Yup, the touring plan wait times are not accurate at all. We were surprised that Disney’s wait times were so accurate after reading all of the “advice” on here. Sorry I wasted my money.
Edit: we are here at Disney now
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Our district, and many in PA in general, allow 5 educational days from school. We used 3 of them the week after Thanksgiving for our kids. My DH had gotten approval for his vacation when he was hired, as he has recently started a new job. He got a payout from his vacation time from his old job. I have 6 weeks of PTO a year at this point and can take it pretty much whenever I want. I have more PTO built up from the last couple of years as well. I didn’t take off as much because there wasn’t as much to take off for. I’m sure there are many other people with a similar situation with their PTO and vacation time.
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After reading your post I thought maybe Disney was being more accurate in their reporting but then I checked what the data said for yesterday:
https://twitter.com/isgenieworthit/status/1487800551089840132?s=21
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Same. Fines for missing school???
It blows my mind!
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I think Disney always inflates the times because people would rather get through quicker then expected then longer than expected.
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I think it has more to do with discouraging people from getting in line especially at opening and closing when the ride isn’t operating at full capacity and they want to close it down closer to park close.
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Here are the reasons TP gives for inflated wait times:
- They need to build in a buffer. If something goes wrong in ride operation, it’s better to aim the wait time high.
- They need to be careful about guest satisfaction. Humans are much more likely to be happy if they wait for less than you tell them they’re going to, compared to if you make them wait longer than if you told them. If I wait 20 minutes more than what you posted, I’m going to be really upset. If I wait 20 minutes less than what you posted … I might actually be pretty pleased that I got lucky or have more time than I thought.
- They need to control crowds. High wait times can discourage guests from entering a line, and send them somewhere else instead.
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That’s a typical range for inflated wait times. Back in July, it was usually in the 60%+ range too.
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This is a good start to TP realizing that Genie+ and ILL has thrown everything for a loop!
“Keep in mind that as of this writing, the system is only 3 months old. Disney is still adjusting it, people are still adjusting to it, and very little has yet reached any kind of steady state where the behavior is predictable.”
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I think TP is going to need a lot more actual wait time reports over the course of the next year to be able to refine their predictions. Until that happens, their predictions are going to be similar to what I’ve experienced with Universal…when I try to use the TP app for UOR, the wait time predictions are almost never as accurate as Universal’s own app.
However, despite that, I found using TP’s tools good for PLANNING my day. I got good enough numbers to make a game plan. In the short term, I think that’s how the TP app for WDW will need to be. Less about trying to find the shortest waits, and more about giving the tools needed to plan out a day based, in the very least, on the posted wait time data. For me, that’s where the strength of TP has always been. Less about using it in the park, and more about using it before getting to the park so I can determine what I want to do, and if it is feasible.
As much as I hate that Disney OVER-INFLATES their wait times (particularly when they are selling a product, now, based on those wait times), I tend to agree with the philosophy that I’d rather seen wait times that are HIGHER than reality, rather than under. And that’s something I feel TP has actually gotten “wrong” (for lack of a better word). The wait time predictions tend to, in general, UNDER-estimate the waits. So, even if their prediction is CLOSER to the actual wait time, it still tends to be less than actual, which ultimately messes up my plan for the day. I’d rather the times given err on the side of being too high rather than too low so that I can realistically make a plan for the day, knowing I’ll in the very least be able to get through those things. IF, in fact, the times are too high, I’ll have extra time on my hands to squeeze in another ride, show, break for a snack, etc. It is disappointing, though, if I have to drop something from the plan I had thought I would be able to get done.
In all this, I don’t blame TP. As has been stated by others already, the massive changes going on right now are creating a perfect storm of unpredictability. And no machine learning algorithm can account for that until the new variables that are at play are determined and added into the mix.
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Bingo. It’s all about crowd control with the side effect of overdelivering in the the eyes of the guest being an upside (sometimes - but not for this group)
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Yeah. DW thought it was to deter their parents from sending their urchins out as chimney sweeps or buying turkeys for Mr. Scrooge
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Yes, this. I don’t rely on my TP wait times to be exactly right, I mainly use it for the overall philosophy of what order to do the rides in. Once I’m in the parks, I don’t really open it. I just use it to formulate my ‘plan of attack’. As long as it still works pretty well for that, I’m happy.
