inexpensive and fun for a planner like me that helps me make the most of expensive Disney park days. Do note that I almost always stay offsite, etc. too, so don't usually have the earlier opportunities to get fastpasses. I often in the past have traveled at busy times too, out of necessity (school schedules). If possible I avoid days with extra magic morning hours when Disney had those, etc. They report to me how early they are usually letting people in and how early to get to the parks (great for me a morning person who likes being up early and being one of the first people in the parks). DS loves doing the planning with me (planning for us is almost as fun as going to the parks and really gets us fired up about the trip.) The subscription lasts for a year, so for example I will subscribe again this April for planning by March 2022 trip. This might not be for everyone, but DS and I love this tool.
Christmas of 2019 without doing any other research the subscription (nicely summarized advice) helped me with everything I needed to know about handling that new queue system for Rise of the Resistance, and we had a great time at DHS on a crowd 10 level day (just so helpful). The planning tool keeps me up to date on park opening hours. They have ride wait time app that is more accurate than Disney's to that we have found to be helpful that is included with the subscription.
I like it that they have descriptions of all the rides and ratings by age group. This is really helpful for new stuff I haven't done before and deciding if I want to try the new attraction or not.
They keep up with everything, so I don't have too and all I have to do is read what they say (one stop shopping).
