TP Touring Plans

[friendoffigment]

with crowds hard to predict and so many variables, for those who subscribe to TP do you find their touring plans still work, especially the personalized plans

 

[Greg Lembrich]

Yes. I customized several personal plans on TP before my recent trip and found them to be very helpful. I was there during a low/moderate crowd week though, so can't vouch for how it might have gone had things been busier.

 

[loutoo]

I have found that they are by far the most accurate predictor of what might be possible. Will you have to cut a ride to get back on track or find yourself with unexpected down time, sure, but to a much lesser extent than just guessing or following the crowds. I have found these most useful for making broad sweeping decisions, for instance should I start my day in fantasy land or frontier land. I can insert my rides in both scenarios and see which way takes the least amount of time.Tthen I say, okay it looks like I should do frontier land first, should I hit BTMRR or Splash first. Okay, that is settled, now on my way from frontier land over to fantasy land should I do Haunted Mansion, or should I save that for when I do adventure land in the afternoon and should I fast pass HM or POTC.

In other words, it is not going to give you a to the minute accurate itinerary, (although some days it seems to be very close) but as a tool for making the decisions of how to best build the framework a park day, it is awesome and well worth the $12 or whatever it costs.

Some people spend tons of money for extra park hours offered in a variety of different formats by Disney. I truly think that the money I spend on TP saves me at minimum an hour each park day, and probably a lot more.

 

[kathy884]

I've been using variations of TP touring plans since the 80s. And I just put together two touring plans for the MK in March. One for my son and niece who are in their 20s and will be doing the park all day and one for me and my mom who are going to do the "Keys to the Kingdom tour for the first five hours of the day", do two things the 20 somethings aren't interested in, and then join up with them for their plan. I feel that they still have good value.

I will say, though, on my trip last November to the Magic Kingdom we got way less done than we expected (the farthest the plans have been off). It is unusual for them to be so off, but our predicted crowd level 6 day was actually a crowd level 8 day. I believe some of this was related to so many people rescheduling trips due to hurricane Irma and coming in early November. If you are way behind though and have your plan on your phone, a good thing to do is to delete a headliner or two you don't care as much about and optimize what you have left.

Even if they are off, though, still they are one of the best planning tools out there. I love getting a feel for how long lines will most likely be without fastpasses. It helps me level set expectations and decide what I want to do and what I'll skip, what I only want to do if I can get a fastpass, etc. It's actually pretty amazing how often they get predictions right.

 

[MomDoc_99]

We have used Touring Plans (and Unofficial Guide plans before that!) for every trip. I have found them extremely useful. A couple years ago we had a busy day at Disneyland planned. It was supposed to be a CL 7 but turned out to be a CL 10! But with the Touring Plans plan, we got everything done except 1 ride - and the only reason we weren't able to do that was because we were planning on using single rider and they were not offering it because of the crowds. My son-in-law, who had never been to Disney before, said he had been skeptical of the early arrival time and the detailed plans, but now appreciated how much we got done with them on such a crowded day!

 

[soniam]

Absolutely! Just used them during Spring Break in March. The only problem that I had was that TP kept giving a very pessimistic wait time for Flight of Passage at rope drop, when we got there an hour or more before park opening. It's not an easy thing to fix in the software though. I just had to take it with a grain of salt, since we had done it before and knew from first hand reports here that it wasn't realistic.

 

[DizneyMommy]

I found it extremely helpful in planning our trip this year. I did my own custom plan, and don’t let it optimize me. I want to see how realistic my own plan is, and it was a HUGE help for FP booking day because I could clearly see what times worked and didn’t to reshuffle things on the fly. We don’t scheudle every day to the minute, but I do make a plan around the important things, ADR’s and FP’s. For that alone it is a huge help!

 

[gharter]

I have used them for several years. Plugging in my Fps, and meals, they have come up with a good plan based on what we want to do. Haven't tried their set plans but the personal ones have been good.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I've used them each time we've gone to Disney and like pps said they help set expectations about how much can be done. I tend to forget how long it takes to get things done at Disney. That said, I went off plan by 9:15 this morning. The two youngest now love Space and wanted to ride multiple times and then the oldest got ahead of the plan with her dad. Then all 3 decided they wanted to do Splash in the afternoon because it was hot instead of meeting Elena. That put us in a totally different part of the park. We ended up FPing everything we rode between 11:00 and 8 pm. I never even looked at wait times. I would say more so than crowd levels being unpredictable, the ability to FP a lot of things as 4th and beyond makes it less useful. But I still like having it because it forces me to come up with a plan to do the things we want to do even if we end up calling audibles.

