Use a touring plan on busy park day or go to different park that day?

[Divine Disney]

Here's the scoop:

• Myself, my mom, my sister and my 13 yr old nephew are going to WDW Feb 3rd-10th, 2015.
• We're staying off property and renting a car.
• My mom & I are huge park fans and haven't been to WDW in 7 years. My sister is not a big parks fan, (this is mainly due to bad experiences after our childhood by visiting during the busiest seasons & poor planning on their part, so I want to possibly change that).
• My 13yr old nephew has never been to WDW.
• The entire group only have one day at each park and one day at Universal. My mom & I may get a 5th day for Disney and we are doing a second day for sure at Universal, however my sister & nephew can't due to time constraints.

To make the most of our trip since half our party is limited and already hard to please by nature, I decided to purchase the touring plans for both WDW & Universal. I chose which parks to go on which days based on what would be best for the entire party after travel, day breaks in between, etc., however a couple of these days we'll be at the parks with the EMH. I think Magic Kingdom & possibly Animal Kingdom. It seems everyone says to avoid the EMH parks (we're staying off property & can't use anyway), however a rep at Touring Plans says it won't matter if we use our touring plan. My fear though is keeping the group to the touring plan. Not so much an issue for my mom & I, but maybe an issue for my spontaneous type sister and preteen nephew. I have all the fast passes we wanted so changing now is a huge risk to lose Mine Train, Everest, Lion King, etc.

What are everyone's thoughts? Anyone used the touring plan? How well did your group stick to it? Thanks!

 

[adc]

I used the touring plans website for that exact week last year. We did not have park hoppers, so one park each day. The only day I didn't follow it was Sunday, our arrival day! We had to start in MK. It was predicted to be like a 6, but was an 8. (Something like that). It was Suoerbowl, so unpredictable.

Every other day I followed it exactly. It was pretty spot on gor crowd levels. I'm very glad I followed it! I pretty much followed the touring plans too. It is worth the money.

We did everything we wanted, rode our faves multiple times. Longest we waited was 20 munutes. That was for Toy Story in HS. We rode it a bunch!! Usually our wait was 10 minutes.

I got maps and circled FP and times and the order to hit everything up. I won't do that this year since I know where most stuff is now.

Good luck!! That's a great week!

 

[SplashMo]

AK is probably not an issue. MK you might see if you can switch days with universal etc... If you can't then go and enjoy anyways...

 

[Divine Disney]

I used the touring plans website for that exact week last year. We did not have park hoppers, so one park each day. The only day I didn't follow it was Sunday, our arrival day! We had to start in MK. It was predicted to be like a 6, but was an 8. (Something like that). It was Suoerbowl, so unpredictable.

Every other day I followed it exactly. It was pretty spot on gor crowd levels. I'm very glad I followed it! I pretty much followed the touring plans too. It is worth the money.

We did everything we wanted, rode our faves multiple times. Longest we waited was 20 munutes. That was for Toy Story in HS. We rode it a bunch!! Usually our wait was 10 minutes.

I got maps and circled FP and times and the order to hit everything up. I won't do that this year since I know where most stuff is now.

Good luck!! That's a great week!

ADC - Did you go with the original touring plans that it gives you when first using their site? I ask because the first ones it spit out had the same ride over and over (for the ones we wanted multiple times) instead of splitting them up like how I'd prefer. Also, it didn't always utilize my fast passes. I modified their recommended plans, but am now wondering if I should go back to the original plans? Thanks!

 

[LizEN]

I decided on my touring plans that if I was willing to do the waits it anticipated on my edited TP, then I would be ok using it instead of the one they first suggested. I've heard over and over again that their predictions are reliable. That said, I'll be running a new TP a few days before we get there and again onsite 24 hours out so I can get their latest predictions.

Really do try to get buy in from your group on the TP before you go, it will save a lot of headaches and long conversations on-site. Times I haven't been able to get that, I've just handed out my TP and told everyone that if they wanted to join me at any point, that is where they could find me. LOL! Have a great trip!