How well is touringplans working in a non-fastpass world?

[tentaguasu]

I see average wait times often in the 30-60 minute range for most rides across the parks lately. Though not terrible, I'm used to being able to stay under about 20 minutes by strategic touring. Yet on doing a custom TouringPlans plan for this week and letting it optimize for me, it shows me hitting all of my major MK rides without fastpass and never waiting more than about 20 minutes for anything, including 7DMT and the mountains (minus space).

Is it really that good?

I've been planning on staying at a DS resort that I'm not that thrilled about because of the upcoming "early entry" benefit and the hope that maybe fastpass will come back and DS might get special privileges. But if touringplans is that good at getting wait times down to sup-20 minutes waits, then I'm going to move off site.

Thoughts? Experiences?

 

[_19disnA]

Never used them, but no 3rd party has any special insight into crowd levels or wait times. If they have a feature where people currently at the park are manually inputting wait times that still has nothing to do what it will be like an hour from now. I would imagine the most popular rides generally have the longest wait times and later in the day you might get lucky as people have already done their favorite rides. You might also get lucky if a ride closed for maintenance just reopened so it has a short line. Some rides also close during bad weather, so after the storm passes, you might also get lucky with a shorter line. I don't know of any algorithm that can successfully predict wait times hours or day in advance.

 

[gharter]

I have used them for years, but not for their planning feature for the reasons the pp noted.
They can use algorithms to try and estimate best options, but they have no special information. And coming off the Co-Vid closure what worked in the past may not be relevant currently.
Not sure how beneficial 30 minute early entry will be.

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

Used them recently. Were always 15-20 mins less wait then the Disney wait times. Lines app was much more accurate.

Disney app had slinky at 100 mins. Touring plans had it at 60 mins. Took me 61 to get on

It was like that on most rides. Disney app was always 15-20 longer then actual

 

[Grasshopper2016]

We just finished a trip. The TP Lines estimates generally outperformed the official Disney posted wait times (which were generally inflated by 10-15 minutes). But not always! There were a few times when TP let us down— where we got in a line only because TP predicted a wait of, say, 30 minutes versus the official posted wait of 60 minutes. And we ended up waiting 65 minutes. We learned that sometimes the TP prediction is too good to be true.

 

[bdiddy]

We used it for Universal and WDW on our 12 day trip last month and they were both pretty accurate. Much more accurate than the posted times. I tried to put our waits in as much as we could to help. I really think that is the key to the accuracy. But we never had any issues through the trip using them. I almost never looked at the Disney wait times in the app, really only to compare how off theirs was from touring plans.

 

[snoopboop]

I am not in any way affiliated with TouringPlans, but as someone with a math degree who has listened to them speak on numerous podcasts about what they do, I feel like someone needs to stick up for them a little bit here, as while it’s technically correct to say they don’t have any secret insider information or anything like that, they actually do invest a lot of time and resources into studying trends in the parks in order to provide predictions that are as accurate as possible. They do super nerdy deep dives into data and trends and they collect insane amounts of data, both crowdsourced and via actually physically sitting in the parks and counting ride throughputs and the like. While they may not be using any data that others don’t have access to, they certainly ARE prioritizing the collection and analysis of that data in sophisticated ways that others simply don’t take the time to do.

So…. while of course nobody’s predictions are going to be perfect (cue Jeff Goldblum‘s water droplet demonstration in Jurassic Park), TouringPlans is pretty awesome and they take this stuff really seriously.

 

[MrWreckless]

Never used them, but no 3rd party has any special insight into crowd levels or wait times. If they have a feature where people currently at the park are manually inputting wait times that still has nothing to do what it will be like an hour from now. I would imagine the most popular rides generally have the longest wait times and later in the day you might get lucky as people have already done their favorite rides. You might also get lucky if a ride closed for maintenance just reopened so it has a short line. Some rides also close during bad weather, so after the storm passes, you might also get lucky with a shorter line. I don't know of any algorithm that can successfully predict wait times hours or day in advance.

After reading about what TP does and how many data points they use to try and actually give users an accurate wait time, i trust them a lot more than i trust what Disney is doing, which in many cases is inflating wait times to both redirect the crowd to other attractions and give visitors a false sense of euphoria from only waiting 40 minutes when the sign says 65.

 

[yaya74]

I am not in any way affiliated with TouringPlans, but as someone with a math degree who has listened to them speak on numerous podcasts about what they do, I feel like someone needs to stick up for them a little bit here, as while it’s technically correct to say they don’t have any secret insider information or anything like that, they actually do invest a lot of time and resources into studying trends in the parks in order to provide predictions that are as accurate as possible. They do super nerdy deep dives into data and trends and they collect insane amounts of data, both crowdsourced and via actually physically sitting in the parks and counting ride throughputs and the like. While they may not be using any data that others don’t have access to, they certainly ARE prioritizing the collection and analysis of that data in sophisticated ways that others simply don’t take the time to do.

