Confused with Touring plans

[Tink112]

So I went ahead and joined touring plans to get some touring advice for our stay at Disney. I was just looking over their plans for Animal Kingdom and they have you going back and forth from one end of the park to the other several times during the day? Am I reading this wrong or is this the way the touring plans go? I will have my 6yr old grandson with me and thought it would make more sense to follow a path around the whole park doing everything in each land before moving on to the next. Is there some logic here to this touring plans that I'm not getting?

 

[Mac30188]

So I went ahead and joined touring plans to get some touring advice for our stay at Disney. I was just looking over their plans for Animal Kingdom and they have you going back and forth from one end of the park to the other several times during the day? Am I reading this wrong or is this the way the touring plans go? I will have my 6yr old grandson with me and thought it would make more sense to follow a path around the whole park doing everything in each land before moving on to the next. Is there some logic here to this touring plans that I'm not getting?

IIRC, you can make it to a custom plan and adjust the settings to indicate your preference to walk less. I honestly find the best value from touring plans are the little add ons such as the lines app, reservation finder, and room request tool. Use their plans to get a general idea of traffic patterns and expected wait times and then use the line app real time to take advantage of opportunities. For example, I remember looking at the app and seeing an 11 minute wait for Elsa and Anna, knowing the expected wait was higher and then suggesting we go do this now while the lines are low. Set up a general plan and use to set your FP, but be opportunistic as opposed to locking yourself into a fixed order of attack. In reading several of the EasyWDW articles, I one overarching theme in his tours is he frequently picks rides opportunistically. You can only do this if you have an idea of what is a normal wait time for a ride during the day so you can recognize what is good and what is bad. Not sure if that is helpful, but fwiw....

 

[shellyj]

So I went ahead and joined touring plans to get some touring advice for our stay at Disney. I was just looking over their plans for Animal Kingdom and they have you going back and forth from one end of the park to the other several times during the day? Am I reading this wrong or is this the way the touring plans go? I will have my 6yr old grandson with me and thought it would make more sense to follow a path around the whole park doing everything in each land before moving on to the next. Is there some logic here to this touring plans that I'm not getting?

No, you're probably reading it right. Try adjusting the optimizing features and if you have your FPs already, get those times entered. But what I usually get to start with has way too much criss crossing. You can use it as a base template and start moving the rides up and down to make it better. I like to print out a map and plan for as little backtracking as possible.

 

[Jess_S]

Which touring plan are you looking at? I looked at the plan for families with small kids and the plan for the whole family and both have the attractions grouped by area. Is your question based upon the fact that the plan skips over some attractions in an area before moving on to the next? I think that's done because it's assumed you want to hit all the headliners -- so it has you skip things that don't tend to generate waits with the idea that you will come back later after you've hit the headliners.

I'm personally not a fan of the commando, see-everything or die-trying style. My plan is to use touring plans to prioritize the headliners I really want to see and decide on best use of fastpasses. We're going to skip other things if the lines are too long because I definitely do plan to linger, look at the animals, etc., even if I'm not "optimizing" my time by doing that.

 

[hllb]

It's pretty flexible. You need to select minimize walking (I think it defaults to minimize waiting). You put in your FP times, any dining reservations, and then you can select optimize. Then, if you don't like what it comes up with, you can move them around manually and ask it to evaluate and tell you where you could make it better if you were willing to move stuff.

 

[chris benton]

TP uses some pretty cool calculations to find your best plan for walking and saving time vs waiting in lines ("Optimizing".) It is totally flexible, however. If you find that you think your walking route is better for what you want to do, you can edit your list of attractions, move them around to what makes sense to you. There's also that walking speed option, and also an option to minimize walking. Get yourself familiar with optimize vs evaluate. Tweaking your plan of attack is totally normal. It's part of what makes the software so cool.

Also - Touring Plans has a message board with plenty of users who can help out.

 

[CanuckGirl78]

Yup, experienced this myself as well. I think for me (& I'm a new TP and WDW user, so take this all with a grain of salt!) the major benefit of TP was to help me understand how long it takes to walk from one attraction to another and how long wait times could be with and without FP so I could see what was realistic in one day. After that, i just customized it so we wouldn't be crisscrossing every park, and then adjusted it again after we got our FPs. I got to know the maps of WDW very well to create my plans!!

 

[Tink112]

It's pretty flexible. You need to select minimize walking (I think it defaults to minimize waiting). You put in your FP times, any dining reservations, and then you can select optimize. Then, if you don't like what it comes up with, you can move them around manually and ask it to evaluate and tell you where you could make it better if you were willing to move stuff.

Can you do that with touringplans.com? That's the site I was using.

