Effectiveness of Touring Plans

[ConnecticutNonna]

I will keep my subscription even if I don't exactly follow their plans again. I like all the crazy pre-planning and tweaking. That part is almost as fun as vacation for me! If you optimize the plan, it is a lot of zig zagging, commando style, balls to the wall touring. We completely followed it last summer and we were able to accomplish all that we wanted to- while still having a great time! We averaged 10-13 miles per day on that one. This year I made the plan they way I wanted it and did not optimize. I wanted to do each land and then move on rather than criss crossing. We averaged 8-10 miles a day.

Their lines app is definitely more accurate than MDE. I rely on it more than MDE. I also like to mark off the things we have done if we get stuck in a line. helps me to visually see what we have left, what might be ok to skip, etc.

You are so right, did you realize that at the top of your dashboard you can put in your touring styles? I always put in "moderate" pace and "minimize walking". That keeps us 2 seniors from traipsing from one side of the park to the other. You can blessedly put in any pace from turtle to teenager (jj) to make the plan fit. That's part of why I love tp!

 

[summerw]

I agree with PP about easywdw.com plans. I always use those and modify what will work for our family. For instance, DS6 loves roller coasters, but not one of the more extreme ones for first thing in the morning, so we usually swap and get a FP for the coaster or just ride it once or hop in line for the second time right before park closing. It's always worked well for us and has more of a list of things that will work in the afternoon so that if your plan went sideways due to unforeseen level 10 wait times or crazy bag checks like we encountered, it's super easy to move things around, or take breaks like we often did.

 

[coasternut22]

I think the best way to plan is to use a human element and a computer element. The best way I've found to use Touring Plans is to plug in all of the attractions, hit optimize, and the tweek it using Evaluate until I get it right. Usually when I first optimize, I will get all of the crisscrossing the park, etc. Then I start dragging and dropping attractions by certain area.

For example, the optimize may say go to Peter Pan, then Splash, then Ariel, then Big Thunder. What I do is tweek it to put the Fantasyland rides together, then the Frontier rides together. What I find is that it only adds about 10 minutes more to the plan. While this may not be optimal, it is "realistic".

What I end up with are plans that are optimal by land. For example I'll end up planning on 1 hour in Fantasy land, then 2 hours in Frontier and Adventure, etc. This also allows me to skip the less important rides originally planned for if time become an issue but still allows me to get to the headliners in the next land.

I think the advantage of using the Touring Plans program is that it allows me the trial and error of deviating from the optimal plan into something that suits me, and what I usually find is that the plan that is best for me is usually only minutes off of the most optimal plan possible. And I'm okay with that.

 

[madjohn]

I have used them in both Disneyland and Disney World and they were highly effective and accurate. But the real thing that helps is everyone looking at each other and saying "ok, what do you want to do next, I don't know what do you feel like." This drives me crazy. So we have a plan. If something good pops up we can do it, but if not, we proceed to the next stop.

 

[mshanson3121]

But if that's what the "newbie" (your word, not mine) wants then let them plan their own vacation the way they like!
Different strokes for different folks. And I'd far rather be prepared for a 90 minute wait for 7DMT than be surprised. With tp you can at least judge what attractions are important to get to immediately and they also recommend which attractions to FP.
It's much more than a commando plan.

I made it pretty clear in my post that my thoughts were MY opinions based on MY experiences and that there are times/situations where they're helpful. Just as many people love them, some don't and we are all allowed to share our views.

 

[quagmire0]

Touring Plans are an excellent resource, and how you use them is completely up to you. Some people go by the book and love it. Some people went by the book and they hated it. The most important takeaway is that you get an idea of what attractions: A. You need a fastpass for, B. You need to be at rope drop or an early ADR for, and C. That you can pretty much hop on at any time. Once you knock out those high demand rides, you'll notice that the rest of the day really opens up for you and you don't find yourself waiting in any crazy lines at any given time. Another thing to remember is that, even though you can have a detailed plan, it doesn't mean that you can't call some audibles along the way. We did that even on our first Disney Trip with The Unofficial Guide in our hands. I do have to say, though, that I love the personalized touring planner that touringplans.com offers. Well worth the $15 or so for a year that it costs. It's nice to have a 'game plan' figured out ahead of time, even if we end up scrapping parts of it.

