passporter vs. unofficial guide tour plans

[disfan0705]

Is there much of a difference between the touring plans found in Passporter vs. the touring plan found in the Unofficial Guide to Disney?

I have a Passporter and would rather not spend money on another guide unless it was going to give me something I didn't already have.

We will be going in June if that makes a difference.

Thanks!

 

[danny1649]

Have good touring plans and I would not rate oneI better than the other.I have PassPorter and will not buy Unoffical Guide thia year.

 

[Dopey Sharon]

I use the touring plans in the Unofficial Guide and it has worked great for us. If you don't want to buy a copy, go to your library and compare. If they are different, xerox the pages.

 

[jaysue]

We use the unofficial guide but I think since you already own the passporter it should be fine

thanks
jaysue

 

[lentesta]

Hi disfan0705,

I wrote the computer software the Unofficial Guide uses to create its touring plans. While I enjoy the Passporter's features as an organizer, I'm pretty sure even the Passporter folks will admit that their touring plans do not save as much time standing in line as the Unofficial Guide's. (The Guide's touring plans are generally within 2% of optimal.)

For what it's worth, the computer software the Guide uses came about through my Masters (and now Ph.D.) research into solving certain kinds of scheduling problems. Details on early versions of the software have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals.

The Guide also employs teams of data collectors who measure the wait time at every attraction, FASTPASS booth and restaurant from park opening until park closing, several times per year. We employ a professional statistician to analyze those data before feeding them to the computer software. After the software recommends a specific touring plan, we do live tests with real families in the parks to make sure they work.

To the best of my knowledge, no other Disney guidebook does anything remotely like this. My guess is that most other authors sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and try to figure it out. Given the literally billions and billions of possible combinations for any non-trivial touring plan, I doubt seriously any human being could match the number-crunching power of a computer.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions on the touring plans, feel free to drop me a line: testa@ncat.edu.

Sincerely,

Len Testa

 

[normmo]

Hi - we've always used the unofficial guide's touring plans and we absolutely lOVE them. I'd rather have them then the Passporter given all the reasons that Len explained above.
Mo

 

[bengalfreak]

Originally posted by lentesta
To the best of my knowledge, no other Disney guidebook does anything remotely like this. My guess is that most other authors sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and try to figure it out.

Agreed, however, prior to your outstanding work, that is exactly what the UOG did and their touring plans were still very, very good. In fact the 2004 UOG says something to the effect that it took several years before the computer generated touring plans outperformed the human generated ones in real world applications.

Having said that, I don't want to spend one minute in a line that I don't have to and if the UOG saves me 60 minutes of line waiting over the course of my one week stay, it is more than worth it. That $16 is the best money you'll spend on your entire vacation. I buy it every year.

 

[lentesta]

Hey bengalfreak,

Thanks for reading the Guide! Prior to the 2003 edition, Bob was using a linear programming model that he developed with the assistance of someone in the Operations Research department at MIT. ( think it was Richard Larson. He's a queueing theory guy, I believe.)

Interestingly, that model's touring plan for the Animal Kingdom is still the one used in the Guide. We think this is because there are relatively few attractions in that park, so the number of combinations that actually need to be processed is still small enough for that model. We'll see what happens when Expedition Everest comes online next year.

Sincerely,

Len

 

[disfan0705]

Wow! I did not know such extensive work went into the Touring Plans! I think I will have to check out a copy of the Guide!

Thanks for the info!