 

[lentesta]

@friendoffigment - TP makes two sets of predictions for touring plans. One set of predictions is for 365 to 1 day before the day you're in the park - that's what you see in the crowd calendar.

Another set of predictions gets made on that day you're in the park, starting about 5 minutes after the park opens and rides start posting their wait times. We call these "intra-day forecasts."

The intra-day forecasts tell you what the rest of the day is going to look like, based on how the day has looked so far. If some rides didn't open on time, or other rides closed unexpectedly, or there were unexpected tour groups, the wait-time predictions and your touring plan will get updated based on that info while you're in the park.

Because it can see what's going on in the park, the intra-day forecasts are usually very good. So even if the crowd calendar is off, the touring plan will still work. It may not look like the original touring plan, but it'll work.

 

[bmahokie]

@friendoffigment - TP makes two sets of predictions for touring plans. One set of predictions is for 365 to 1 day before the day you're in the park - that's what you see in the crowd calendar.

Another set of predictions gets made on that day you're in the park, starting about 5 minutes after the park opens and rides start posting their wait times. We call these "intra-day forecasts."

The intra-day forecasts tell you what the rest of the day is going to look like, based on how the day has looked so far. If some rides didn't open on time, or other rides closed unexpectedly, or there were unexpected tour groups, the wait-time predictions and your touring plan will get updated based on that info while you're in the park.

Because it can see what's going on in the park, the intra-day forecasts are usually very good. So even if the crowd calendar is off, the touring plan will still work. It may not look like the original touring plan, but it'll work.

A post from the man himself! Len - great thanks to your team for the service you provide. It always amuses me when people get upset because "TP's plans were off". It's like trying to plan every single event on your wedding day, and then getting upset when something inevitably alters those plans. I am pretty sure we should trust your math and algorithms - they have always worked very well for us. And your explanation of intra-day forecasts above is very enlightening. I didn't realize that - and will certainly utilize that feature when we visit in one month. Thanks again - TP is THE BEST VALUE OF ANY WDW PROGRAM OUT THERE!!

 

[slpeters]

@friendoffigment - TP makes two sets of predictions for touring plans. One set of predictions is for 365 to 1 day before the day you're in the park - that's what you see in the crowd calendar.

Another set of predictions gets made on that day you're in the park, starting about 5 minutes after the park opens and rides start posting their wait times. We call these "intra-day forecasts."

The intra-day forecasts tell you what the rest of the day is going to look like, based on how the day has looked so far. If some rides didn't open on time, or other rides closed unexpectedly, or there were unexpected tour groups, the wait-time predictions and your touring plan will get updated based on that info while you're in the park.

Because it can see what's going on in the park, the intra-day forecasts are usually very good. So even if the crowd calendar is off, the touring plan will still work. It may not look like the original touring plan, but it'll work.

This was our experience in November. The parks were apparently significantly more crowded than anticipated but TP was still freakishly accurate. It really helped the whole thing feel like it wasn't crowded. When we got back and found out that about half of our trip had been 9s or 10s my husband's response was: "wait, it doesn't get more crowded than that?!"

 

[MomDoc_99]

The only problem that I had was that TP kept giving a very pessimistic wait time for Flight of Passage at rope drop, when we got there an hour or more before park opening. It's not an easy thing to fix in the software though. I just had to take it with a grain of salt, since we had done it before and knew from first hand reports here that it wasn't realistic.

I "fix" this by adding a "meal" someplace nearby for the length of time I anticipate the ride taking, instead of actually putting the ride in. I put in my notes that this is a placeholder for the ride. I do the same thing when I plan to use a single rider line, which the software doesn't account for either.

 

[Goseethemouse]

Hm, I just signed up for TP (I had a previous account years ago) but I am not convinced yet how reliable it is.

