Do touring plans leave enough time?

[pjhootch]

If you monkey around with the plans, it can be very helpful to organize a plan of attack. Don't be afraid to optimize and change things. You can always save a version and work on a new version. I don't really go by the times themselves but especially once you have ADRS and FP+ times, it does help to map out an order to work around the FP times without necessarily running from one side of a park to the other repeatedly. I know my way around pretty well but I still like to use a map of the park and kind of manually move things around in the plan, hit optimize, compare it and then tweak it again. Then I put it away and don't look at it again until right before the trip. If you continually try to improve it or change it you can make yourself absolutely nuts. Save your first version and right before your trip create a new one from scratch and compare them.
And then be prepared to throw it all to the wind if it turns out to be a totally different type of day than you expected. For instance, a day predicted to be a "3" can unexpectedly be much busier and requires some on the fly coping skills. On the other hand, sometimes you get a gift and the parks aren't as busy as expected and and you can really do so much more than a plan would suggest.

OH YEAH. I should mention I absolutely hate planning ahead in this type of detail. It makes me miserable to plan out my park day ride, by ride and meal by meal. Touring plans helps take some of the misery out by giving me a starting plan.