I have been a fan of Touring Plans since they were only in paperback. Swore by them. Praised them to everyone I knew that was planning a trip to Disney World. I used them on at least 4 trips and had great success with them, as recently as May 2017. Using them we never waited more than 15-20 minutes for anything, even during busy times, like early December or Memorial Day weekend.
But this past week they were all but useless.
The addition of genie plus/lightning lane, early entry for all parks every day, crappy bus transportation, and a crowd calendar that was WAY off, meant that none of the times in my plan were actuate. I reoptimized constantly but it didn’t help. Their times rarely matched actual times. I was even submitting posted wait times and actual wait times.
After 8 days in WDW and US parks this week, I have lost confidence in Touring Plans. I think they need many more months (if not years) of genie+ and post/pandemic travel patterns before they will be useful again. Almost like they have to throw out previous data and start over.
Between this, my feeling that the magic is gone, all the construction happening, unbelievable nickel-and-diming, and lack of free perks for on site guests, I won’t be back for a long long time, if ever. Which is sad because I’ve been such a huge fan of Disney World vacations.
I am also a long term TP user. I visited for a few weeks in December 2021 and found the wait times to be accurate and the TPs as useful as always. We did RD most days and I wonder if that makes a difference. We only bought G+ for one day and purchased an ILL$ three times, twice for Rise and once for FoP (which was refunded because the pre show failed).
January has been bizarre, it seems. Have the TP bods commented on their thoughts? All I’ve understood is that it was just a perfect storm of reopening attractions, hotels and international borders, but I just don’t get how everyone suddenly has all this time off work/school.
It isn’t that they’ve “lost their edge”. That suggests that all things are equal to days past and they just don’t perform as well.
Instead- as you’ve noted - the whole system upon which they have so successfully guided us in the past has been torpedoed and they are still adapting.
I’d encourage you to hang in there with them. There are some very bright minds at work in the company and I’m quite hopeful that they will navigate these changes well and come out just as accurate as ever. Sadly you’ve been quite clear (in multiple threads) that you won’t be back for a long time if ever so you won’t get to see them do so.
The main factor here was the crowd level predictions were way off. This was mostly out of Touring Plans control. (I can’t answer why optimizing the day of didn’t help either). But this was bound to happen at some point due to the postponing of trips for many months, there will be times of high crowds out of nowhere from the re-scheduling. Thanks covid.
That was the icing on the cake for you. Disney World brought on most of your problems. While some things are out of their control like staffing, it was a bad decision to make the major park changes during the recovery from the pandemic period. I visited in March and had a plan with a really slim chance of something going wrong and it was glorious. Because of my vacationing style, the next visit for me will be totally different and I have no idea if it will work out. Not because of TP, but mainly because of CP.
I have confidence in Touring Plans long-term. We just need to see consistent vacationing patterns from visitors like pre-covid, but that takes time. Things are so unpredictable right now we just need to have patience. Covid and DW take most of the blame. But once TP can gather enough useful data, they will get their coding more accurate and still offer a beneficial service.
I had very mixed experience in december (19th-22nd) - the crowd levels seemed off to begin with so I didn’t bother trying to make a plan around any TP info. There were also some wait times that were wildly off and I also noticed TP didn’t record some posted wait times.
Ya, I tried to do a TP, but it was useless. I have been using the Lines App as a guide for actual wait times, but even that’s been off. We have been using G+ so that has helped.
My wife and I have always been ones to prioritize school and make sure we were going on trips when the kids were off. The shitshow that has been the last two years has changed our perspective somewhat. Life’s too short, if the kids miss a few days or a week of school for memories that will last a lifetime (I know my own childhood trips to Disney have), then so be it. I imagine many other people feel similar.
We are going in April during most of what is Massachusetts spring break - but since Easter falls in there, we are going Tuesday to Tuesday and so the boys will miss two days of school.
That makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately many headteachers over here will fine you for taking kids out of school (some recognise the educational/social value of travel), so we have to stick to our designated weeks.
I guess it’s the volume of folks who’ve made that decision that is a surprise to me!
I had success with my HS touring plan in December. It’s the most annoying park to tour, in my opinion, and my TP was spot on. I was thoroughly impressed. But then again, touring is a lot smoother when you’re solo.
I’ve had success in my 5 visits to WDW and 1 to DLR (there were a couple of rides TP was slightly off on because they broke down and PPF they were really wrong about but so was DLR. Both were predicting like 40 (TP) and 45 (DLR) and it was about 65-70 I believe and it didn’t break down. In WDW, the ride TP has gotten most wrong for me was JC and then Splash on my Oct 2020 trip. But that’s a couple of rides on a couple of trips. I think you got really unlucky with some kind of unnatural post-Omicron fear surge.
It’s not actually headteachers, it’s the view of the government that even a single day off school is detrimental to a child’s education and prospects. Schools are supposed to report every non-sickness absence to the local council who are the ones who issue the fines. It’s not too bad to take one child out of school but it would make you think twice if you had a big family. There was a guy who took it to court but he lost.
Actually, if the head grants permission it’s fine. Only unauthorised absences are required to be reported. I’ve seen some heads authorise anything from ski trips to family reunions as they consider it good for the child’s overall educational enrichment, while others won’t authorise anything. Eldest DS’s first head encouraged travel; second didn’t. Interested to see what the latest one’s attitude is.
