The trials of making a touring plan...

[CeruleanMoon]

I'm trying to learn how to make a touring plan and am wondering if anyone has any tips. The site is incredible of course, but there are so many variables to consider, some of which TP doesn't know how to account for. As soon as I started trying to rearrange things myself, the day started to get messed up and I felt a bit frustrated.

For example: My son is interested in trying some rollercoasters for the first time, but he is adamant on working his way up by doing them in a certain order. Barnstormer --->Mine Train--->Big Thunder.

I have a similar concern. I'm sensitive to motion sickness,so I prefer that certain rides are not done first thing in the morning or right after a meal, etc.

When I had TP do a plan for me for MK, it wanted to put Big Thunder first thing in the morning, then Mine train right after lunch, then Barnstormer, which wouldn't have worked for either of us!

I tried to change it, but there is no way to tell it what I need without micromanaging the whole day, and then I'd be missing out on the whole point of the site.

I also had trouble with things like planning in Jedi Training. You have no idea what time slot you'll get, so TP can't account for that at all. Even scheduling FP was a problem. At first it didn't want me to use any at all, then it suggested FP for rides I didn't want to use them for. Then I picked them out myself, put them in the beginning of the day (like many people suggest) and the site didn't like that at all! I went from having 1.5 hrs free time at the end of the day to running out of time altogether!

What's the best way to use a touring plan and still make it work for you?

 

[MrsHull]

I choose everything I want to do, optimize the list, drag rides around to better fit my idea of what order we might like to do them in, hit evaluate, choose fast passes and times based off the longest estimated wait times, plug those in, evaluate again, then tweak as needed. The site gives me a pretty good idea of whether my expectations are reasonable and whether I need to rethink where or when we start our day.

 

[coasternut22]

First, I don't use the optimize feature. It has you walking all over the place. I only use evaluate.

I insert the order of the rides I want BY LAND. For example, I'll start with Space, then Buzz, then Speedway. Hit evaluate, then I'll get a sense of how much time it takes. I'll then add fantasyland rides: Teacups, Dumbo, Barnstormer, Mine train, lunch etc, hit evaluate, and get a sense of how much time it takes. Each time I add or change fastpass times so the plan works correctly.

This takes a bit of trial and error, but I feel this method gives me the greatest flexibility in changing a plan on the fly the day of but still having a plan to begin with. As long as I know which land I want to be in at each part of the day, I can fill in the gaps with attractions, and the touring plans maker really gives me a good sense of what I can realistically accomplish in a set amount of time.

 

[Ouida]

Those roller coaster! Im the same, want to try.........but. Our first day is at MK and its just me and my 6 yr son. Im not sure what we can handle either. I used TP to make a summary of what we want, and to add FP times. I havent use it yet, so please remember that. But what I did was set everything to very relaxed walking speed. I emailed TP and they tell me, very relaxed is 167%, relaxed 133%, regular 100%, and fast 80%. So ok, that gives me the sudden bathroom, snack time. Then i set up a rough plan, of how i wanted the day to go, and used ONLY the evaluate tab, that showed me how much walking would be involved, and time in lines. Then when i was happy that it was a doable plan, and my 60 day FP window opened, I tried to get the FPs based on what I had down. Of course 7DMT only had one time slot, so had to rearrange again. Then I looked at a map and looked for restaurants that would be around us and have food he would eat. Now that is all set I check weekly, hitting the evaluate button to see if it still works, as they update often. Here my plan, and please anyone, tell me what you think,
Barnstomer 9:21
under the sea 9:32
peter pans Flight (FP) 10am
small world 10:10
Haunted manson 10:36
Pirates 11;15
Lunch at golden oaks 11:40
Jungle cruise (fp) 12:30
Break time and setup for Fantasy Parade
if enough time - tom sawyer island
7DMT (FP) 3:50 (if I dont chicken out)
And that takes me to late afternoon when we may call it quits or ride whatever has FP availability, hoping Buzz lightyear. As you can see, we hit everything early before lines, going kind of fast, I dont think I can handle the jarring of thunder Mountain, so not in there, and you could always do PPF at rope drop too, its easy going. My day calls for a moderate crowd, so that could effect you too. best of luck. and please post what you come up with, i'd love to see it. PS: I also have a lot of notes on my plan, so I can remember what I was thinking later.

 

[sah95]

@CeruleanMoon , thank so much for posting. I am having a very anxiety producing experience with Touringplans. I love the concept of it & paid for a subscription even though I'm not sure how to use
it It is so confusing to me. I have read tips on how to use it, etc. I had my FPs already made before I looked at the website for the first time so now the FPs that are suggested aren't available. Good luck with the roller coasters!!

 

[Hopefully]

The Touring Plan site has Forums where you can ask these questions and Touring Plans folks can answer

 

[unrequited23]

For me the hybrid approach seems to work best. I divide MK into at least 2 days-and do one half of the park the first day and the other half the second day. I uses easywdw.com suggestions for ride priorities discarding the ones that do not work for my family due to height/interest. Then I put my rough plan into TP and evaluate.

