TouringPlans Accuracy??

[iKristin]

I've never used a site like TouringPlans, but planing on being at the park with a large group on the 4th of December and I was looking at their graphs for wait time predictions. Have you ever used their site and how accurate is it??

 

[alvernon90]

Do a search and I think you'll find that the answers range from "not very accurate" to "no better than random guessing."

 

[Angel Ariel]

They recently updated their predictions to account for the 60th/holidays/SotF. Our days went from predicted 3s and 4s to mostly 8s. The 8s were far more accurate, IMO.

 

[ArchOwl]

I take them with a big grain of salt. I have always preferred RideMax, although lately I have relied on the Disneyland app itself when taking a larger group.

 

[sheetz]

It's kind of funny seeing Touring Plans try to force their statistical models on DLR because there are so many more variables that affect crowd levels at DLR compared to WDW. I'm looking forward to seeing what a winter of El Nino rains does to their predictions.

 

[brianerickson]

I think the general consensus has basically been "full of it"

I've always found that, if you're going to use an aggregate site like that, give "IsItPacked" a whirl

 

[millie0312]

I don't think the wait times have been overly accurate for me either. With that being said I do pay the $5 a year discounted rate to use a touring plan as I like to have an idea of what to do each day. However, I got the order we do from a mixture of The Unofficial Guide and from the fine folks here- I did not like their order. So I guess it basically is a fancy app for my phone that is a checklist of what rides to do when and a list of dining places. They do have wait times for that day but it relies on users who can be stupid and enter incorrect times or just be off as nobody has entered a time for a period of time. Sometimes if I'm waiting with our baby for our family to go through a ride I like to enter in times just to give myself something productive and Disney related to do- lol so a time consumer too?

 

[Winnowill]

I don't think the wait times have been overly accurate for me either. With that being said I do pay the $5 a year discounted rate to use a touring plan as I like to have an idea of what to do each day. However, I got the order we do from a mixture of The Unofficial Guide and from the fine folks here- I did not like their order.

When you don't like the order they create, move things around to suit yourself, then hit the "Evaluate" button. Hitting "Optimize" means they'll have you riding Splash Mountain when lines are shortest (and the weather chilliest), rather than in mid-afternoon like you'd want to.

When we were there in August, TP said we'd be looking at 5 and 6 level crowds. We got 9s across the board. The touring plan I created said that, if I pulled a Space Mountain FP at noon, the return time would be around 2:20. It wound up being more like 6:00. So, yes, the accuracy is suspect, but it is useful for creating a plan, assuming you realize that all elements may be delayed.

 

[figment_jii]

As others have said, take any of the crowd predictors with a large grain of salt. I would look at as many different ones as you can find and see what the general consensus is. As others have mentioned Touring Plans recently re-did all of their predictions (for both WDW and DLR) because they were having problems. I noticed that since the start of the 60th Anniversary Celebration in DLR, they tended to be predicting crowds several levels below what they ultimately saw.

 

[Angel Ariel]

As others have said, take any of the crowd predictors with a large grain of salt. I would look at as many different ones as you can find and see what the general consensus is. As others have mentioned Touring Plans recently re-did all of their predictions (for both WDW and DLR) because they were having problems. I noticed that since the start of the 60th Anniversary Celebration in DLR, they tended to be predicting crowds several levels below what they ultimately saw.

Fwiw, I went back and looked at the "what we saw" for the dates of our trip. For higher crowd dates (the avengers weekend), what they saw was dead on with what the new predictions were. For the weekdays, they actually overestimated their predictions (at least one of those days was predicted, with the new predictions, to be a 5 and they saw a 3).

 

[figment_jii]

Fwiw, I went back and looked at the "what we saw" for the dates of our trip. For higher crowd dates (the avengers weekend), what they saw was dead on with what the new predictions were. For the weekdays, they actually overestimated their predictions (at least one of those days was predicted, with the new predictions, to be a 5 and they saw a 3).

I'm curious to see what the long-term accuracy is for the new statistics. There were both under- and over-predication days prior to the update, but in general they tended to over-predict (especially in DL, the DCA predictions weren't as bad). So, it sounds like the new stats may be working okay for busy days, they're now having issues with days that are likely to be less busy. It would be pretty ironic if after revising their statistics they end up over-predicting days in general! Although, it does fit with that old saying about statistics...

 

[o0quirkygirl0o]

Considering they predicted Veterans Day (where all the parking structures completely filled up and the park was pretty crowded) as a 3? I mean, common sense would have told you it would at least be a 7.