So…. while of course nobody’s predictions are going to be perfect (cue Jeff Goldblum‘s water droplet demonstration in Jurassic Park), TouringPlans is pretty awesome and they take this stuff really seriously.

I like TP and appreciate it even more after reading this post. Before covid, the plan worked very well. During the most recent trip, I didn't use any plan because I know I am going to wait for a long time throughout the day. I only used LINE app most of the time instead of MDE. I also submitted some real wait time just for the fun of it. I bought a 3-year subscription plan just to support the good job that Lens and his team have done at TP.

 

[Akck]

Touring Plans estimates are based on historical data, therefore there is a lag when the situation changes. It could be weeks before there is enough data to better predict current plans. I’ve used TP to get a general plan of attack pre-Covid, to get an idea how long our plan will take pre-vaccine and whether to go left or right in a park currently. While I don’t think all rides will be 20 minute waits, TP will give you a good general plan. I especially use their Lines app for wait times.

 

[gharter]

I like the touring plan wait time app. IF there are a lot of people inputting wait times into the app, it does seem to be more accurate than posted wait times. However, if people are not inputting accurate wait times, its not very helpful.

 

[luv2cheer92]

Lines app has been much more accurate recently than MDE.

 

[ColonialMouse]

I’m a big believer (and subscriber) in TP, and I found it very helpful in our most recent trip.


The shortcoming of the TP approach is that they can’t predict when there is a technical malfunction. Last week twice we were at swirling saucers when one of the side broke and they sent those people to the other side, then only used one side until they “fixed” the broken side. TP has no way to predict that. But otherwise there times were pretty accurate.

In particular, TP’s “ride now” vs “wait until later” are very useful. On our last trip we were in the park 9 days and only on two of them did I build a touring plan and follow it to find rides. But quite frequently I looked at the projections to understand what to expect later and when to go see a show, etc.

Bruce

 

[glocon]

Maybe you can put in all the rides you want to do for the day then periodically optimize day of when you are in the park. That may be the way to go.

 

[MDIME]

Never used them, but no 3rd party has any special insight into crowd levels or wait times. If they have a feature where people currently at the park are manually inputting wait times that still has nothing to do what it will be like an hour from now. I would imagine the most popular rides generally have the longest wait times and later in the day you might get lucky as people have already done their favorite rides. You might also get lucky if a ride closed for maintenance just reopened so it has a short line. Some rides also close during bad weather, so after the storm passes, you might also get lucky with a shorter line. I don't know of any algorithm that can successfully predict wait times hours or day in advance.

Why would you respond to the OP’s question if you’ve never used the Touring Plans service?

 

[GreatLakes]

I am not in any way affiliated with TouringPlans, but as someone with a math degree who has listened to them speak on numerous podcasts about what they do, I feel like someone needs to stick up for them a little bit here, as while it’s technically correct to say they don’t have any secret insider information or anything like that, they actually do invest a lot of time and resources into studying trends in the parks in order to provide predictions that are as accurate as possible. They do super nerdy deep dives into data and trends and they collect insane amounts of data, both crowdsourced and via actually physically sitting in the parks and counting ride throughputs and the like. While they may not be using any data that others don’t have access to, they certainly ARE prioritizing the collection and analysis of that data in sophisticated ways that others simply don’t take the time to do.

So…. while of course nobody’s predictions are going to be perfect (cue Jeff Goldblum‘s water droplet demonstration in Jurassic Park), TouringPlans is pretty awesome and they take this stuff really seriously.

I was going to type out something like this but figured I'd just copy it. While no model can be 100% accurate 100% of the time it is possible to be consistently accurate provided you are adjusting your inputs in near-real time. TP does that.

 

[cel_disney]

We have been using TP for at least 10 years now and we are supporters. It’s NOT perfect - they can only do so much and don’t have an actual crystal ball! But the info is really helpful.

I find that when I put in everything and optimize and then try to execute jt - that it’s not always possible for my family to move as fast as is expected (bathroom breaks, needing water, character cavalcade surprise etc)..but I just evaluate OR re-optimize whenever we have hit a snag to decide what to do next…but as we are frequent visitors, our comfort level with safe ad-libbing” is the real deal…

Someone else mentioned this already - but I also really like the ride now / ride later feature !!

 

[katyringo]

I always find them helpful.

 

[Kelly014]

This is a really interesting thread, I had been wondering about this. We have been going to Disney for several years, but I’ve never used TP. Not sure why. I guess this time around I felt a bit lost without FP+ to help provide a sort of loose schedule so I decided to try it. I’m pretty excited to try out the plans and the lines app this time, and it’s really good to know a bit more about their process and how thorough they are.

 

[_19disnA]

Why would you respond to the OP’s question if you’ve never used the Touring Plans service?

Topic has been discussed on many prior threads. No 3rd party has any special insight into future crowd levels or ride wait times. You don't have to use a service to have a view on what they are selling.