 

[slpeters]

First a caveat: I've never been to Disney World. But I do feel like I've spent almost as much time looking at these touring plans as I will be spending there!

My method:

Pick out all the things you want to do.
Optimize. If it can't be optimized fix the conflicts or start removing items. Optimize again.
Once it can be successfully optimized copy that plan and work off the copy--but keep the optimized one for comparison. Unless somehow the optimized plan looks like what you would want to do--hasn't happened to me yet but I suppose it could.
Start rearranging things the way you would actually want to do them starting with events that only have one possible time, then the things that you have a particular preference for: like the order of the coasters in your case. If there's something you're just not sure about drag it to the end for now.
Evaluate.
You're going to have weird bottlenecks, especially if there are events in your plan.
Start with the events that it can't fit in (i.e. where the newly arranged plan has pushed the event to a time it isn't offered). Decide whether it is possible to push the event back further (multiple offerings) or if you have to start clearing room before it. To clear room before it start moving items to the bottom of the list. Evaluate every move or two.
At this point you will end up with a bunch of stuff at the bottom of your list that it says you aren't going to get to--don't worry about that you don't have fast passes yet and...
You're gong to have a bunch of weird free time--it's got it's own column. Watch for anything over say ten minutes and fill it.
I did this by going down to the map. If there's a free time gap listed for item 5 find 5 and 6 on the map. What numbers higher than 6 are between them or near either of them? Drag those up to fill the gap.
From time to time look for unusually high walking or waiting numbers above the part of the plan you are actively working on (you're going to see a lot of high numbers below that point, disregard them for now). Follow the numbers through the map at the bottom to see if rearranging could drive down the walk times. For large waits flip over to the optimized copy. Is there a time of day where that wait wouldn't exist? Is it worth moving it? If there isn't or it isn't worth moving that's one of your FPs.
When you program in a FP reevaluate--it will change everything after it.
Keep working your way down the plan, rinsing and repeating until you get to the end.
If you are going to the same park more than one day, make sure to have the other plan up in another tab/window--sometimes moving an attraction from one day to another makes a huge difference. 7DMT might totally blow up my Wednesday plan but on Friday when I was going to rope-drop the tea cups...
Take a final run through the map. Moving around the park on the map in numeric order. Is there anything that could be flipped to cut walk time? Do that and evaluate.

In my experience you will end up with wait times a few minutes higher for the day than the "optimized" plan and sometimes slightly lower walk times this way. When you compare your plan and the optimized plan if the numbers for the optimized plan are considerably better it might make sense to look at where the biggest discrepancies are and switch things around. Maybe I shouldn't be rope-dropping the tea cups.

Of course then you will book your FPs and you either won't be able to get one or you won't be able to get one at the appropriate time. I had one of the latter. So you restart the process, this time starting from your previous plan. Copy it, retain the original and start moving things around, this time treating your FPs (especially the ones you can't move) as a fixed point. Rinse and repeat!

Then the dining reservation you wanted will open up. Again rinse and repeat!

TP has marvelous planning software. When I get to the World in November I'll be able to tell you if it actually works in real life!

 

[heather13]

I totally agree with doing "optimize" first with the rides you want to take, then moving them around and doing "evaluate". That way you can get an idea of where you might be able to save some time but can still have flexibility. I like to use the map at the bottom so I know if we're backtracking too much with "evaluate". You could even create two plans: one for "optimize" and one for "evaluate" as long as you don't get them confused - then you could compare the two for wait times, etc.

I don't know what to tell you about the Jedi Training though! I'm running into the same issue! I created an event that's 20 minutes long first thing in the morning for signup, but then I plan to just update it while we're there on the app and add the training time (using "evaluate") once we know for certain. I've read here that you can choose your Jedi training time based on availability, and since our TP has it scheduled after lunch I'm hoping that's the slot we can get.

 

[CeruleanMoon]

You guys are great! Thank you so much for the advice. I noticed that sometimes TP had me walking from one end of the park to the other, or backtracking past rides. I think I will try to organize it by land as suggested and then evaluate in chunks. I'll stick to mostly using the "evaluate" button instead of "optimize" as well. I'll start making copies of their suggested plan vs. mine and see if I can create the best of both worlds. We are only visiting each park once, so I need to make the most of it if possible! I also have peeked at the forums on their site and found one stickied post with more detailed suggestions as well. At least I have 6 months still to figure this whole thing out!

I need to learn how to use the app before we go. Is it possible to create a practice plan on a date that we aren't scheduled to be at Disney and then try out things with the app as if I were there at the park? I wonder if that would be the best way to learn. Sometimes I feel old already (Gen X here) with learning how to use new apps and such.

 

[rer1972]

I choose everything I want to do, optimize the list, drag rides around to better fit my idea of what order we might like to do them in, hit evaluate, choose fast passes and times based off the longest estimated wait times, plug those in, evaluate again, then tweak as needed. The site gives me a pretty good idea of whether my expectations are reasonable and whether I need to rethink where or when we start our day.

