I’m embarrassed to admit that I find the process of making customized touring plans confusing! FWIW I’m in my 40s and comfortable with technology. I’ve been watching YouTube videos (and now working my way thru the touringplans teaches videos). I think I have the basic gist of using Genie+ for MK and HS but am not really sure how to also incorporate the touringplans stuff to get the most out of these plans.
I’d love to hear some generalized and/or specific advice on how to best use this customized plan tool for our 6 park days. We’ll be visiting the first week of May and visiting all parks (no park hopping); Epcot and MK we will visit 1.5 days each. We are 2 adults and 2 kids aged 11 and 13.
We’re thinking we will rope drop and NOT pay for ILLs.
First, have fun! I played around with TPS right up to my first, Walt Disney World visit back in 2015. it worked so well, my family thought I was a genie, and I have used touring plans ever since.
Second run various scenarios, starting with optimize. Optimize will give you a sense of wait times at a particular time of the day.
Third, once you take a look at how the system works, Ie. sending you all over the Parks back-and-forth, (see map on the bottom) then you can start manually moving things around, over and over again. Constantly moving various attractions around
Fourth, put your expected, breaks or lunches with a 60 minute flexibility window.
Finally, depending on what time of year you’re going, you should reconsider whether or not you want to do Genie. I honestly can’t imagine doing Walt Disney World without some form of lightning Lane, fast pass, etc.
I always start with walking speed slow, and minimise walking, optimise tosee what the plan looks like then tweak from there.
For example, I would then set walking speed to fast, and optimise to see if saved a lot wait time. I’m an engineer with too much time, so give me a linear program and I’m in hog heaven.
Oh, and then I’d just pull everything into the order that I think I would like to do them, ignoring the great computer overlords, and evaluate to see what my wait time becomes. This last one is easier since you can kind of weave in your best guess of LLs as well. For example, say PPF is your most important ride, and so LL section number 1, I would look at the charts for rough return times - say 9:30 for a 7 am pick - the make sure it is on my custom plan for between 9:15 and 10:15.
The other thing to bear in mind is that the plans don’t estimate rope drop very well - so if you will honestly be at the front of the pack, don’t put your first ride in. Instead, estimate it yourself and make it a break somewhere close by for that amount of time.
Oh, and don’t hesitate to come back to the forum when you want to talk through your plan and get any advice or challenge - it’s a whole group of type a planners who love nothing more than to help…