Plan Based on Ride Location

[caroline7238]

Going to WDW for four days, one day each park. I have two smaller children, so we won't be partaking in a lot of the big rides. I will probably still get genie plus for a few days, I think at least the MK day. But mostly I'd love a plan that bases ride order on location in the park. Anyone have a sample plan like that? Or even just a recommendation on which part of the park to start in. And where is the best place to view a map of the parks?

Thanks!

 

[DisneySyd]

Note: It’s harder to do a location based plan with Genie+. That said, since you’re skipping the big rides, you’ll likely have better success than most.

I suggest you download the My Disney Experience app and start playing around with it. It will show you maps of each park (location button) and you’ll get a sense of wait times and which rides “sell out” quicker (tip board). For example, despite neither being “big rides”, both Jungle Cruise and Peter Pan are gone the quickest at MK. You’ll need to book them at 7am (choose your priority)

As for which part of the park to start in, it depends on if you’re onsite and rope dropping or heading in at/after normal park open.

 

[godfather927]

Going to WDW for four days, one day each park. I have two smaller children, so we won't be partaking in a lot of the big rides. I will probably still get genie plus for a few days, I think at least the MK day. But mostly I'd love a plan that bases ride order on location in the park. Anyone have a sample plan like that? Or even just a recommendation on which part of the park to start in. And where is the best place to view a map of the parks?

Thanks!

You'll want to try creating some test plans at Touring Plans to get an idea of all the ride locations and best times to ride each one to minimize waiting. There are two huge caveats to this, TP currently doesn't factor in predicted G+ return times so you'll have to enable the advanced options and then plug in your own values from sorting through the recent history at thrill data. But even then, some of the return times can be highly variable from one day to the next and even one hour to the next, so you'll have to keep this in mind. Also, the predicted waiting times on TP when creating a plan seem overly optimistic to me. They regularly list some HS rides at less than half of what the most recent reports are actually showing.

So in summary, what you want to do is going to be very difficult due to the Genie+ system not allowing you to select a desired time later in the day and forcing you to select only the first available return time for a given ride.

 

[caroline7238]

You'll want to try creating some test plans at Touring Plans to get an idea of all the ride locations and best times to ride each one to minimize waiting. There are two huge caveats to this, TP currently doesn't factor in predicted G+ return times so you'll have to enable the advanced options and then plug in your own values from sorting through the recent history at thrill data. But even then, some of the return times can be highly variable from one day to the next and even one hour to the next, so you'll have to keep this in mind. Also, the predicted waiting times on TP when creating a plan seem overly optimistic to me. They regularly list some HS rides at less than half of what the most recent reports are actually showing.

So in summary, what you want to do is going to be very difficult due to the Genie+ system not allowing you to select a desired time later in the day and only forcing your to select the first available return time for a given ride.

And I was my plan would actually be easier! It seems Jungle cruise is the big one to get for the first genie plus. I'm thinking I start in tomorrow world as my son will love the "race cars" and I think early on buzz lightyear seems to have a low wait time. And then head toward little mermaid and winnie the pooh (are those two even close to eachother?) - are you familiar enough with the park layout to think that might make sense? Then maybe the carousel, Dumbo and/or Aladdin. The maps leave a little to be desired with some of this.. I think by then it might be time to head toward jungle cruise area and hopefully we can book an afternoon genie plus of splash mountain (likely our only "big" ride).

Thanks!

 

[DisneySyd]

And I was my plan would actually be easier! It seems Jungle cruise is the big one to get for the first genie plus. I'm thinking I start in tomorrow world as my son will love the "race cars" and I think early on buzz lightyear seems to have a low wait time. And then head toward little mermaid and winnie the pooh (are those two even close to eachother?) - are you familiar enough with the park layout to think that might make sense? Then maybe the carousel, Dumbo and/or Aladdin. The maps leave a little to be desired with some of this.. I think by then it might be time to head toward jungle cruise area and hopefully we can book an afternoon genie plus of splash mountain (likely our only "big" ride).

