Touring plans--strange personalized plan.

[ArielSRL]

This has pretty much already been said, but this is how I used Touringplans:
Add everything I wanted, optimize (even with minimize walking and relaxed walking speed, going with a 5 year old/first visit) and it had us going all over the place. Jotted down the wait time, walk time etc it had optimized.

I looked at the map and wait times and reorganized things to have the rides listed closer together in clumps of areas, so we followed a trail of rides bouncing to our intended lunch destination by afternoon. I then hit evaluate. Then I moved a few things in the same general area and evaluated again until I got the order with minimized waiting times. In the end I had a nice pathway around the park that had barely any more waiting than the "optimized" plan with a much more logical pathway!

Hope that made sense!

I'm a TP rookie but after some practice, I figured out that this is definitely the way to go!

 

[agavegirl1]

I actually seldom use "Optimize" I put in the attractions I want, enter my FP+ reservations and ADRs then "Evaluate". I then tweak from there and "Evaluate" again. I do this for Magic Kingdom only. The Optimize function works better for the other three parks.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

Yes, for something like 7DMT you're dealing with the fact that the wait time climbs quickly and stays high most of the day so unless you're comitted to getting there at the head of the RD crowd (easyWDW blog had a great post about that in Jan), you may not see a lot of savings in daily total wait time. I find myself fighting the urge to want to minimize times for my favorite rides but that instinct leads to overall, more waiting.

We used personalized TP last year and found it generally very helpful. With young kids, the canned touring plans that many sites offer just didn't work for us. Following (loosely) a TP really helped and we didn't spend much time waiting in line even though it was spring break. But you have to watch for the occasional anomaly. Right now my MK one insists that there is 0 wait time for Rapunzel M&G no matter were I put it. I know better so I just moved it to where it made sense and ignore the glitch. It's like GPS. Generally great but if it tells you to turn off the paved road and travel down some ruts in the middle of nowhere, be very suspicious.

 

[amylevan]

Only a limited number of people can actually be in the front of the rope drop line, so I think TP assumes that you'll be an average rope dropper. The line for 7DMT builds incredibly fast, but doesn't shoot to ridiculous levels immediately; whereas other rides (pooh & LM in your case) build slower. So I can see how it might make sense to get a few rides in before their waits get long, especially if you are going to be waiting 30 min for 7DMT either way. By the time you would get off 7DMT, the lines for the other rides would be longer.

If you are committed to being there at the front of the RD line, I'd just pull 7DMT to the first position.

 

[senadler]

I have also found it very helpful in setting up a plan. I start out with Optimize, and then change a few things around based on my experience and use evaluate. I really like that it gives me an idea of what to expect for wait times throughout the day.

 

[Richard M Nixon]

I would agree with Paigevon's suggestion for TP configuration as it's the same as I do. Start things off with no FP+ selections and let it optimize your route to its content. Then take the earliest attraction with a wait time over your threshold, add the FP, and re-optimize, repeating for FP 2 and 3. I like to make sure all my FP are before noon or 1pm so I can get some same-days in the afternoon. After all that, group a few attractions that are nearby to minimize your back-and-forth and call it done.

I did a 10-day trip last April and used TP for every day of it. I didn't stick to the plan exactly (it turns out there was too much regimen for my partner) but I found it to be incredibly accurate. Of course, sometimes a ride can break down or a huge tour group screws up the stats, but that's not something we can predict.

As someone with experience in research and statistics, I appreciate the rigor that goes in to the modeling done by TP and I would trust it more than a guide done by "feeling" from other fans. Of course there will be days that are a standard deviation or two away from the mean and it could screw with your schedule, but so is the nature of probability. I'd take something backed by math over something backed by opinion any day.

The guy who makes TP, Len, posts on the boards on occasion and has discussed his algorithm in several threads. It's interesting to read if you're into that sort of thing.

 

[SnipsNSnails]

I agree with those who said to Optimize, tweak it, and use evaluate after that. If you want to do 7DMT first, then move it there.