Too good to be true Touring Plan?

OK, I’m a rookie at using Touring Plans, but I thought I was doing the right things by buying and reading the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, then becoming a member of Touring Plans. My two 9-year old daughters and I are planning a trip the week of Oct 16-20, with the first three days being WDW and the last two being Universal Studios. We booked our tickets and hotel (Pop Century resort) through SmallWorld, and that went smoothly. I was excited about staying on a Disney property for the first time, especially as regards to early admission and early chance at FP’s. So when my 60-day mark got here, I was all excited to start reserving FP’s, only to find that AK’s Avatar:Flights of Passage had no remaining FP’s??? On day one?

Well, in any event, I did the best I could, and tried moving things around, and using the optimize feature of the premium plans. The itinery it generated for me at AK, which is on our first day, has me arriving at Navi River Journey at 8:10am ,then having just a 5 minute wait, then arriving at Avatar:Flight of Passage at 8:21 and having only a 14 minute wait to ride. This sounds too good to be true. Keep in mind I don’t have a FP for either of these rides. Any thought?

The thing to remember is that your Day 1 is Days 2 through 10 for people with stays starting before you, so they have already gobbled up the FPP reservations for that day.

That does sound too good to be true. E-mail webmaster@touringplans.com with the URL of the plan and ask them to take a look at it.

I have read that there is still limited data on FoP wait times in the Lines app and it is giving unrealistic wait times.

Without a FoP FPP, your best bet is to get to AK an hour before the listed opening time and hit it very first thing at rope drop. If you are staying at a Disney hotel, you can take advantage of an extra morning magic time. Now that is going to make for an EXTREMELY early morning for you and your family, but you will be on a Disney vacation. You can sleep later. :grin:

2 Likes

Yes, very common at this time. Better luck is had with longer trips, aiming for the end of the trip. This is because parties can book FPP for their entire stay beginning on day 1 of their trip. So your day 1 is definitely someone else’s day 10 - they had a 10 day jump on booking for that day over you. This, compounded by shorter park hours, makes FOP a real challenge to get even at 60 days out.

I would trust the Navi River estimate, but not the FOP. This does not reflect that TouringPlans is a poor product. Rather, it reflects that there is little data for the software to work from at this time as the attraction is so new. Conventional wisdom would have you go to FOP first for shortest wait. Navi will still be relatively short after riding FOP but expect some length of a wait (it will not be a walk-on). For best chances at a short wait for FOP, arrive at the tapstiles to the park a minimum of one hour before rope drop.

3 Likes

I’d say closer to your trip the wait times may be updated to reflect better and more info for their analysis.

We are going Labor Day week, which has CL at 1-3 ! I’m interested in knowing how that will affect our wait times for FOP. I got a FPP for FOP, but on one of our last of a 7 day trip and at a time/day not at all convenient. If we ride Standby earlier in the week, we will drop that FPP. We’ll see…

I am 5 days out and have been watching the predictions not having FPP… The predictions are changing drastically just before open and the first hour after opening. I don’t understand this as it seems to change to roughly the same thing each morning which is way different than the predictions.

Also, keep looking for FoP FPP. Many people have been able to secure them (me included) after the start of the 60 day booking window. Just keep looking every day. I found some for my mid-september trip, within a week of looking.

I have ready many other similar stories here as well.

1 Like