Touring Plans and Fastpass+

[dismsn]

I just made my Fastpass+ reservations for our visit in September and went to create personalized touring plans incorporating our Fastpass+ reservations. For most of the days the touring plans didn't use all of our Fastpass+ reservations stating there would be a longer wait or more walking if they were used.

Is it worth it to change the Fastpass times to match the touring plans? I don't want to wait in line if I don't have to but I don't know if the touring plans will change between now and September.

FWIW, we're going mid-September and the busiest day in the parks is a crowd level 3. Several days the crowd level is a 1. Also, it's just my husband and me and we aren't doing character visits so no A&E angst for us.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

 

[marchingstar]

We've had some troubles creating touring plans with FP+ ressies too. Here's what we did: when our 60-day window opened, we had rough touring plans made and booked the FP+es for when the plan suggested. But because that changed our wait times, hitting optimize changed the plan, and we got the message that the plan wasn't using all of the FP+es. So because we were doing this close to the 60-day mark, we did go back and change some of our return windows to better match the optimized suggestions. BUT there were also some suggestions that made no sense to us, and some FP+es that we wanted to keep where they were. So with those, we just dragged the ride to the right time in the plan and pressed evaluate rather than optimize. The ride then switched from standby to FP+. We noticed minimal changes to our wait times for the day when we made these manual adjustments, so I'm not sure why the touring plan program wouldn't include the reservations when optimizing.

So the short answer is that if you're comfortable with the crowds being low and you know the parks, I would go with your gut. Try dragging the attractions to the correct times in your plans and see if the program will include them, and if not change them if you'd like. But if you don't want to, I think you'll be okay too!

 

[dismsn]

Thanks for letting me know how you dealt with this.

 

[chrisuofa]

We will be there around the same time - will make FP selections Sunday night. This is very helpful info - thanks both

 

[Shrimp332]

I had the same problems. Thankfully today at 60 days out I just went and played around with my fast passes or moved them in the order I wanted/touring plans to avoid extra walking and then hit evaluate. Be very careful not to hit optimize because you can't go back to how you had it without dragging them all back to the order you had... I have done that a couple of times huge pain... Too bad they didn't have an undo button.... It took me a while but finally got things how I wanted... Now if I can just take a break from obsessing with Disney now that I think all the planning is done except the rental car...

 

[wcurry66]

i changed several FPs to match the touring plan's suggestions. it was quick and easy

 

[dismsn]

Thanks for all the great advice. I'll recreate my touring plans and just drag the rides to the time of our FP+es. I purposely made all of our FP ressies in the morning so we could possibly add another FP in the afternoon/evening. After thinking about it all day (I would rather be at WDW than work) I figured I might change some of our FP+ ressies to later in the day when the lines might be longer.

 

[soniam]

I only got that comment on one ride, Spaceship Earth. I just left it, because there really wasn't any other FPP that we wanted or made sense at Epcot. We plan on being in line before 11am for Maelstrom and already had Soarin' and Mission Space. Plus, if we decide to not do Spaceship Earth as early as the plan suggests or things go bad, then we have that backup.

As far as hand-editing, I had to do that for HS. I think I had to do it a couple of years ago too. I noticed that there are 2 FPP times for the 1:20pm LMA. Weird huh? Putting in the two different FPP times results in two different optimized plans, both with a lot of weird waiting time. So, I created one by hand that's the best of both of them. I guess I'll find out how things pan out in a little over 2 weeks.

I don't know if you've ever used Touring Plans before, but I find that it's actually pretty pessimistic. We almost always finish everything on the plan in way less time than it says. This has happened both at WDW and DL during summer. The only things that I wish that I had really believed them more on were TSMM at WDW and Radiator Springs Racers at DL. Whatever you do, don't estimate their warnings. Sadly, they are not exaggerating one bit. They may even be under-emphasizing the waits. However, Radiator Springs Racers would improve with FPP versus FP I think. We must have stood in line for over 2 hours for the FP and the ride. Luckily, it was fun.