 

[jvattes]

Touring Plans are an excellent resource, and how you use them is completely up to you. Some people go by the book and love it. Some people went by the book and they hated it. The most important takeaway is that you get an idea of what attractions: A. You need a fastpass for, B. You need to be at rope drop or an early ADR for, and C. That you can pretty much hop on at any time. Once you knock out those high demand rides, you'll notice that the rest of the day really opens up for you and you don't find yourself waiting in any crazy lines at any given time. Another thing to remember is that, even though you can have a detailed plan, it doesn't mean that you can't call some audibles along the way. We did that even on our first Disney Trip with The Unofficial Guide in our hands. I do have to say, thought, that I love the personalized touring planner that touringplans.com offers. Well worth the $15 or so for a year that it costs.

Pro Tip: when you want to re-up, go to the home page, scroll alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way to the bottom, and you will find a discount code. Brings it down to something like $12

 

[ConnecticutNonna]

Pro Tip: when you want to re-up, go to the home page, scroll alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way to the bottom, and you will find a discount code. Brings it down to something like $12

LOL, and it actually says something like, "didn't think you'd read this far!"

 

[soniam]

I love Touring Plans. We use them for every trip, including Universal and Disneyland. In fact, I was just updating mine this weekend before getting the new AK Jungle Book show dining package and FP+ for our July trip. I do the personalized plans and usually optimize them. We follow them pretty much as is; however, I don't get bent out of shape if we are a little behind. That rarely happens though. We are usually ahead of the game. If it makes you feel more comfortable, think of them as a guide and not set in stone. I usually don't re-optimize them while in the park; I stick with what we got right before the trip. Be sure to re-optimize or re-evaluate pretty close to your trip, in case of new data.

 

[Bon1423]

I have been using TP to set up a plan for our trip Labor Day week. I picked the week because it's supposed to be one of he slowest of the year, but I'm still uncomfortable trusting these estimated wait times on TP. Some of them seem so short! Has anyone had experience with these? Are they relatively accurate?

 

[soniam]

I have been using TP to set up a plan for our trip Labor Day week. I picked the week because it's supposed to be one of he slowest of the year, but I'm still uncomfortable trusting these estimated wait times on TP. Some of them seem so short! Has anyone had experience with these? Are they relatively accurate?

You can't expect them to be on the nose exact. However, we are usually ahead of schedule. I would say they are a bit pessimistic but not overly so. You can look at their website and see what they have been predicting and what things actually were to get an idea of accuracy. They are way more accurate than Disney's own wait times by a long shot. Those are pretty much your only choices.

 

[ConnecticutNonna]

I have been using TP to set up a plan for our trip Labor Day week. I picked the week because it's supposed to be one of he slowest of the year, but I'm still uncomfortable trusting these estimated wait times on TP. Some of them seem so short! Has anyone had experience with these? Are they relatively accurate?

They critique daily how the did with wait times, predicted vs, actual and the most I've seen them off by is 10 minutes. They are usually within 2-3 minute wait time, most commonly on the lesser side. I love that I can figure out which attractions are the longest waits for me and plan my fp accordingly...

 

[Nancyg56]

I have used them and will not again. They were quite honestly a waste of my time for our summer vacation. I stressed and stressed about touring plans, because I was led to believe on this board that the ONLY way to have a "successful" trip in the summer was to have detailed touring plans. And this is probably true - if your only goal is to see and do it all and cram as many rides in as possible. But we are NOT those people. We are people who are far more content to go with the flow, see what we see, stop and enjoy what takes our fancy etc...

