Making Optimized Personalized Touring Plans with FastPass+

Paging Dr. @brklinck.

Here’s how I understand it:

Evaluate takes the steps you have and gives you the estimated times for each based on the set up you are using.

Optimize is the TP suggestion for the most efficient use of the parks based on current crowd levels, so it will rearrange everything into what the app considers to be a logical order.

Dr. @brklinck, please correct me if I’m wrong.

Crud, curse me for being a slow typist.

The Doctor has already seen this patient - please see above for the chart notes. :wink:

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Thanks, Doc. I’ll get the next patient in shortly!!

Well, if you took that Turkey Leg out of your hand (and wiped all the grease off your fingers), you might type a little faster…

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Oh, no, no. I NEED a turkey leg. If I had one, the name would be drool…drool…nom…nom…burp

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IMPORTANT NOTE about Optimize & Evaluate:

If you LIKE the TP you have, but want to see if optimizing might yield something even better,
then COPY your TP to another TP FIRST, then optimize the copy.

This way, if you’re not sure you like the optimization better, you have the original to work from again.

Also remember that after you optimize, you might have to move your FPs around to better take advantage. Another trick is to remove your FPs from the copy, then optimize it to see what the best use of FP might be.

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I’m looking at making TP’s for January 2016 (to inform my ADR timing). As of right now, it appears that times are only in the system for:

The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan’s Flight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, and Splash Mountain.

This doesn’t allow a full proper TP to be created (by giving a 0 wait time for things like Enchanted Tales with Belle). About how far out are full wait times populated such that accurate TP’s can be created?

I believe that wait times are populated a year in advance. E-mail webmaster@touringplans.com and they should be able to sort you out.

Planing a trip for July with an 8, 5, and 3 year old (wasn’t my first choice of dates but there is extended family involved so making the best of things). How I did things: I made custom plans back in January for the specific days based on the rides/attractions we would be able to see (height reqs, interest level, etc). Next I optimized as best as possible to see when food breaks would make sense. Next I got up extra early and made all my meal reservations as soon as possible for close to the desired time from the TP. (Thanks for the advice in the book BTW I was able to snag both breakfast with Cindy and BOG for a diner). Now evening before FP+ opened (opens at midnight Eastern), I reviewed the plans, re-optimized based on any closures, changes, etc. I then used the books and matched up the “must see” FP+ attractions we are going to and about when the TP said we should be there, made my list so I could go right in and rapid fire the requests at midnight. (I was able to snag an A&E so thank you again for that tip as well.) Once I had all my FP+ passes I locked them into the TP and re-optimized and made slight adjustments where needed to both the TP and FP+ reservations to minimize backtracking and things like meal locations. I’ll report back after the trip to let you all know how well or not well this worked.

-Ish

@brklinck I asked this in the PTP feature request thread, but this might be a better place for it. When you optimize your plan without FastPass, the engine finds the best time to ride each attraction using estimated standby times, right? So say it tells you to ride 7DMT right away at rope drop. If you then make your FP+ reservations to match those recommendations, you are basically replacing the shortest possible standby time with a FP. Wouldn’t it be more efficient for the tool to recommend FP reservation times when the standby times would be longer?

What do you mean by optimize until it is stable?? How do I know if it’s stable??

It stops changing much.

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Well, you have to start somewhere, and I think that it is a good idea to start with the best plan possible and make it better. I see your point, in that you want to use FPP when the lines are the longest, presumably getting the greatest benefit. However, even with FPP you will still have a wait (a good rule of thumb is 20% of the Standby wait time), so I’m not sure that this approach will result in the best plan.

A way to test this would be to make a plan, add FPPs for big attractions at peak times,and then Optimize it to see if these FPPs are utilized - if they are, then you might have a good plan. However, I would still want to compare it to the results using the method I outlined.

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What @OBNurseNH said - keep optimizing until it doesn’t change any more.

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SFL as I am a newbie

Thanks for putting together this info. This method doesn’t work if you plan on getting additional FPs beyond the first 3. When you optimize without FPs, it will suggest your FP priorities based on the longest wait times, which are usually occurring mid-day or early evening. If you plug in your FPs for those times, you will not be able to receive additional FPs beyond the first 3. On a MK day with 9:00AM - 11:00 PM hours, this is not an optimal strategy. If you try to build a plan that uses the 3 FPs between 10AM-1PM (the optimal strategy for balancing the best time to use FPs with the ability to obtain additional FPs), it will not use additional FPs for later in the day/evening - even if you check the box that says “force system to use FPs.” Again, the system doesn’t seem to recognize the ability to obtain additional FPs even though it publishes lists of projected FP availability times in advance of park dates. Furthermore, it always tries to get you done as early as possible. If you want to utilize late hours for touring, you need to schedule in a hard break and keep playing with the times to get it to work. If you are entering the time you expect to be in the park, the software should automatically build a schedule with the shortest waits, which usually means utilizing early AM and late PM for optimal touring. Lots of drawbacks with the software unless I’m missing something.

You raise some interesting points here.

First of all, I worked out my method before additional FPP opportunities were a reality. That being said, I still feel that it results in very good plans. I am yet to be convinced that the possibility of additional FPPs after using your first three provides any real benefit. The reason for this is twofold - first, you have to use your 3 FPPs earlier in the day that is probably the most efficient, and second, the number of useful FPPs that are available after that time is questionable. I know that the additional FPP strategy can work in certain situations (like people who want to do certain attractions many times), but I don’t think that it is that useful for a generic TP.

I’m not sure what your problem is here - I have been able to make plans that utilize more that 3 FPP. Are you setting the total number of FPP correctly in the Additional FPP Options section?[quote=“jeffg4, post:95, topic:1570”]
Furthermore, it always tries to get you done as early as possible. If you want to utilize late hours for touring, you need to schedule in a hard break and keep playing with the times to get it to work.
[/quote]

Interesting - I generally find that the reverse is the case. In many of my plans the Optimizer creates a huge Free Time block as it takes advantage of the shorter wait times in the evening. Are you using Optimize or Evaluate?

[/quote]
First of all, I worked out my method before additional FPP opportunities were a reality. That being said, I still feel that it results in very good plans. I am yet to be convinced that the possibility of additional FPPs after using your first three provides any real benefit. The reason for this is twofold - first, you have to use your 3 FPPs earlier in the day that is probably the most efficient, and second, the number of useful FPPs that are available after that time is questionable. I know that the additional FPP strategy can work in certain situations (like people who want to do certain attractions many times), but I don’t think that it is that useful for a generic TP.

I’ve read many reports where additional FPs are almost always available (except for the very popular attractions) by persistent refreshing. Yes, we are interested in doing some things multiple times.

[/quote]
I’m not sure what your problem is here - I have been able to make plans that utilize more that 3 FPP. Are you setting the total number of FPP correctly in the Additional FPP Options section?[quote=“jeffg4, post:95, topic:1570”]

Yes

[/quote]
Interesting - I generally find that the reverse is the case. In many of my plans the Optimizer creates a huge Free Time block as it takes advantage of the shorter wait times in the evening. Are you using Optimize or Evaluate?

No - I’ve always had that problem. The only way around it is to put in a hard break. Maybe the problem is park hours. Right now I’m trying to create a TP for MK on June 27 where the posted hours are 9-9, but I know they will change the hours to at least 11 PM. The TP will put you on rides after 9 PM but wont list a wait time.

That does sound like it’s because the parks closing time is currently set to 9pm. Those attractions will get times after the hours are updated and you hit optimise.