I have heard that Disney has gotten much busier but does this sound right:

We'd be visiting MK on a day with crowd level 2 (so fairly empty) and our first stop during EMH would be Splash. Now, on a low crowd day I would expect this to be pretty much a walk on but TP predicts a wait time of 47 minutes... Does that sound right? Also, this is the optimized version so it isn't due to me choosing to do it at the wrong time.

This is really confusing as it is quite different from prior experience. Even if the parks are much busier, a 2 should still be a 2, right? Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Capang]

Hm, I just signed up for TP (I had a previous account years ago) but I am not convinced yet how reliable it is.

I have heard that Disney has gotten much busier but does this sound right:

We'd be visiting MK on a day with crowd level 2 (so fairly empty) and our first stop during EMH would be Splash. Now, on a low crowd day I would expect this to be pretty much a walk on but TP predicts a wait time of 47 minutes... Does that sound right? Also, this is the optimized version so it isn't due to me choosing to do it at the wrong time.

This is really confusing as it is quite different from prior experience. Even if the parks are much busier, a 2 should still be a 2, right? Am I doing something wrong?

Disney is certainly always busy BUT one thing @lentesta discussed in a recent interview and he can correct me here if I'm wrong was that they've noticed that when crowds might be less the rides are not running at capacity and the staffing is reduced which can result in longer lines making it feel like the park is busier than it really is. So that 47 minute wait might not be far off.

I finally broke down and got a TP subscription. I've always been hesitant and skeptical but after listening to that interview of figure I'd drop the few bucks to give it a shot. We have a ton of trips coming up so we will see how it works. I did use the reservation finder before and it is awesome.

 

[Goseethemouse]

Hm, I just signed up for TP (I had a previous account years ago) but I am not convinced yet how reliable it is.

I have heard that Disney has gotten much busier but does this sound right:

We'd be visiting MK on a day with crowd level 2 (so fairly empty) and our first stop during EMH would be Splash. Now, on a low crowd day I would expect this to be pretty much a walk on but TP predicts a wait time of 47 minutes... Does that sound right? Also, this is the optimized version so it isn't due to me choosing to do it at the wrong time.

This is really confusing as it is quite different from prior experience. Even if the parks are much busier, a 2 should still be a 2, right? Am I doing something wrong?

Never mind - I found my mistake! Apparently, I had no attractions on my list that are open during EMH which is why the wait was so long.

 

[Lovetherodent]

Yes, in March, only once was TP way off and that was for one ride. For some reason, the Nemo ride spiked to a 60 minute wait. We just skipped it. Other than that, TP was pretty good. Now, pick up that 4th fast past, and you can get ahead, maybe squeeze in some more attractions!

 

[soniam]

Never mind - I found my mistake! Apparently, I had no attractions on my list that are open during EMH which is why the wait was so long.

I've done that before. It's not fool proof, and I have found minor issues before. If you can't figure out where you may have gone wrong, then contact them. It could actually be a bug in the software. It has happened to me before once.

 

[jeffg4]

Absolutely! Just used them during Spring Break in March. The only problem that I had was that TP kept giving a very pessimistic wait time for Flight of Passage at rope drop, when we got there an hour or more before park opening. It's not an easy thing to fix in the software though. I just had to take it with a grain of salt, since we had done it before and knew from first hand reports here that it wasn't realistic.

The TP assumes you will not be belly up to the rope, so you will encounter a bit of a wait being behind the first rush of people. This is not just the case for FOP, but for all headliners. TP also does not take into account that you may sometimes be let into the ride anywhere from 5-15 mins before official park opening. If you are confident you will be one of the first 50-100 people in line, schedule a 15-min break or 15-min at a nearby restaurant as the first item on your TP.

 

[soniam]

The TP assumes you will not be belly up to the rope, so you will encounter a bit of a wait being behind the first rush of people. This is not just the case for FOP, but for all headliners. TP also does not take into account that you may sometimes be let into the ride anywhere from 5-15 mins before official park opening. If you are confident you will be one of the first 50-100 people in line, schedule a 15-min break or 15-min at a nearby restaurant as the first item on your TP.

Yah, I know the tricks. We always do rope drop and have used TP for all of our trips, about 10. However, this one was particularly egregious. It was quoting over a 2 hour wait for FOP for March!