Touring Plans Personalized Itineraries

[erineab]

I have used touring plans in the past, but only their generic itineraries. Has anyone used a personalized itinerary? What was your experience with this? I have been playing around with different itineraries, and some of the suggestions of ride order seem to contradict their generic plans.

 

[Fantasyland Mom]

We used this on our last trip. Due to how our family works (one toddler, one preschooler with sensory issues due to high-functioning autism, and one first-grader who can be a scaredy cat), their pre-made ones just didn't work that well for us. PLUS, my kids love to tell me exactly which rides they want to do on which day! I just think we know our family better than anyone else.

That being said, I did like that you could put in what you'd like, then have them tell you the approximate times you'd be getting to each place, waiting times, etc. We tweaked it where we needed so our wait times went down.

I have to say that we really didn't wait at all for much of anything, just like if we'd used the ones on their site/in their books. I am happy they have this option now. Plus, doing it this way, I felt like we had the option to be pretty flexible while we were in the parks. I felt no obligation to stick to the plan because a non-expert (me!) made it!

 

[OLT2004]

Back in 2007 - I think the company was Tour Guide Mike - He advertised on these boards....Anyway - I paid something like $20 for an individulized AK plan.

AK had a 3 hour Evening EMH and was open till 8PM.
I asked him for a personalized plan that took into account the 3 extra after dark hours and to incorporate that into the plan.

I got a stock AK touring plan....
The plan I wrote was better...Oh Well...

 

[lnhstl]

Bumping because I have the exact same question. We are going in May, and none of the pre-made plans have everything we want, or some have things we don't want, or don't include breaks or whatever. I've played around with the personalized plan software quite a bit and it always spits out a plan that sounds good...I am a planning nerd so I love that they have the approximate wait/walk/ride time. I am, however, concerned if the personalized plans will work as well as the pre-made ones.

 

[mrbudyhed]

We just got back today. I had a personalized plan from touringplans.com for Fri Jan 18th for Magic Kingdom. It did work great except for a few issues. The computer must have character meet and greets as a no wait attraction. Someone here said that the customer service person at touringplans suggested inserted a planned break time right the character meet and greets to make up for the computer glitch. The problem is, when you do this the computer re-adjusted the whole plan (order and times) as if the breaks were a must do. We were not desperate to meet Merida (especially not with an hour wait!) so we I kind of anticipated just skipping it. What I did find invaluable was knowing when to pick up Fast Passes for certain attractions so that they would be valid in the window that your plan has you going to that attraction. There's no way I could have figured that out on the spot and would have wasted a lot of time with unecessary walking. Oh, our plan also had us getting in line for Belle at 9:30ish with a 24 minute wait time. Well, it was actually an hour wait. I would think that if Belle were a priority, one should get in line First thing, especially since there is no Fast Pass for this. Our day,especialy the morning, aside from this minor Belle disappointment, left little time for crabbiness from the rugrats 'cause we were walking on/very little wait at every attraction, even with unscheduled rides (the Tea Cups were open, but weren't supposed to be, we stopped at Gaston's pub for pastries, potty breaks etc).

 

[mic74]

I had the same question ! I have done a personalized touring plans plan for our 1 day at Magic Kingdom in Feb. So for the people who have used this, even if you criss-cross across the park at times, do you find that it was beneficial?
Thanks!

 

[erineab]

When I play around with it, the itinerary has me collecting fastpasses for Journey of the Little Mermaid and Barnstormer at basically the same time. I heard that Barnstormer was initially not connected to the main system, but I thought it was now? Soooo confused!

 

[ghtx]

When I play around with it, the itinerary has me collecting fastpasses for Journey of the Little Mermaid and Barnstormer at basically the same time. I heard that Barnstormer was initially not connected to the main system, but I thought it was now? Soooo confused!

The rumor is that Barnstormer is currently not connected to this system, and LM is (although LM used to not be).

The ones that are definitely not connected are Mickey's M&G and Dumbo.

 

[ghtx]

I used personalized touring plans for every day of my last trip. In general, I found it to be helpful to get a broad idea of just how much you will be able to do during a day or a half-day in the park (and it forces you to make decisions about what you will forego). Going in, I knew that I wouldn't stick to it minute-by-minute, but I planned on using it is a guide, which is approximately how it ended up working.

As PPs mentioned, the biggest flaw with the personalized plans is that they don't have good estimates of wait times for M&Gs (with a few exceptions like Mickey and Princesses, and Tinkerbell). As a result, if you want to do lots of M&Gs, it's probably not a good tool to use (unless you do as PP suggested and schedule in breaks for the M&Gs). A related note is that is seems to always list the wait for the Little Mermaid show in DHS as 7 minutes. When we were there we had to wait about 45 minutes for this (not because of a long line, but because we had to wait until the next show started).

 

[DakotaRose]

I've only been to WDW once (Sept) , and used the customized plans each day, so I can't compare them to the stock plans. I don't do meet and greets. Basically, I eliminated rides with motion sickness warnings, and wanted to double up on some others. For me the customized plans were super, especially since I'm not familiar with the parks. I stuck to them very closely until lunch and they were very accurate, + or - 10 minutes after 3 hours. After lunch I was more flexible in using them, because I'd already done the rides with appreciable waits. I liked that the plan showed what I could fit in before a show and still be on time to get a seat.

Epcot WS was a puzzle for me. Not knowing how much time I'd want to spend in each country, I just guessed. However, the TP was still helpful in getting to the entertainment I was looking forward to seeing.