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So if the wait times are off, then wouldn’t that affect the order to do the rides in? For example: if the low wait time for SDMT is 12:10 and that’s when your TP has you arriving there, but then the lines are longer early in the day than the TP anticipated and you don’t actually get to SDMT until 1:15 when the lines are already getting long again, that’s a problem. You might have been better off doing SDMT earlier in your plan, but you didn’t know that because the wait times were off.
I’ve always selected “minimize waits” in the past, not “minimize walking time.” I’m wondering if in the near future it’d be better to use TP the way @ryan1 does and to minimize walking time, as that’s pretty doable no matter what. The distances between rides hasn’t changed the way that the wait times seem to be! Or is it still worth bouncing around the park in an attempt to find the shortest lines?
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You have a valid point there. I mean, if you are relying on TP to give you a completely reliable, optimal plan for minimizing times in lines, then it is absolutely true that right now in these “modern times”, the numbers are going to be off.
For me, I’m less concerned about saving 2 minutes here, and 5 minutes there, etc. No matter what, those numbers have ALWAYS been “best estimates” that can’t be 100% counted on. Now so more than ever. Instead, if the wait time estimates are “reasonably close”, and I use a slow walking speed and optimize for walking, adding in enough breaks, etc., then I’ll get a pretty well planned day that shows me what I can get through. I might end up waiting an extra 30 minutes total, say, because the numbers are no longer as accurate…but it sets my expectations.
In many ways, it is expectations that I think can make a difference in one’s enjoyment. If I go in thinking I can get through these 20 rides, but end up only getting to 15, I’ll end up disappointed. But if I go in thinking, well, I can only get 14 rides in, and I end up with 15 rides, I’ll be like, “Sweet! Bonus!” Same ultimate outcome, but expectations determine how I perceive that outcome.
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We always rope drop and we don’t do park hopper, so we effectively have all day in the parks. It seems that the logic of what attraction to do first or not doesn’t change that much based on wait times. I also do a significant amount of editing myself.
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I completely agree with Ryan. Having used TP in DLR it was never able to fully account for MaxPass distribution.
But at DLR during MaxPass, I was able to use Touring Plans almost as a checklist of rides I wanted to do. As the day went on and I entered my FP times I could start to evaluate my plan and see what was still feasible to do. But I had to do the heavy planning. One of my favorite planning tools was one where they showed the expected FP distribution for each ride. So if I knew I wanted a Radiator Springs Racers at night, I could seeI needed ro available to grab a MP between 12pm and 1pm
At Christmas I was able to use Touring Plans to help lay out my day, but I had to do a lot of adding 30 min breaks in the place of rides I was going to grab LL for. With TP and my own knowledge I was able to sucessfuly plan days down to roughly 15 mins, especially if I reevaluted to see if we needed to speed up or slow down. It wouldn’t have been doable for someone new to the parks. But now that you can add assumed LLs to the plan, I think it would be really useful.
At the end of the day, I would tell anyone using a TP to take what it projects you can do and remove a few rides. There will always be bathroom breaks, parade crowds, browsing and ride stoppages to slow you down.
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It can make a big difference, though. For example, one technique for saving overall time is NOT getting in line, for example, for the “main attraction” that everone else heads to, and instead, hit all of the OTHER rides during that time, when most of the crowds are in the long line. You can whip through 2, 3, 4+ rides with little to no wait. And while NOW the major ride everyone wants has a longer wait, everyone else who is getting off that ride now will have longer waits for all the other rides, adding to MORE overall wait time. Of course, it matters what your wait tolerance is. Some might rather than 20 minutes each for 5 rides, rather than 1 minute for 4 rides, and 50 minutes for 1 ride. In the former case, you wait 100 minutes. In the latter, you wait 54 minutes!
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Who are Brandon and Lindsey? Is it you???