Touring Plans and FP+

[katmu]

I made FP+ reservations for all 4 parks last week. Yesterday, I was trying to do the personalized touring plans on the touring plans site using our FP+ times and meal reservations, and it wanted to ignore the FP+ reservations saying the plans didn't use them.

TP recommended trading in the times for other rides, like trading in Space Mountain for example. Are they saying that touring would be more efficient without FP+? I was thinking I would keep the times we have, just in case but now I'm 2nd guessing that.

We haven't visited Disney in a long, long time and we didn't use the old FP on that last trip so that's probably adding to my confusion.

 

[suziespice]

I was having the same problems with the plans, I pretty much re-arranged my fast passes to match the touring plan..although I haven't mapped out my days at Epcot yet and not I'm reading that they've added tiers to the fast passes and that you shouldn't change them now.. not sure what I'm going to do with that.. I kinda have to keep the ones I have..cause I have a few tier 1's on one day.

 

[twinone]

Good question, I started working on mine also and had the same issue. I need to go in and finish up now since were leaving next week and I was concerned about how this is going to work...

 

[lugnut33]

I've spent hours messing around with it.

Here's the thing to remember, Touring Plans does NOT consider the use of FP+ on the major headliners (which I'm sure you have picked) to be the most efficient way of touring. It's defaulting to knocking out the headliners first thing in the morning, which makes sense because that's when you'll encounter the lowest lines for those attractions. If you look you'll see that the FP+ wait time will always be longer than the line first thing in the morning.

You can enter in your FP+ times, but it will cancel those out and suggest moving some of them to a different time and different attraction to assemble the most time efficient touring plan.

When I did Thanksgiving day at MK from 7am to 1pm, it only recommended using 1 FP+, and that was for HM because of the half hour or longer wait it can have late morning.

 

[katmu]

I've spent hours messing around with it.

Here's the thing to remember, Touring Plans does NOT consider the use of FP+ on the major headliners (which I'm sure you have picked) to be the most efficient way of touring. It's defaulting to knocking out the headliners first thing in the morning, which makes sense because that's when you'll encounter the lowest lines for those attractions. If you look you'll see that the FP+ wait time will always be longer than the line first thing in the morning.

You can enter in your FP+ times, but it will cancel those out and suggest moving some of them to a different time and different attraction to assemble the most time efficient touring plan.

When I did Thanksgiving day at MK from 7am to 1pm, it only recommended using 1 FP+, and that was for HM because of the half hour or longer wait it can have late morning.

So did you switch your other FP+ to another ride? Or move the times to 1st thing in the morning, is possible?

 

[jimmiej]

Wondering if it would work to forget FP+ altogether and just do TP. ???

 

[katmu]

So I just updated our FP+ times to match the touring plans times as closely as I could. I started with the top headliner at each park and worked my way down. I then went back to touring plans and updated the FP+ reservation times and clicked optimize.

It did reduce the wait times a bit so I think these are the times I'm going to stick with.

 

[lugnut33]

I did not switch our times, we are just going to ride the headliners twice. Take that Disney!! We are rebels.

You can only forget using Fastpass Plus if you have access to FP-. However, some of the FP+ selections will be used on rides with traditional long afternoon lines, like Haunted Mansion, Maelstrom or Great Movie Ride. Or if your family likes meed and greets Touring Plans suggests using FP+ for them.

 

[twinone]

Wow I just tried to go in and work on our plans and I'm hating touring plans, so we can't include our FP times in the plan? All of mine are scheduled in the morning as of now for each park but I'm finding out there's no way to include them in the "plan"??
I feel like if I'm going to be using the FP+ it's a waste to use Touring plans??

 

[katmu]

Wow I just tried to go in and work on our plans and I'm hating touring plans, so we can't include our FP times in the plan? All of mine are scheduled in the morning as of now for each park but I'm finding out there's no way to include them in the "plan"??
I feel like if I'm going to be using the FP+ it's a waste to use Touring plans??

You can add the FP+ reservation times under where it says FastPass+ options. Optimize after that. My times, for all the parks other than DHS are in the morning and it worked for me.

 

[twinone]

ok thanks I'll try that again, I did list them in that section but it seems like it didn't include them all in the plan...hope I spend more time doing this then waiting in lines at the park LOL

 

[mggeary]

Skip touring plans...

Pick your FP+s for the afternoon, preferably between 1-5pm after lunch. Have a plan of attack for the morning, riding headliners first. Plan your table service or quick service lunch. Plan your FP+s for after lunch in a way that minimizing walking. Fill in the rest of teh afternoon with low wait, high capacity rides.

Touringplans.com just can't make a better touring plan than you can do for yourself. If needed, use their very helpful Lines app and wait time/FP return time data to figure out your AM and FP+ ride priorities and/or plan your paper FP return times. Better to make the actual plan yourself.

Try to check disboards before you make your plan to see if you will be able to use paper FP. Don't forget to make use of childswap passes if you have a little one.

 

[lugnut33]

I was able to "fit" a plan that used our FP+ at the times I had already selected, however the total wait time was higher than if I utilized the early morning technique that Touring Plans was suggesting.

You can select all you want, but as soon as you hit "optimize" it's going to create a plan with the least amount of wait time and that is most effective. Even if it has to eliminate your selected FP+ times.

 

[lugnut33]

ok thanks I'll try that again, I did list them in that section but it seems like it didn't include them all in the plan...hope I spend more time doing this then waiting in lines at the park LOL

Took me a while also before I realized the Touring Plan was eliminating my FP+ selections (once you hit "Optimize") because utilizing them wasn't the most efficient touring plan.

Now, if you only have access to FP+, then you'll want to let Touring Plans select those as well the touring plan.

Honestly, once you fiddle with it for hours it makes more sense the the MDE website.