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

[MDIME]

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.

I disagree as others have said above about the work TP does. The subject line is How well is touringplans working in a non-fastpass world?
As a non-user it is not remotely helpful to attempt to answer this, let alone be the first person to jump in with an unhelpful comment.

 

[mamaofsix]

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.

If you had researched anything about Touring Plans, you'd know that they absolutely do have special insight into future crowd levels and ride wait times. That is literally the reason their business exists.

Our touring plans subscription is probably the single best thing I've done for our trip planning in the past decade. Have never waited in a line more than 15-20 minutes by planning ahead with their tools.

 

[disny_luvr]

I’m fairly new to TP; just got my first subscription about a month ago for our trip that starts in two weeks. What I’m learning from this thread are the wait times on TP are usually more accurate than the wait times on MDE?

 

[mamaofsix]

I’m fairly new to TP; just got my first subscription about a month ago for our trip that starts in two weeks. What I’m learning from this thread are the wait times on TP are usually more accurate than the wait times on MDE?

Yes.

 

[slyster]

I am using TP for my planning and I also have the TP Lines app on my phone. I don't plan on following it to a tee, but I appreciate that it gives me an idea of where to start and how far I will get into my day. We have a 2-3 hour mid day break built in, plus lunch so I figure the Lines app will help us before and after those times too.

 

[Grasshopper2016]

What I’m learning from this thread are the wait times on TP are usually more accurate than the wait times on MDE?

Yes. And that’s why I am happy to pay for TP and grateful every trip for the service they provide. Still, it is important to note that TP is sometimes wrong—and not just due to unforeseen breakdowns. TP’s algorithms may well be as good as you can get. But this is not, and cannot be, an exact science. I would say that over 75% of the time, the Lines prediction is quite good (and much more reliable than MDE). But sometimes, you end up waiting a lot longer than TP thought you would. Just be ready for that.

 

[GreatLakes]

I’m fairly new to TP; just got my first subscription about a month ago for our trip that starts in two weeks. What I’m learning from this thread are the wait times on TP are usually more accurate than the wait times on MDE?

Yes. Disney has also been known to mess with the actual wait times to either encourage or discourage people from getting into lines. It isn't unheard of for Disney's posted wait times to be multiples of the actual wait times. If TP is off it isn't because they are messing with you.

 

[holyrita]

Do you need a subscription to touring plans to use the lines app? Not sure I would use to to plan in advance but would enjoy adding data points to the system when in line (other than heads up what else is there to do?? )

 

[MrWreckless]

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.

Sorry, but thats akin to you saying you dont believe in statistics.

 

[Sarahslay]

I used the lines app on several of my recent trips and honestly they weren't as far off as a lot of peoples trips more recently. That brings on my point though: it's only as good as the people using it. If there are a lot of people putting data in it works so well and is extremely helpful, if hardly anyone is putting data in it's no better than the MDE app. I have found the crowd calendar to not be as helpful as in past years though. I've been during numerous holidays since reopening, weekends and weekdays, days categorized as lower attendance and higher attendance, and most of them feel pretty much the same aside from a few outliers. Like when MK for Memorial Day they predicted a 5 and it was actually a 2, they are off a lot more on that side of things these days just because Disney is being so vague about capacity and what they're doing that TP can't predict accurately. I'll still use the lines app though, it can be very helpful, and on my coming trip I will be helping to keep it working well.

 

[snoopboop]

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.

Hey, you should go back and re-read my previous post. Either that or you’re being deliberately obtuse. Either way, TP absolutely DOES do things with the data that the rest of us simply don’t have the time, resources, knowledge, and/or skills to do. It’s disingenuous to say that they don’t have insight that others don’t have.

 

[RAPstar]

Do you need a subscription to touring plans to use the lines app? Not sure I would use to to plan in advance but would enjoy adding data points to the system when in line (other than heads up what else is there to do?? )

IIRC, you do need a subscription to use the Lines app.

 

[gharter]

Hey, you should go back and re-read my previous post. Either that or you’re being deliberately obtuse. Either way, TP absolutely DOES do things with the data that the rest of us simply don’t have the time, resources, knowledge, and/or skills to do. It’s disingenuous to say that they don’t have insight that others don’t have.

