I created touring plans for our late June trip. We are not staying on site and do not have EP, but I was considering purchasing them. I optimized with and without the EP but the touring plans don’t show us saving much more than an hour each day if we use EP. How is this possible? Our longest wait time for any attraction without EP shows 26 minutes for Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. Does that seem right? I don’t want to purchase EP if our longest wait is only 26 minutes, but how accurate does that sound? Any input would be greatly appreciated!
How useful EP actually is really depends on what attractions you are planning to do and what time of year you are going - it will almost always save you time, but that amount will vary. It is particularly useful if you want to hit up headliners multiple times, but if you are doing a “see it all” tour then it might not help as much
Many times just having a good optimized TP gives you the majority of the time savings.
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I would say that your longest wait being 26 minutes in June WITHOUT EP is not accurate. I would expect it to be longer. However, if that is the only headliner you are doing, and you hit it first thing in the morning, then that could be accurate.
I noticed this as well. But considering that each time EP is used you in theory get to the next ride sooner. So the new calculation would consider that time slot instead. Father’s Day is showing a 3 crowd level which I have a hard time believing.
I tried to use the Touring Plans app for our Universal Trip in February. I quickly found it wasn’t reflective of reality most of the time, and so we ended up abandoning using it. The estimated wait times, for example, for the lines were rarely accurate.
I’m guessing the WDW app does a much better job. But I wouldn’t count on the TP app for Universal to be reflective of actual waits. So, I would expect the EP to be much more effective than TP would have you otherwise feel.
I am also going in late June. CLs are projected to be in the 6s and 7s, and with a custom touring plan the EP isn’t going to be the times saver it would be with CL9 and CL10.
February was quite the anomaly this year. TP is specualating that, at least on the Disney side, ride capacity was being reduced. They have data that supports this.
A CL3 on Father’s Day wouldn’t shock me. I suspect most fathers aren’t like me and want to spend time at a theme park. I’m sure TP has days supporting this, too.
If you have a TP subscription, optimize your touring plan in the parks on the fly if the CL seems way off. Doing so uses reported wait times to modify your plan.