 

[Rinda]

We've had some troubles creating touring plans with FP+ ressies too. Here's what we did: when our 60-day window opened, we had rough touring plans made and booked the FP+es for when the plan suggested. But because that changed our wait times, hitting optimize changed the plan, and we got the message that the plan wasn't using all of the FP+es. So because we were doing this close to the 60-day mark, we did go back and change some of our return windows to better match the optimized suggestions. BUT there were also some suggestions that made no sense to us, and some FP+es that we wanted to keep where they were. So with those, we just dragged the ride to the right time in the plan and pressed evaluate rather than optimize. The ride then switched from standby to FP+. We noticed minimal changes to our wait times for the day when we made these manual adjustments, so I'm not sure why the touring plan program wouldn't include the reservations when optimizing.

So the short answer is that if you're comfortable with the crowds being low and you know the parks, I would go with your gut. Try dragging the attractions to the correct times in your plans and see if the program will include them, and if not change them if you'd like. But if you don't want to, I think you'll be okay too!

Does TouringPlans suggest FastPass times when you edit a plan? We changed plans to better reflect the things we wanted to experience and I'm not sure if the suggested fastpass times will still work.

 

[amomma23]

.

 

[DisneyBelle27]

I only got that comment on one ride, Spaceship Earth. I just left it, because there really wasn't any other FPP that we wanted or made sense at Epcot. We plan on being in line before 11am for Maelstrom and already had Soarin' and Mission Space. Plus, if we decide to not do Spaceship Earth as early as the plan suggests or things go bad, then we have that backup.

As far as hand-editing, I had to do that for HS. I think I had to do it a couple of years ago too. I noticed that there are 2 FPP times for the 1:20pm LMA. Weird huh? Putting in the two different FPP times results in two different optimized plans, both with a lot of weird waiting time. So, I created one by hand that's the best of both of them. I guess I'll find out how things pan out in a little over 2 weeks.

I don't know if you've ever used Touring Plans before, but I find that it's actually pretty pessimistic. We almost always finish everything on the plan in way less time than it says. This has happened both at WDW and DL during summer. The only things that I wish that I had really believed them more on were TSMM at WDW and Radiator Springs Racers at DL. Whatever you do, don't estimate their warnings. Sadly, they are not exaggerating one bit. They may even be under-emphasizing the waits. However, Radiator Springs Racers would improve with FPP versus FP I think. We must have stood in line for over 2 hours for the FP and the ride. Luckily, it was fun.

Just wanted to give you a heads up, Maelstrom is closed, has been since Oct. 2014, and won't be reopening until I believe 2016 once the Frozen redo is complete.

http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/rehab.htm
http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/epcot/epws-norway.htm

 

[HulkBuster]

Just wanted to give you a heads up, Maelstrom is closed, has been since Oct. 2014, and won't be reopening until I believe 2016 once the Frozen redo is complete.

http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/rehab.htm
http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/epcot/epws-norway.htm

the post you quoted is a year old and from when malstrom was open

 

[DisneyBelle27]

the post you quoted is a year old and from when malstrom was open

haha, awesome, totally didn't notice this was a resurrected thread!

 

[LetsTalkWDW]

I just made my Fastpass+ reservations for our visit in September and went to create personalized touring plans incorporating our Fastpass+ reservations. For most of the days the touring plans didn't use all of our Fastpass+ reservations stating there would be a longer wait or more walking if they were used.

Is it worth it to change the Fastpass times to match the touring plans? I don't want to wait in line if I don't have to but I don't know if the touring plans will change between now and September.

FWIW, we're going mid-September and the busiest day in the parks is a crowd level 3. Several days the crowd level is a 1. Also, it's just my husband and me and we aren't doing character visits so no A&E angst for us.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

Keep in mind, you should only press "Optimize" if you want the Touring Plans planner to re-arrange everything. If you just need it to look at what you changed and give you the expected times, you should use "Evaluate".

I selected all the attractions I wanted. Then pressed "Optimize". After that I inserted the FP+ times I already had and moved those attractions to roughly where I thought they should be. Then pressed "Evaluate", tweak as necessary, hit "Evaluate" and so on.. Never use Optimize other than the first time or it re-arrange everything.