Do you follow Touring Plans recommendation for when and what to FP?

[bariww]

Let me start by saying that I've read the articles on the science and all the data behind TP and I think it's incredible. That being said, my FP window opens tomorrow and now that it's crunch time I'm getting nervous. My plan for day 1 of 2 days in MK has always been to RD, get on a ride, and then FP the Fantasyland headliners back to back starting at 9, standby whatever makes sense in between and book additional FP's for other stuff in the afternoon before we leave for the 4:00 HDDR show. We are going the 4th week in January and crowds will be low (for example, the predicted standby wait time to get on PP after lunch is only 35 min) so booking additional FP's shouldn't be an issue. TP's suggested park plan for everything we want to do on that day though has our FP's spread out turning everything I thought I wanted to do on its head. Since I'm not the expert with a really cool computer algorithm and all the data, I suppose I should go with it and trust the science, right?

 

[Wubar]

I'm using TP for the first time, and I would say I am running a hybrid of their suggestions and my own family's priorities (which I`m sure most people do, they probably don't follow TP plans to the exact minute). Once I figured out what were our priorities, locations of ADRs, and rides/attractions/shows we wanted to do, I plugged everything into their system. I usually had to move things around based on geographic location if possible (no need to jump from Fantasyland to Adventureland and then back to Fantasyland within an hour), then let the system "evaluate" my plan instead of "optimizing" it. A couple tweaks here and there, and I think it looks doable. We'll find out how well it works in January 2018.

 

[Sarahraegraham]

I'm using TP for the first time, and I would say I am running a hybrid of their suggestions and my own family's priorities (which I`m sure most people do, they probably don't follow TP plans to the exact minute). Once I figured out what were our priorities, locations of ADRs, and rides/attractions/shows we wanted to do, I plugged everything into their system. I usually had to move things around based on geographic location if possible (no need to jump from Fantasyland to Adventureland and then back to Fantasyland within an hour), then let the system "evaluate" my plan instead of "optimizing" it. A couple tweaks here and there, and I think it looks doable. We'll find out how well it works in January 2018.

This. I make my list of attractions, meals and breaks in the order I want to do them, then I evaluate and add my FPs as appropriate based on what it says the wait times will be for each ride. 3 trips down, and it’s worked every time!

 

[bariww]

This. I make my list of attractions, meals and breaks in the order I want to do them, then I evaluate and add my FPs as appropriate based on what it says the wait times will be for each ride. 3 trips down, and it’s worked every time!

I certainly don't plan on following it to the minute but as a guide so we can hopefully minimize our wait times and walking and make the most of the park. So you put your big attractions in the order you want to do them and let TP fill in the rest? That makes sense and might work for us - I'd like my kiddos to do PP early since it's a classic and they love him!

 

[Wubar]

Add your fastpasses at the times you expect to get them (or actuals if you already reserved them), then once the system formulates a draft plan, you can go in and move items around as you see fit. It will also suggest where FP+ might help, which can help you when looking for your 4th, 5th, etc...

 

[Sarahraegraham]

I certainly don't plan on following it to the minute but as a guide so we can hopefully minimize our wait times and walking and make the most of the park. So you put your big attractions in the order you want to do them and let TP fill in the rest? That makes sense and might work for us - I'd like my kiddos to do PP early since it's a classic and they love him!

I’ll put down every ride (big and small), then evaluate and go from there. Something I’ve found to work well for MK is to be toward the front of the pack near Liberty Square when the welcome show is going on then head straight to Peter Pan. I’ve been able to hit PP, followed by Winnie the Pooh and Under the Sea all with ~5-10 minute waits first thing, then use for example my 9am FP for SDMT. 4 rides in about an hour! With kids I would try to do a pretty structured plan during the morning hours then make it more loose for the rest of the day.

 

[DJ!]

I find that I know enough from my years of touring the parks, with TP's help and without, to have a good basic idea of how I want to do it. I know that I have reasoning behind why I want a FP for a certain ride at a certain time and that might not be their optimal advised plan, but it works. Sometimes, I find their interface to be a bit clumsy, if I am looking to plan an entire long park day, so I often will break down my day by things I want to do and in what areas I want to focus on, then I make a plan just for that and another for another period of time. I have up to 3 plan parts for the day and it works for me. YMMV

 

[bariww]

I’ll put down every ride (big and small), then evaluate and go from there. Something I’ve found to work well for MK is to be toward the front of the pack near Liberty Square when the welcome show is going on then head straight to Peter Pan. I’ve been able to hit PP, followed by Winnie the Pooh and Under the Sea all with ~5-10 minute waits first thing, then use for example my 9am FP for SDMT. 4 rides in about an hour! With kids I would try to do a pretty structured plan during the morning hours then make it more loose for the rest of the day.