So, if your main concern is rushing from ride to ride, then yes, I think they will be useful. Were they accurate? So-so. We only used them loosely for the first couple days then I literally threw them in the garbage. For many rides their wait times were fairly accurate - however they weren't able to predict the ride that was broken down, which of course kind of threw off the other plans. They grossly underestimate Test Track (they only factor in the ride itself, not the pre-ride design area, or the after-area, which easily adds 30 minutes). There were other discrepancies, I just forget what.

To me, the only "plan" worth making is: book your 3 FP+ for your can't miss rides and ADR. From there, just go with the flow, especially if you're doing rope drop. I mean, I definitely think it's worthwhile looking over the park maps to get a feel for what is where, and I still think the most effective way to tour is to do one land/general area at a time. We did Frontier and Adventure Lands the first day, Tomorrowland and Fantasyland the second day, and then the third day we did a bit more Fantasyland and focused more on meet & greets. Doing RD with FP+, I really don't see Touring Plans that necessary because you can get a lot done in those first couple hours, because wait times are pretty low. I mean it's really just common sense stuff: hit the "biggies" first, do the others after. You don't need to pay money for an app to figure that out. Now, if you weren't arriving until mid-afternoon or evening, I could see needing to be a bit more strategic in your planning, and where the app could come in a bit more handy because every ride will have wait times to some degree and many significant ones. So, the app can help you work around that.

But again, a touring plan can only take you so far. Because they don't plan on impromptu potty and snack breaks, your child seeing a character that they REALLY want to meet, or wanting to ride Magic Carpets or Tomorrowland Speedway two times in a row, or wanting to play checkers on Tom Sawyers Island, instead of heading back for the next ride etc... etc... For me, while I love Disney, the vacation is about our children, and what THEY want, not what we want. So we are very content to sit back and let them take the lead, rather than rushing them (or making them skip) experiences, just so we can get to the next ride.

I agree with you in that I think that their value lies more in learning the layout of the parks rather than racing from attraction to attraction. I refuse to do that. I do use them to assist in best days as well as checking how they think the wait times will be at any given time of day. I have used them to get an idea how I want my day to run, and how best to add my FP into the mix. I do not take the plan into the park after that, except as a guide.
I think that for us, there are too many factors that jump into place once we hit the parks, so if we tried to keep to a schedule someone would mutiny.

 

[Angel Ariel]

I think the best way to plan is to use a human element and a computer element. The best way I've found to use Touring Plans is to plug in all of the attractions, hit optimize, and the tweek it using Evaluate until I get it right. Usually when I first optimize, I will get all of the crisscrossing the park, etc. Then I start dragging and dropping attractions by certain area.

For example, the optimize may say go to Peter Pan, then Splash, then Ariel, then Big Thunder. What I do is tweek it to put the Fantasyland rides together, then the Frontier rides together. What I find is that it only adds about 10 minutes more to the plan. While this may not be optimal, it is "realistic".

What I end up with are plans that are optimal by land. For example I'll end up planning on 1 hour in Fantasy land, then 2 hours in Frontier and Adventure, etc. This also allows me to skip the less important rides originally planned for if time become an issue but still allows me to get to the headliners in the next land.

I think the advantage of using the Touring Plans program is that it allows me the trial and error of deviating from the optimal plan into something that suits me, and what I usually find is that the plan that is best for me is usually only minutes off of the most optimal plan possible. And I'm okay with that.

We tour by land too, and I think that's a great way to use TP's features with that touring style. We generally don't use the actual touring plans because we like to tour by land, but maybe we'll try your method out this year. We'll never follow it exactly, but it would be interesting and informative to see the suggestions even if we deviate from them.

@lentesta - is there any possibility that maybe someday touring plans could have an "optimize by land" button?

 

[Gonzjj]

Thank you for all the comments. We are going to press our luck and try them out. I guess if they seem to not be working out for us we can always ditch them. I do enjoy reading and planning, so touring plans has helped with that. Oh, I enjoy the podcast too!