Its true they have the time and can massage the data in a way that we won't. However, that is historical data. Everything has changed since Co-Vid hit (not a new revelation), so basing crowd levels, wait times on historic data may be of limited value.
The real question is how are they coming up with future estimated crowd levels, etc. Disney knows these answers, but they are not going to share that information. I suspect this is what the statement that they don't have any special insight into future crowd levels is based on.

 

[gharter]

Sorry, but thats akin to you saying you dont believe in statistics.

But statistics are based on data and Disney is not releasing future crowd data. So at best this is based on historical data? ( which may not apply with all the changes).

 

[MrWreckless]

But statistics are based on data and Disney is not releasing future crowd data. So at best this is based on historical data? ( which may not apply with all the changes).

They are still updating their data points even with the changes. Is it 100% accurate, no nothing ever will be, but that doesnt mean their analysis isnt sound.

You cant trust Disney with anything times related as they have an ulterior motive when it comes to the displayed wait times. I have much more faith in TP and their transparency.

 

[Heather07438]

We renewed our TP subscription for about 8 yrs now. Many of their services are the best or at least equal to others. So many things have been helpful:

• Creating a Touring Plan - superb! And our account holds our past trips and plans.
• Room Viewer and request section
• Len Testa taping out room sizes on his driveway in 2011 still love that!
• ADR finder - it’s been very useful
• Blog articles
• Lines app

The crowd calendar… not a fan. It’s grown more faulty over the years, not less. That part is understandable but they still lead with it as their crown jewel and trying to sell its reliability. Nowadays 10 emails with prediction changes will come before a trip… and it still won’t be right I wish they’d dial down the hype here and lead more with their other services.

 

[JCornell]

We were there first week of July. I'll echo what I saw in many replies - TP seemed to generally be more accurate than MDE wait times with a few exceptions. I will say that those exceptional cases were at times of big fluctuation (we entered BTMR and TOT with long lines and came off with very short lines).
On a related note, it was very curious what WDW was doing with ride queues that week. There were many instance where we stood in an extremely long line (Haunted Mansion - we started back in FrontierLand, wound up and down the ramps and then into the main line), yet the wait times were not extreme (35 minutes in that case). ToT was another one. We lined up by Fairfax Faire and yet ended up at about 40 minutes. They weren't doing the pre-show but they were only letting so many through the pre-show room at a time so once we were in the boiler room, there were almost no people in either line, maybe enough for the next 2-3 loads at most. There was no social distancing or anything and multiple times we said to each other, it's almost as if WDW is trying to make the lines look longer than they actually are.

 

[gharter]

They are still updating their data points even with the changes. Is it 100% accurate, no nothing ever will be, but that doesnt mean their analysis isnt sound.

You cant trust Disney with anything times related as they have an ulterior motive when it comes to the displayed wait times. I have much more faith in TP and their transparency.

I think you're missing the point. Their analysis of the data they have is sound. But updating future crowd calendars based on historic data (which is all they have) is of limited accuracy.

 

[Akck]

I think you're missing the point. Their analysis of the data they have is sound. But updating future crowd calendars based on historic data (which is all they have) is of limited accuracy.

You’re missing it too. Sure, if there’s a crowd surge tomorrow, it won’t be in their numbers. But, in a few weeks, they’ll have data to adjust their models and update their predictions. I followed their numbers for several months before our trip last December and they adjusted crowd levels several times between reopening and just before our trip. I used the calendar to make park reservations as it was better than just guessing.

 

[mamaofsix]

I am using TP for my planning and I also have the TP Lines app on my phone. I don't plan on following it to a tee, but I appreciate that it gives me an idea of where to start and how far I will get into my day. We have a 2-3 hour mid day break built in, plus lunch so I figure the Lines app will help us before and after those times too.

One of my favourite features for building plans is that it tells you how long it takes to walk from one attraction to the next (based on your personal walking speed), and also tells you the length of each attraction. Always good to know whether an attraction is 2 minutes long vs. 25 - and that it takes 5 minutes to walk from one spot to your next attraction vs. 15.

Really helps in mapping the day out and we often complete an entire park in one day by using it - saves so much time and money!