Pretty much a very accurate description of what we have planned for us or others, and seems to work very well. I would also recommend being very conservative on times (giving yourself enough time to enjoy an activity such as dining, character meets, etc), walking speed (we usually use relaxed or very relaxed depending on the size/type of group), and waiting vs walking (we tend to set this at minimize walking).

Finally, if you deviate from the plan don't fret; be willing to improvise and adapt!! Makes things more enjoyable for us.

Those are my main trips.

 

[Cynergy]

I also had trouble with things like planning in Jedi Training. You have no idea what time slot you'll get, so TP can't account for that at all.

I generally make 3 or 4 plans for our HS day with different times set for Jedi Training. I will start with what a plan using my preferred time for Jedi and then set up fast passes etc. Then I make a copy and move Jedi to my next preferred time, in case 1st choice isn't available. Doing it this way I know my FP's are going to be in the same time slots regardless of Jedi and then on the day we are at HS and we sign up for Jedi, I then use the plan for that time slot. Like I said I usually do 3 or 4 different times, but have never not been able to sign DD up for either our 1st or 2nd choice.

One other thing to keep in mind is that for Jedi they want you back 30 minuted prior to your show time, but TP only sets aside 15 min for waiting. I add in a 20 min stay in the park break before Jedi to account for that.

 

[CeruleanMoon]

I generally make 3 or 4 plans for our HS day with different times set for Jedi Training. I will start with what a plan using my preferred time for Jedi and then set up fast passes etc. Then I make a copy and move Jedi to my next preferred time, in case 1st choice isn't available. Doing it this way I know my FP's are going to be in the same time slots regardless of Jedi and then on the day we are at HS and we sign up for Jedi, I then use the plan for that time slot. Like I said I usually do 3 or 4 different times, but have never not been able to sign DD up for either our 1st or 2nd choice.

One other thing to keep in mind is that for Jedi they want you back 30 minuted prior to your show time, but TP only sets aside 15 min for waiting. I add in a 20 min stay in the park break before Jedi to account for that.

Thanks, this is very helpful. Do you usually try to get an early slot or a later one?

 

[TulipMom]

I do same as advice you've received above.

I so wish Touring Plans had an option to keep certain steps in a protected grouping, so you could use optimize while also protecting certain steps that you want to be in a specific order. It's still a great tool, but does take A LOT of playing around with your plan if you are detail oriented.

 

[wonderstruck88]

First, I don't use the optimize feature. It has you walking all over the place. I only use evaluate.

I insert the order of the rides I want BY LAND. For example, I'll start with Space, then Buzz, then Speedway. Hit evaluate, then I'll get a sense of how much time it takes. I'll then add fantasyland rides: Teacups, Dumbo, Barnstormer, Mine train, lunch etc, hit evaluate, and get a sense of how much time it takes. Each time I add or change fastpass times so the plan works correctly.

This takes a bit of trial and error, but I feel this method gives me the greatest flexibility in changing a plan on the fly the day of but still having a plan to begin with. As long as I know which land I want to be in at each part of the day, I can fill in the gaps with attractions, and the touring plans maker really gives me a good sense of what I can realistically accomplish in a set amount of time.

The walking all over problem has a pretty easy fix though - you just select the "minimize walking" option.

 

[Cynergy]

Thanks, this is very helpful. Do you usually try to get an early slot or a later one?

We usually try for mid-afternoon to before dinner. In my opinion doing an early one cuts into prime early morning touring time.

Edited to fix botched quote.

 

[CeruleanMoon]

I do same as advice you've received above.

I so wish Touring Plans had an option to keep certain steps in a protected grouping, so you could use optimize while also protecting certain steps that you want to be in a specific order. It's still a great tool, but does take A LOT of playing around with your plan if you are detail oriented.

This is exactly the feature I need.

We usually try for mid-afternoon to before dinner. In my opinion doing an early one cuts into prime early morning touring time.

That makes sense. Might as well take advantage of the shorter lines in the morning!

 

[heather13]

I need to learn how to use the app before we go. Is it possible to create a practice plan on a date that we aren't scheduled to be at Disney and then try out things with the app as if I were there at the park? I wonder if that would be the best way to learn. Sometimes I feel old already (Gen X here) with learning how to use new apps and such.

LOL I'm doing that tomorrow! I set up a dummy plan for Friday and plan to use the app all day (since crowd levels are supposed to be similar to one of our days in the park) and just mark off stuff periodically and try to add a few rides if the lines seem low. If I have time to get back on DIS this weekend I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[mamamelody2]

I admit I find the touring plans a bit difficult to work with, too.
Luckily, I don't feel the need to get that specific with our upcoming trip. I have a plan for the morning and we'll go from there. It's only DH and I so much more flexible than when there are kids along!

 

[KimBean]

Evaluate don't optimize.