Touring plans itinerary with Genie+

[Danibp]

Before Genie+ we used Touring Plans itineraries. Are they still beneficial with Genie+?

 

[scrappinginontario]

For us, yes.

 

[LarryGadget]

For us, yes.

How do you use Touring Plans now? Is it more for strategy? More for higher level planning ahead of time and then day of the parks use Genie plus?

 

[gharter]

Maybe we have been there enough times, but I haven't found TP itineraries to be very helpful the last few years. Their itineraries worked well with FP+ with the pre-planning. I couldn't get them to work as well with Genie + due to the lack of planning available.

 

[rxbeth]

Maybe we have been there enough times, but I haven't found TP itineraries to be very helpful the last few years. Their itineraries worked well with FP+ with the pre-planning. I couldn't get them to work as well with Genie + due to the lack of planning available.

I have to agree. I purchased it 2 weeks out from my trip and tried to work a few things out and I didn't like it. I feel like I wasted my money this time.

 

[Beezle2]

I bought TP a few days ago for my March trip and am not thrilled with it. It was only $17 so I'm not too upset but still. I cannot get it to group areas together.

 

[Lovetherodent]

I'm struggling to put together usable itinerary without being able to preplan Genie+. It's probably great if you won't be purchasing G+. It also has the room request feature and the ADR finder that can be useful.

 

[kylenne]

I'm struggling to put together usable itinerary without being able to preplan Genie+. It's probably great if you won't be purchasing G+. It also has the room request feature and the ADR finder that can be useful.

The ADR finder is free to anyone, only the room request requires the sub. And the Lines app. I'll be honest, I sub every year and have never once used the actual touring plans because I found them unnecessary with even a little knowledge on crowd patterns. Lines is why I do. Wait times are far more accurate than MDE with only a couple exceptions, rides in spots with dead zones that make it hard to submit times (Dinosaur being a bad one).

 

[lentesta]

I bought TP a few days ago for my March trip and am not thrilled with it. It was only $17 so I'm not too upset but still. I cannot get it to group areas together.

There might be a couple of options:

1) Group the areas together manually and use the 'evaluate' function to see how long that'll take
2) Move the "Walking Time" slider to its slowest setting, and set the other slider to "Minimize walking."

Disney puts its headliner attractions in different areas of the park to distribute crowds more evenly. Minimizing waits in line often means crossing the park. The above steps help balance that out somewhat.

 

[godfather927]

TP is good when trying to line up attractions nearby each other in your itinerary, and also good for getting a rough idea of the time needed to walk from one side of the park to the other should you need to. TP is no longer as useful to create an itinerary for you from scratch. Due to the nature of G+ return times fluctuating month to month or even week to week, you have to sort of going into the TP planning phase with an outline of the order of which G+ rides you plan to book, and then use a site like Thrill Data to get a rough idea of the estimated return times for each of those rides based on the window you plan to book them at. It's much harder now, but you can still do some pre-planning to save yourself a lot of time and minimize waste while in the park. It's not as easy as it was in the FP+ days, but you still can largely avoid zig-zagging now that you can reschedule G+ return times.

 

[deannaf87]

I agree with the previous poster, if you use Touring Plans in conjunction with Thrill Data, its a workable system. You will have to use the Thrill Data G+ times and force those in Touring Plans though and that can be frustrating. I'm finding the new G+ addon to TP is a bit glitchy as well. Hopefully they can sort it out. TP is definitely not as useful as it used to be with FP+. I still pay for it becuase I honestly enjoy playing around with it.

 

[JC1984]

Anyone having issues with the TP Lines app? Seems extremely glitchy lately and reading the reviews on the App Store seems like it is a known issue also a lot of complaints of it not being accurate lately? Any recent users that can confirm or deny.

 

[_19disnA]

If you have been to Disney multiple times you already know the location of rides/shows you like the best and the most popular rides tend to have the longest wait time. I don't see where paying for their plan would accomplish much. If you are new to Disney, then you don't really know what your preferences are so I don't see that being any help either. Zig/zagging all over the park to get to a ride with a supposedly shorter wait time can add a lot of needless extras miles to your visit. By the time you get there, things might have changed or the ride could be down for a maintenance issue.

 

[scrappinginontario]

For us, it’s well worth the cost!! Less than 1 day of G+ for 1 person. I appreciate the far more accurate wait times when analyzing the park and what we want to do next. I also weigh in heavily the ‘ride now’ or ‘wait’ feature.

We visited DL last summer so were unfamiliar with the parks. Their TP worked great and we were very happy to have them.

It’s all personal choice but for us, the benefits far outweigh the small cost we pay for a TP subscription at both WDW and DL!.

 

[Disneyfan628]

I tried it out yesterday and just based on the one trip we’ve done with genie plus I think we will be able to use it more and in a better way than touring plans was telling me. I also didn’t like how stuff was grouped. I like checking the room finder, the crowd calendars and the adr finder on touring plans though.

 

[thptrek]

During our recent trip in January, I used TP for some pre planning. Once at the parks I found them not to be useful at all. You have to spend a lot of time on the Disney App refreshing LL times, checking waits etc. Trying to use the TP Lines app was just too much to add in. I probably will not purchasing TP in the future.

 

[Davey Jones II]

TP is good when trying to line up attractions nearby each other in your itinerary, and also good for getting a rough idea of the time needed to walk from one side of the park to the other should you need to. TP is no longer as useful to create an itinerary for you from scratch. Due to the nature of G+ return times fluctuating month to month or even week to week, you have to sort of going into the TP planning phase with an outline of the order of which G+ rides you plan to book, and then use a site like Thrill Data to get a rough idea of the estimated return times for each of those rides based on the window you plan to book them at. It's much harder now, but you can still do some pre-planning to save yourself a lot of time and minimize waste while in the park. It's not as easy as it was in the FP+ days, but you still can largely avoid zig-zagging now that you can reschedule G+ return times.

Does Thrill Data give good estimated wait times for rides?

 

[scrappinginontario]

Does Thrill Data give good estimated wait times for rides?

It shows ‘current wait’ but I believe it’s calculated based on historical data not on actual real-time data which TP is.

I find TP to be extremely helpful and well worth the subscription price.