 

[Tink112]

Which touring plan are you looking at? I looked at the plan for families with small kids and the plan for the whole family and both have the attractions grouped by area. Is your question based upon the fact that the plan skips over some attractions in an area before moving on to the next? I think that's done because it's assumed you want to hit all the headliners -- so it has you skip things that don't tend to generate waits with the idea that you will come back later after you've hit the headliners.

I'm personally not a fan of the commando, see-everything or die-trying style. My plan is to use touring plans to prioritize the headliners I really want to see and decide on best use of fastpasses. We're going to skip other things if the lines are too long because I definitely do plan to linger, look at the animals, etc., even if I'm not "optimizing" my time by doing that.

I am using touringplans.com

 

[Happy_2_B]

Been using TPs since it came out- and before that the UG plans (which are essentially the same without the ability to tweak them). If crossing the park to avoid lines is an issue for you- use the family plans. Think a PP mentioned they are more grouped together. Select 'minimize walking' by using the slider, and also select a 'relaxed' walking speed so the 6 yo doesn't have to 'run/walk' to keep up with an adult's touring pace. You won't get to everything using these settings, but should get the more popular stuff done easily with time to do some secondary attractions. Beyond that- some of the 'regulars' over on the TP boards might have additional ideas for you to try. I would suggest you make a few plans, get the feel for it- then go to the TP boards with additional questions.

 

[hllb]

Can you do that with touringplans.com? That's the site I was using.

Yes. That's the site I use.

 

[CanuckGirl78]

Can you do that with touringplans.com? That's the site I was using.

Yes. There’s a sliding bar near the top where you can modify your preferences.

 

[cigar95]

Just to clarify - are you looking at the site's own provided touring plans, or have you created your own personalized plan? (since you're new to the site, maybe you're not aware that they are two different things, but both are "touringplans.com"?)
The "canned" plans have been created and tested, with tweaks based on live testing. The personalized, optimized plans that come out of the computer algorithm aren't tested or checked for "sanity", so they are more likely to come out looking weird. Much of the advice you've gotten above is based on using the personalized plans.

(Wow, I just saw that this was post #4000. Not bad for 17 years here.)

 

[Surgie2]

The "canned" plans have been created and tested, with tweaks based on live testing. The personalized, optimized plans that come out of the computer algorithm aren't tested or checked for "sanity", so they are more likely to come out looking weird. Much of the advice you've gotten above is based on using the personalized plans.

So what do you recommend...the canned or personalized? I have only done personalized but it was all adults so we didn't mind criss-crossing. For an upcoming trip, little ones along so we want to minimize criss-crossing.

 

[MJ6987]

I think sometimes it may be that walking across the park to different attractions may be overall the most efficient, depending on which lines are likely to get long quickest. You may gain more on the lines than you lose in the walking. You could try manually moving a couple of attractions around to a more locationally logical grouping and then recalculate without reoptimising and see what it does to the overall times.

 

[MJ6987]

So what do you recommend...the canned or personalized? I have only done personalized but it was all adults so we didn't mind criss-crossing. For an upcoming trip, little ones along so we want to minimize criss-crossing.

I think what I have done is take the "standard" plan (called something like Unofficial Guide plan for adults) and then tweak it as you want, e.g. If there are any attractions that you don't want to do or any you want to add or do twice, etc. Then optimise that tweaked plan.

 

[Happy_2_B]

So what do you recommend...the canned or personalized? I have only done personalized but it was all adults so we didn't mind criss-crossing. For an upcoming trip, little ones along so we want to minimize criss-crossing.

See my post above (#10)- that will be a great starting point with little ones in tow.

 

[cigar95]

So what do you recommend...the canned or personalized? I have only done personalized but it was all adults so we didn't mind criss-crossing. For an upcoming trip, little ones along so we want to minimize criss-crossing.

I'll agree with the above. Start with one of the canned plans, and then customize it for your interests. Maybe take some things out and perhaps add some. Add a break or two. Adjust how much time is allowed for meals. Maybe even split it in half and do the halves on different days.
But once you've changed it, including slowing down the walking speed, be sure to do an "evaluate" and see if the timing still works. If you want to do an "optimize", be sure to keep an unchanged copy, since there's no "undo" on the "optimize" button, and optimizing may again add crisscrossing that you don't want.

 

[mickeysgirl17]

I recommend the personalized (customized) plans. First optimize and then move things around to your liking. Remember, when you add a "break" the walking time won't be correct because the computer won't know where your walking to and from so be sure to count in some extra time into your break for walking.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I find AK is just like that for us. We never criss crossing MK and occasionally in Epcot but do it frequently in AK. We usually make the loop in one direction and then turn around and come back the other direction with a possible quick dash across at some point to hit either FotLK or Nemo. There are fewer headliners spaced further apart and shows with specific times. Also it seems like there are fewer anytime filler rides in each area. We seem to put the most miles on in AK to see and do what we want efficiently. That can be tough with kiddos though.