I’ve created a TP for Epic Universe in October. We will have express pass but we will also be there during early park access. In the touring plan it forces the express pass for the first ride and therefore my plan for all intents and purposes starts an hour late (at park open when EP is usable), even though I have selected the option for making use of EPA and my plan start time shows the earlier time. So basically nothing is planned for that first hour. I have those rides added to the plan multiple times but there is no way to force it to wait to use it til later. It automatically applies UExpress to the first time riding and therefore pushed my effective rides start to 10. Seems like a glitch (I have experienced a lot of glitches with this platform over the years). Most of my feedback never gets addressed. Please advise.
I think what is happening is that the system knows that even if you use Early Entry, you will still have a lower wait if you wait until you can use your Express Pass. One way to see if this is the case is to try submitting it to ride the same ride two times and see if it populates the second time during EE.
Another thing you can do is just leave the plan as TP is telling you but consider Early Entry a bonus to get through your touring plan more quickly. Depending on what you accomplish during that time, you can “Optimize” your plan on the fly and see what it tells you to do after marking those steps complete.
If neither of those options satisfy you, the best way to contact the TP team is to submit an IT ticket:
The last time I submitted one of these I think it asked for a link or reference to your plan you were trying to fix.
Hi, I also have an issue with EPA plus express pass for touring plans. I have the once per ride express pass, and it always gets allocated to my first time on each ride. However, I want to take advantage of EPA to ride popular rides with low wait times without using the express pass, so that I can save the express pass to re-ride later in the day. I cannot make the touring plan fit this use case. When evaluating or optimizing, it assigns the express pass to the first ride instance, leaving me with long wait times for the subsequent rides later in the day. I can’t plan my trip based on this information. Is there a way to implement a selection for when to apply the express pass to a specific instance of a ride? Or during optimize, could the plan be forced to apply the express pass to ride instance that has the longest wait time instead of the shortest wait time?
The first 3 steps use express pass when they should use EPA with short waits instead. If I remove the express pass, the plan shows the wait times are only a few minutes each due to EPA.
I do hope TP is able to implement a way to do this, but as a user, I am aware of a couple of workarounds. What I do is assume no use of Express Pass when I enter it into the plan. Then for the second ride when I plan to use EP, I either leave it with a longer wait and absorb the difference into my buffer for more bathroom breaks, snacks, meals, etc. or I enter a step nearby that will take a similar amount of time - either a Break or another ride or something.
Thanks for the tip! I will probably start my day during EPA without the express pass option enabled, then activate the express pass option once I finish the EPA hour. It doesn’t make for the best advanced planning, but I should be able to adjust on the fly as needed once I see how the express pass reduces my wait times later in the day. I will fill in the time with breaks and sight-seeing, which is a good suggestion - thanks!
That is a great way to do it! A lot of people don’t optimize on the go but in a lot of way, the personalized plans are most useful on the day of. There’s a lot more data available for TP to crunch on the fly.
There is a way to achieve what you want but would require some extra effort. I have only tested this using the Web interface!
Step 1 - Create a plan for the first hour of your day including the EPA hour (i.e. 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM)
Universal Express Access = none; Force Use of Inputted Return Times = on. Add just the attractions you want to visit during the first hour. Optimize the plan. (see Custom Touring Plan: Epic First Hour )
Step 2 - Create a plan that covers the balance of your day. (i.e. 9:00 AM to 6:PM)
Express Pass = Universal Express (once per attraction). Add the attractions you want to visit during the remainder of the day, including any duplicates from the first hour. Optimize this plan. (see Custom Touring Plan: Epic Remainder of Day )
Step 3 - Copy the plan from step 1 and rename the copy to indicate it covers the full day
Leave Universal Express Access sent to none; Leave Force Use of Inputted Return Times sent to on. Using the Add Attraction button, add the attractions from the plan created in step 2 maintaining the sameorder. As you add an attraction, use the Configure Additional Return Time button to add a return time for the attraction that is slightly less than the arrival time calculated in step 2. Do Not Optimize (that was already done in step 2) instead Evaluate. Because there is a matching return time for these attractions, the Scheduler will pickup the wait time for UExp wait times just as it would for an AAP guest (see Custom Touring Plan: Epic Full Day )
Note: I tested step 3 one attraction at a time and 2 attractions at a time but never the full slate at the same time!