The optimized TP plan before any adjustments has us doing Barnstormer, Dumbo, meeting Ariel, Winnie and 7D all before 10:10am only using a FP for 7d (and the predicted standby wait is only 15min). I guess I'm having a hard time believing our wait times are going to be so short...

 

[txcorey]

I'm having a hard time believing the wait times they have predicted for my trip in January as well. We will be there from the 5th to the 9th. After I got all my fastpasses, I plugged them into the custom touring plan creator. The most baffling thing was that it said I shouldn't use my FOP fastpass because it might not save me time! What?!? I decided to keep that fp and just roll with it. I also found by rearranging rides and putting them in an order that made sense to me and then using the evaluate button gave me just as good of a plan as their optimize plan did considering the waiting and walking times. I keep telling myself to trust their science but I definitely ran into some weird things when designing my plans.

 

[Wubar]

My plan is similar. We plan on watching the opening ceremony, and then our plan has us hitting dumbo, barnstormer, meet ariel, journey of little mermaid, and meeting the daring and magnifique disney pals, all before 10:20am, with a 9am park opening. None of those are fastpasses either (first FP for us is PP at 10:55am). Not sure if I believe all of those short wait times myself (6 atractions in 80 min???), but I figure we can skip the daring/mag pals if lines run long.

But right now most crowd predictors have MK to be fairly light crowdwise on the days we are visiting, during a not very busy time of year, so if those times run true? Awesome.

 

[chris benton]

You can get a LOT done in the am if you actually show up. Most ppl PLAN to be there at RD, but for one reason or another (life) they get there late. Others don't even bother getting up early since it's a vacation.

Trust in T.P. If you show up at 9:15 instead of 9, that kinda throws everything off. Time is precious in the am, VERY precious. The machine might not have Pandora perfect yet since it's so new.

Also, TP has a message board for you like this one. Lots of experts there. Plenty of answers / help / opinions.

 

[Sarahraegraham]

The optimized TP plan before any adjustments has us doing Barnstormer, Dumbo, meeting Ariel, Winnie and 7D all before 10:10am only using a FP for 7d (and the predicted standby wait is only 15min). I guess I'm having a hard time believing our wait times are going to be so short...

That sounds accurate. Like another poster said though, you need to be there on time. For a 9 am opening, 8:30 minimum, and that’s lined up in front of the castlr, not out at the park gate. I’m one who does 45 minutes prior minimum, but I’m overly cautious.

 

[srwarden1928]

I put what I want to do into TP. Then I put in a FP for the longest wait time ride and evaluate. I do this one at a time until I have all my fastpasses planned. It works VERY effectively. There is a reason there is so much research and data used in TPs program. It works.

 

[McNs]

I had my first WDW visit a couple of months ago so the whole FP+ thing was new and I didn't really have a strategy. I had TP just to help get some structure in our days, but didn't build any plans until I had got my FP+ bookings completed. I found the booking system tricky enough as it is, with avoiding overlaps and of course the ADRs I had booked months before. I wound up with a short list per day per park and then grabbed what I could.

Once I had completed my FP+ bookings I then worked on my TP plans. I plugged in the FP times then let it go do its thing. I had put in slow walking pace and minimise walking to help group where possible as I didn't want to tinker with the suggested plan. We then used it as a rough guide for the day, not sticking religiously as we wanted to be able to enjoy spur of the moment things and a bit of rose smelling. I would check off attractions as we did them then re optimized during the day. This meant it was taking in to account what was actually happening in the park, rather than what they thought was going to happen.

 

[BigredNole]

No. I do it the way I want. Disney makes things hard enough for people.

 

[kathy884]

The fastpasses they recommend are never available at the times they recommend for us at offsite visitors at the 30 day mark. I've usually just done the three FPs for the longest waits. Usually touring plans have been great -- pretty right on with times.

For our trip to the MK this month (Monday, Nov. 13th) they were way off -- waits were CONSIDERABLY longer. They had predicted a crowd level 6 and it was an 8. We switched fastpasses around (changed them to our highest priority things -- decided to skip Pooh and Peter Pan that we had fastpasses for just because we could fit them in and lines were long and use them for other thing with previously predicted short waits that were long waits), and we actually skipped doing four things originally on our plan (jungle cruise, big thunder, pooh, and peter pan), as the lines weren't worth it to do those things. After one horrendous line for 7DMT that was originally predicted to be 38 minutes, later changed to 58 with the line app, that actually ended up being two hours, for the rest of the day we only did things with a 25 minute wait for less.

It was still a great day, but as someone who has used their plans since the 90s, this was the most off ever for us. I thought we did a good job of adjusting. Our only real mistake was staying in line for 7DMT. We enjoyed checking out main street USA, the castle show, the parade, and two fireworks shows -- once upon a time and happily ever after were both performed that night. All our waits were short except our 7DMT mistake and we did get in four popular attractions in the morning that were practically walk on before that horrendous line.