Newbie Question - subscribing to planning websites

[MamaMeggie]

As a newbie (one trip as an adult 2 years ago), I think I could use some help planning my days for our Feb trip. Does anyone have any pros/cons to the different planning subscriptions? I was thinking about using WDW Prep School, but I know that Touring Plans and Kenny the Pirate are also options. I like that Touring Plans will help with a room request at the resort, but I've been listening to a lot of prep school podcasts. All input welcome!

 

[Missyrose]

As a newbie (one trip as an adult 2 years ago), I think I could use some help planning my days for our Feb trip. Does anyone have any pros/cons to the different planning subscriptions? I was thinking about using WDW Prep School, but I know that Touring Plans and Kenny the Pirate are also options. I like that Touring Plans will help with a room request at the resort, but I've been listening to a lot of prep school podcasts. All input welcome!

I subscribe to Touring Plans, I like their crowd calendar and planning tools (I also use EasyWDW's calendar). And I also subscribe to Kenny the Pirate' characterlocator.com, no one comes close to the character info he has.

 

[mrsR123]

I subscribe to Touring Plans. I love their calendar and planning tools, and I want to support their research budget. I will probably join KtP before my January trip because it's the only way to get the down low on Characterpalooza. It's a good thing it's only like 7 bucks because I very much resent this. But, hey, the guy's got to make a living.

 

[yaya74]

I have both TP and KTP. I love TP and will renew for my next trip. However I didn't find KTP useful. The information on Characterpalooza is very "general". For $7, I don't mind just give it to Kenny with the hope that he will do more in the future.

 

[MHSweb79]

I like the calendars at Easywdw and he also has cheat sheets which are great. And the site is free, so there's that.

 

[Hopefully]

I subscribe to Touring Plans. I love their calendar and planning tools, and I want to support their research budget. I will probably join KtP before my January trip because it's the only way to get the down low on Characterpalooza. It's a good thing it's only like 7 bucks because I very much resent this. But, hey, the guy's got to make a living.

I truly don't understand. What is there to "very much resent this" ?

 

[Missyrose]

I have both TP and KTP. I love TP and will renew for my next trip. However I didn't find KTP useful. The information on Characterpalooza is very "general". For $7, I don't mind just give it to Kenny with the hope that he will do more in the future.

What information did you find to be "missing" from what Kenny provides?

 

[speeb]

I also have both of the aforementioned subscriptions. Plus one to WDW Prep School. (I've been planning for a while and was really about ALL the information I could find.) I like all of them for different reasons, but I don't think I would say any of them are necessary or even invaluable to my trip.

Touring Plans has been fun to play with itineraries, but if you're on Android, the app is OK at best. A straight port of a iPhone app. If you feel like you need to plan down to the minute, might as well give this one a shot.

Kenny's app is just a webpage, but that actually bothers me less the than iOS port of TP. I like the way it looks and behaves. I will probably end up putting my touring plans into this app for our trip.

WDW Prep School's planning tool includes pictures of ride vehicles, which is nice. But it really doesn't offer much that you can't get elsewhere and no app. I mostly got this one to support Shannon because I really enjoyed her podcasts.

So all that being said, easyWDW has all the information you could want, live wait times, and a great sense of humor all for free. The further in I got to planning (FP window opens in a few days), the more I relied on Josh's information there. He's also very active on the site forums and answers questions constantly. If I had to do it all over again, I would probably not bother subscribing to any other sites.

 

[MamaMeggie]

(I've been planning for a while and was really about ALL the information I could find.)

Haha, yes. This exactly!

Thanks to everyone for the input!

 

[yaya74]

What information did you find to be "missing" from what Kenny provides?

I would like to see "wait time" included, like TouringPlans. My family don't like to wait for more than 20 minutes to see a character, especially if the M&G is outdoor since we can only go in the summer. I was reading other websites like WDWPrep, Disboards, EasyWDW, and TouringPlans before I found KTP. Then I bought the subscription and felt I didn't get anything extra from KTP other than an organized list of characters M&G.

The only characters that my family wanted to see were Baymax, Jawa, and other characters from StarWars. We also did character meals and Visa M&G to satisfy our needs for characters. Maybe we will be more aggressive on our next trip.