 

[lentesta]

We tour by land too, and I think that's a great way to use TP's features with that touring style. We generally don't use the actual touring plans because we like to tour by land, but maybe we'll try your method out this year. We'll never follow it exactly, but it would be interesting and informative to see the suggestions even if we deviate from them.

@lentesta - is there any possibility that maybe someday touring plans could have an "optimize by land" button?

Sorry for the delay responding - I was traveling.

I think it's possible for the touring plans to get close to an "optimize by land" button now. There's one slider that lets you choose between "minimize walking," "minimize waiting," and "balanced." Choose "minimize walking."

There's another slider that handles walking speed. Set that to the slowest possible setting.

Together those two things should produce something close to "optimize by land." There may be some deviation because of meals and breaks, but that might help. Let me know how it goes please.

 

[Angel Ariel]

Sorry for the delay responding - I was traveling.

I think it's possible for the touring plans to get close to an "optimize by land" button now. There's one slider that lets you choose between "minimize walking," "minimize waiting," and "balanced." Choose "minimize walking."

There's another slider that handles walking speed. Set that to the slowest possible setting.

Together those two things should produce something close to "optimize by land." There may be some deviation because of meals and breaks, but that might help. Let me know how it goes please.

No worries at all! Thank you for the response! I'll try that out

 

[Angel Ariel]

Let me know how it goes please.

I was just playing around with it now. It did a great job of separating by overall land...most of Fantasyland was together, TOmorrowland, etc..

For the purposes of experimenting, I picked most of the rides in FL, Gadget's Go Coaster, a few in Tomorrowland and then Indy, Jungle Cruise and Haunted Mansion. It optimized at the following:

Peter Pan
Dumbo
Alice
Storybook Canal
it's a small world
Gadget's Go Coaster
Mad Tea Party
Mr. Toad
Casey Jr
Snow White
Pinocchio
Sleeping Beauty walkthrough
then a lunch at the Plaza at 1pm (park open was 9am).
Astro Orbiter
Buzz lighyear Fastpass gathering
Autopia
Finding Nemo
Riding Buzz
Dinner at Carnation Cafe around 6pm(with a good long bit of free time in b/w Buzz and Carnation Cafe)
Indy
Jungle Cruise
Haunted Mansion (wrapping up the touring plan around 8:00pm with a 9pm close).

Total wait time it had us in lines for the day was 152 minutes. 252 mins busy, 236 free, 66 walking.

My initial thought was that I'd want to do the things in the area of Peter Pan all at once...that not doing Snow White/Mr. Toad/Pinocchio all right in a row with Peter Pan didn't make sense, but as I'm typing this I realized that it's taking me back into Toontown, and then working our way back to the Plaza for lunch hitting other rides on the way back. The computer did a great job with that!

We don't generally plan out ride by ride, but we may be giving this a try on our trip to DLR this year, at least to see how it goes. I tried to do a touring plan with DH years ago and he nearly mutinied, but ifwe know we want to start in Fantasyland, this is a nice layout of how to do that effectively, even if we don't do every step.

 

[Momtwofour]

We have everything planned for our trip next week, but just read about this Lines app. Is it worth the cost to join Touring Plans just to have the app while we are at WDW? We have used the MDE app, but I'm wondering if we should pay and download the Lines app.

Touring Plans is worth the small fee! There is alotmore information on there besides making a touring plan. I personally like to look back at crowd levels/park times for my same dates the prior year.

 

[Momtwofour]

As someone else mentioned, I like to make my plan, optimize it and then move things around and evaluate it. For me, this helps eliminate the cross crossing all over the park.
I did a TP last June for the first time and I was sold! I never felt rushed, we made it to everything, sometimes ahead of the plan. I always think back to 17 yrs ago or so when we took our first trip to Disney and we didn't have a plan. We just went. I remember feeling like we spent more time wandering around, trying to figure out what we were going to do! A TP doesn't have to be an exact schedule you follow by the minute, it can be a guide that helps you organize your day