Thanks!

ETA: Yes, book Jungle cruise first

If you want to minimize walking/wait then I would do the rides in the following order:
1. Buzz
2. Tomorrowland speedway
3. Winnie (you’ll pass the carousel but you’ll pass it again so I wouldn’t stop)
4. Ariel
5. Dumbo
6. Carousel
7. Aladdin (this is the only one on the other side of the park - it’s right beside Jungle Cruise)

1-6 are all relatively close together, and you’ll basically do a loop (passing carousel twice) before heading over to Aladdin. Winnie has an interactive standby line so not too bad with littles. The “line” for Dumbo is an indoor playground, so also good.
If you google Magic Kingdom maps you can find a pdf version that might be easier to use.

 

[godfather927]

And I was my plan would actually be easier! It seems Jungle cruise is the big one to get for the first genie plus. I'm thinking I start in tomorrow world as my son will love the "race cars" and I think early on buzz lightyear seems to have a low wait time. And then head toward little mermaid and winnie the pooh (are those two even close to eachother?) - are you familiar enough with the park layout to think that might make sense? Then maybe the carousel, Dumbo and/or Aladdin. The maps leave a little to be desired with some of this.. I think by then it might be time to head toward jungle cruise area and hopefully we can book an afternoon genie plus of splash mountain (likely our only "big" ride).

Thanks!

First thing you'll probably want to do is go through the list of attractions and rank them in order of priority (something like Must Ride, Nice to Ride, or Skip). TP has a description and sortable rating system based on age demographic for each ride to give you a rough idea of whether you might enjoy that particular ride or not. https://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/attractions/
Note: Some of the items they list are more accurately described as shows and some are discontinued due to covid so you should always double check each one you plan on doing on the official wdw site.

Then once you have that list, you can use Thrill Data to look through recent history to figure out which of those rides sell out on G+ the fastest. Currently Jungle Cruise is in really high demand so you'll probably want to grab that first if it's a priority for you. https://www.thrill-data.com/waits/park/wdw/magic-kingdom/2022/04/20

 

[caroline7238]

First thing you'll probably want to do is go through the list of attractions and rank them in order of priority (something like Must Ride, Nice to Ride, or Skip). TP has a description and sortable rating system based on age demographic for each ride to give you a rough idea of whether you might enjoy that particular ride or not. https://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/attractions/
Note: Some of the items they list are more accurately described as shows and some are discontinued due to covid so you should always double check each one you plan on doing on the official wdw site.

Then once you have that list, you can use Thrill Data to look through recent history to figure out which of those rides sell out on G+ the fastest. Currently Jungle Cruise is in really high demand so you'll probably want to grab that first if it's a priority for you. https://www.thrill-data.com/waits/park/wdw/magic-kingdom/2022/04/20

Thank you all so much, this is so helpful. Thrill data is new to me so that's great. Also, are character Meet and greets on the map? I definitely want to throw in a few of those. And based on checking genie plus it looks like those have jumped in wait times since going back to "normal". I hope that settles down some...

 

[WALTSAGOD]

Check out Touring Plans

 

[_19disnA]

I would download the parks maps from the Disney website so you have some idea of where the rides you want to do are located. If you have a general idea of the location of key rides you are interested in doing, you can do a better job of planning. Doing 4 parks in 4 days is a LOT of walking and smaller children may need a mid-day break/nap so I doubt you can do an entire day at a park. I don't think there is any magical order in which to do rides and no 3rd party has a better crystal ball to accurately predict future wait times. For example, I think it would be a bad plan to walk all the way to the back of any park when you first arrive just to do one ride and then walk all the way back to the front to do various other rides.

Disney parks are almost always busy and the most popular rides have the longest lines. I would try to avoid zig-zagging from one end of the park to another just to do the next ride you are interested in (wastes time and lots of extra walking). I would try to be in an area of park doing other rides around the time of any Genie reservations you might be able to get.