So I have to confess, I don’t always use the Touring “optimized” suggestions. Sometimes it tells us to do some rather strange things in our plans, and we have a good enough idea of how to get around that we just go rouge and follow our own path. I think part of this has to do with the fact I have several shows and attractions in the plan that we’d like to do, but aren’t “must-do” for us, so we don’t need to factor those in, but the software is trying to organize things for us to go. Anyone else decide tour to the beat of thier own drummer?
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Hi clairenmn -
Touring to the beat of your own drummer is nice - especially if you get to go to WDW fairly regularly! I often jot down a few of my “must do’s,” and then simply- let the magic happen, take in the details of the parks, discover new things that way. Yes - I hear ya! 
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I am technology illiterate. I print one of the pre-made TP’s and start with that. We hit RD with our TP and just go down the list skipping things we dont want to do or dont interest us. Its always worked for us. Some times its nice to deviate off the TP.
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Sometimes TP spits out some pretty wonky things. I did a customized plan for the things we wanted to do at Epcot and it had me running from LwtL to Maelstrom then back to Spaceship earth lol… ummm no thanks. I rearranged it in a more logical order and the total wait time and walking time were significantly lower. So i will use it as a guide to help me determine the best FP+ times to use and the order we want to do them in and then do our own thing from there.
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I don’t blame you. I recently created a Touring Plan to see how well they work and it told me to hit Pooh at MK rope drop. Then Peter Pan. Then the Mine Train. Um…no.
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So glad to hear some of you are doing your own thing with the touring plan to start. My Best Friend and I are going for a girls trip. Only 2 parks and we don’t do rides that dip, soar, get us wet or spin. So am using book to read about the choices and see how we do. with a whole lot of Sit and Watch the World Go By mixed in. Looking forward to Aug 24 - 29. HS and AK, resort touring, DTD.
I made personalized plans for our October trip. A couple things seemed weird, so I just shifted them a little and evaluated. Worked really well for us. We don’t always follow it to the letter – with kids nothing is set in stone – but gave us a great start and an idea for what to hit when. Our waits were usually very close to what our plan predicted.
Yeah I like touring at my own pace! I go in the parks knowing where I need to be and when and it works out just fine for me!
Personally, I like to use the Evaluate button rather than Optimize. We tour the parks by land to avoid crisscrossing, and Evaluate gives me a good idea of how long we’re going to wait. I move the attractions around within that land until I’m satisfied that the times are as good as I’m going to get. It works for us.
I’ll hit optimize once but then I rearrange and evaluate and couple of times also to avoid criss crossing the parks.
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I start with optimize but then I tweak and evaluate. I recently made a TP for MVMCP because we do want to do a few rides and I had to completely re-do it because it kept arranging the shows/parades in a different order than I wanted. I simply couldn’t get it to optimize without having us do the early parade. No, I do not want to see the early parade. Stop making my plan with the early parade. Seriously, TP, don’t you understand that the early parade is not an option for me. LOL
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I make a TP and optimize, but use it more as a general guide than an absolute schedule. I was just looking at the EP TP that was optimized for me, and the time in WS is crazy; there is a logical “flow” to touring WS, but the TP had me going back and forth all afternoon/evening. In reality, I expect to tour more or less “in order” with few backtracks.
I do the same as @awelpsaves4disney, use Evaluate vs. Optimize. Because my kids are so young still (7,5,3) we stick in one area at at time, no criss-crossing for us. However we’re also going in September so aside from headliners, the waits are not long at all, especially since we plan to RD almost every day. Even using “walk less” and optimizing still has criss-crossing parks too much for my personal preference.
I am with @kellymouse5 – although I haven’t looked at my plans for a while now (I like to walk away LOL) so I am sure I will be tweaking shortly.
I use the sliders too to help with that. I slide it way down for a relaxed pace and I choose to optimize for less walking versus wait times. Then I optimized, shift things around a bit, and evaluate. Works great every time.
I also made personalized plans for our trip in June. I used the base plan that TP optimized and then moved things into a more reasonable order for me. Trying to avoid cross crossing the parks too much. I made my FPP choices then, based off my plan and kept moving and evaluating until I was happy. Worked very well and we stayed on track 90% of the time.
Because we were traveling with seniors who have some mobility issues, I only used evaluate and the less walking/very slow walking settings. We weren’t going to be able to cross the park with them, so I had to accept the extra few minutes here and there. Frankly, my plans designed from my own intuition usually had no more net waiting time than the optimized ones (I did compare a few). Plus, it’s extra nice in the case of an unexpected closure or line, because we don’t feel like we “have to do it” since we didn’t just cross the park to get to it. At MK for example, we took two days, and rather than do a land at a time (that’s too stagnant for us) we did two complete “rounds” of the park and hit select attractions in each land each day. Too bad I still haven’t made it to Country Bears or COP! That’s for next time, I suppose.
We typically make a touring plan and use it as a guideline. We know what will work best such as we can’t walk by the carrousel with DD3 without riding it . But the touring plans give us a good place to start.
Agreed that TP misses the mark (in my experience anyway) on the first hour or so of the TP. I’ve been sent to attractions that weren’t open yet (eg Kali at morning EMH) and first to attractions that typically have low waits later in the day. Seems obvious to me that some attractions should be first every time (Rockin or Toy in DHS or Soarin or TT in EP as examples). So, in the am, I go on my own. Later in the day, TP can be helpful for us
At a minimum, I like that I have a list of things I want to do in each park (whether or not I follow the TP). And, I like that I have all my FPP’s, ADR’s and show times all in one place. And, optimize is only a click away should I feel the need for help.