Minimize vs. Balanced

I’m just looking for some technical background on the minimize waiting vs balanced bar on a touring plan. By changing the slider, I’ve found a significant change in my plan but no real discernible difference in walking time. For example when I made the switch, my total walk time decreased by 1 minute but the order of rides changed and the number of recommended fast passes went from 0 to 6! Any info would increase my knowledge… Thanks!

In my experience the slider doesn’t make a huge difference. The overall purpose of the Optimizer is to minimize wait time, and when you set the slider to Minimize Walking its objective is not to create a plan with minimal walking, but rather to find a near-optimal plan that has less walking than an optimal plan. Depending on the attractions you have chosen, there may not be much scope for reducing walking while still having a good plan wait-wise.

I don’t think it will make much difference for the Universal parks because they’re pretty compact. I’ve seen a much bigger change in parks like Epcot and MK due to the size of the park and the number of attractions, respectively.

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Good point - I didn’t notice that this question was in the UOR area.

The OP did mention Fast Passes, so I believe this was meant to be in the WDW section.

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Fair point, though there are a lot of people that refer to UE as fast passes!

True, but touring plans don’t recommend Express Pass for rides at UOR. It only does that for WDW. That’s what led me to believe it’s meant for WDW.

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Sorry for the confusion, was meant for WDW.