touringplans.com - Less than impressed

[lisakramer]

I just joined the site this morning. I'm a WDW vet, but expected to get a new perspective with crowds levels, etc.
So far I'm just not impressed with the site and what is available. No mention of character m&g's, etc.
Am I missing something?

 

[magicaldisney]

Curious, do you also subscribe to tour guide mike and how do you compare the two?

 

[OhioDisneyDad]

I just joined the site this morning. I'm a WDW vet, but expected to get a new perspective with crowds levels, etc.
So far I'm just not impressed with the site and what is available. No mention of character m&g's, etc.
Am I missing something?

Check out easywdw.com. It's more than just a bunch of numbers and dates. And it's FREE!

 

[rwdavis2]

I just joined the site this morning. I'm a WDW vet, but expected to get a new perspective with crowds levels, etc.
So far I'm just not impressed with the site and what is available. No mention of character m&g's, etc.
Am I missing something?

What were you looking for? It offers touring plans, expected crowd levels and wait times.

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

You have pretty much found all there is. TP doesn't focus on things like charecter meet & greets and details like that. You might find a blog post or two about them but thats it.

If you have a smartphone you can access Lines the mobile app and it has wait times live from the parks and a pretty active chat section.


FWIW if you want charecter info check out www.kennythepirate.com its a good comprehensive source for charecter meet and greet info.

 

[jalpert]

Two things that touringplans.com does for $10 that nobody else does:

1.) Unlike easyWDW, they give concrete crowd estimates on a per park basis. Josh does a great job explaining his forcasts practically and will rank them from most to least prefered, touringplans uses a more scientific approach. Josh might list MK and EP in green then AK and HS in red in order of most preferred. Touring plans will say something like MK 2.2, EP 3.0 AK 3.1 HS 8.0.

2.) You get access to the lines app. If you're plans change at any point during the day, you can break out your smart phone, plug in what you want to see and it utilizes real time wait time data to give you a list of what order you should do your attractions to minimize waiting.

For $10 I think it's a steal. There are other less important features, such as plugging in your dates and receiving email notifications when their estimates change and also breaking down the data all the way down to a ride by ride basis to give you an idea about how long you could expect to wait for each attraction at every hour of the day for both regular stand by and single rider lines.

 

[rlduvall]

I think it's great for what it is. I primarily use it for which parks to avoid and then when I am in the parks checking wait times. For that reason alone it is worth the $$ to me. Plus, I just love Len Testa [in the most appropriate non-stalker kind of way].

 

[khertz]

I absolutely love my Touring Plans subscription, especially now with the new optimized touring plans! They are so fun to play around with, and totally flexible for the way we tour the parks (one park in the morning, break in the afternoon, and a different park in the evening). We can always plug in what we want to do and re-optimize. The Lines app is great, and has so much information! And like another poster said, for all it offers, $10 is an amazing price.

 

[rentayenta]

I'm with the OP, I'm not loving it either. I much prefer RideMax.

 

[LisaNJ25]

You have pretty much found all there is. TP doesn't focus on things like charecter meet & greets and details like that. You might find a blog post or two about them but thats it.

If you have a smartphone you can access Lines the mobile app and it has wait times live from the parks and a pretty active chat section.


FWIW if you want charecter info check out www.kennythepirate.com its a good comprehensive source for charecter meet and greet info.

That app looks great but ahhhh it's for android only.

 

[Eosphotog]

I too just got a subscription to Touringplans. Initially I had issues with their customization plans (like back-to-back FP which shouldn't be allowed) and when I reported it I quickly got a reply from one of their developers explaining their logic and how their proposal is accurate (turns out Dumbo's FP is not connected to other FP's).

Then the more I played with it, working with the custom plans especially, two things happened:

1) I realized there was more to do in the park than I originally had planned
2) With the crowd projections and wait times for specific days, I had confidence that we had sufficient time to do everything.

Will I use my plan to the letter during the trip? Probably not, but the realtime wait data combined with the checklist will certainly help ensure that we get the most of our trip.

At first I balked at the cost, but then realized that a 0.3% increase in trip expenses was well worth it if it means less time in lines (which for me is pretty annoying), and more time enjoying the park.

 

[Tiger926]

Here now and been using Lines for first time and not impressed either.

Wait times and Fastpass times are off at times by hours.

Been switching between Lines and Mobile Magic.

Crowds have been pretty good this week yet their crowd rankings are way off.

Not sure if I will use again next year as it requires a lot of maintenance on our end to input real wait times.

Tiger

 

[vleeth]

There are 2 things I love about it. They per park crowd level and the personalized touring plan.

 

[khertz]

That app looks great but ahhhh it's for android only.

Which app? Lines? It is available on android, Apple, and mobile web http://touringplans.com/disney-world-app

 

[pickles]

we use it for lines on our phone and our main purpse is for when we are standing in a park and need to know what the wait time is on a ride across the park from us

I have also checked for which day may be more crowded

maybe it isnt perfect, but its better than just going with a guess

 

[ses1230]

Which app? Lines? It is available on android, Apple, and mobile web http://touringplans.com/disney-world-app

That poster was talking about kennythepirate's app.

 

[nkereina]

That app looks great but ahhhh it's for android only.

I have the Lines app on iPhone.

For $10, you can't really go wrong considering some other subscription services are even more than that...

I use TP for the Lines app, and I take their crowd level predictions and park recommendations into consideration when making my schedule. I only plan which park we will do on which days for the purposes of ADRs. I haven't used TP for detailed ride touring plans.

 

[makingplans4WDW]

I love touringplans.com! I used it to make a decision on what time of year to take my family's 1st trip to WDW, then to decide on what day to be in what park for ADRs (so we wouldn't have to buy a Park Hopper), and I created detailed touring plans for each day of our stay. Once we arrived in a park, I used the Lines app on my iPhone for checking wait times. We rarely waited in any lines for any rides by missing the crowds and working the FastPasses. It was invaluable to us!

 

[TunaSled]

I don't use touringplans.com, but I do purchase the Unofficial Guide before every trip. Len is an absolute hero in that regard. Between his book and my tweaks, my touring plans have been near-flawless so far.

 

[wgeo]

we use it for lines on our phone and our main purpse is for when we are standing in a park and need to know what the wait time is on a ride across the park from us

I have also checked for which day may be more crowded

maybe it isnt perfect, but its better than just going with a guess

Now there is the free My Disney Experience app from Disney themselves that lists wait times and fast pass return times.

The main reason for paying for Touring plans in my opinion was for the lines app, but now that I can get an app for free that does the same function just as well, I won't be paying for touringplans anymore.