HS Touring Plans

I know that HS Touring Plans are a struggle right now. We are going on a January Monday where opening is 8 AM (currently). Our plan is to rope drop. We have SDD FPPs for 9:00. We do not plan to do any Star Wars activities. When I do my touring plan, every time it gives me a crazy long wait for the first ride TSM or AS. I tried adding breakfast at Hollywood Vine at 7:00 for 40 minutes and putting TSM as my first ride. My plan shows us arriving at TSM at 7:42 and gives me a 110 minute wait. How is that even possible? My hope was to ride TSM and AS prior to our SDD FPP. Help? Is there a way to fix this?

OMG. I literally just asked this in another thread. I have the same issue. RD of AS2 says 45 minutes. Really?!

Following to see if anyone knows what’s going on.

I asked this a few days ago too! It’s crazy - I gust that first thing in the morning wait times are way longer than usual because of everyone coming for boarding groups, but the long estimates don’t even line up with what they have the wait times listed for over the holidays with way higher crowd levels.

That’s a really good point!
I just went and looked at the data for Jan 6, AS2. It was an observed CL of 9, so should’ve been really busy. It didn’t get to a 45 minute wait time until 1.5 hours after opening. Definitely not the same as 45 minutes a minute after RD, even if the park opened 2 hours earlier!

We went on 1/4 and 1/8. On 1/8 we RD TSM and barely waited. There are huge crowds in the morning because of Star Wars but you can RD TSM or ASS pretty easily. You said you have SDD at 9 I would not use that FP until close to the end of that window close to 10:00. You should be able to knock out all of Toy Story Land by that point. I know you said you were not interested in Star Wars but I would make a star tours FP for 10:00 if possible and then schedule another tier 2 show right after that. You don’t have to do Star Tours or the show but just tap and go. Then you should be able to start picking up more tier 1 FPs and you will have a successful day

I think that the wait times at HS are very suspect right now. We are going in March and when I evaluated a touring plan today to do RnRC and TOT first and second at rope drop, it gave 80 minute plus waits for each of them. I know it’s busy at park open with the ROTR boarding group situation, but that seems unlikely to me.

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You know, I was looking at the recent past vs March wait times. I wonder if they’re all thrown off for March because of the 9 am openings. When I look at them, the waits at 9am (RD) look like the waits at 9 am in January - with a 7 am opening.

I’m going to do what @Firsttripdisneydad says. TSM and AS2 before SDD FP, and just assume it’ll work out OK.

For what it`s worth, the wait times for TSM and ASS at rope drop look really reasonable for yesterday (I tried re-evaluating my TP to see if they’d made any adjustments but they still have the crazy long waits predicted) - so I feel reasonably confident that it should be a lot quicker than the TP is predicting.

Wait times for TSL in general were listed pretty reasonable all day yesterday (AA usually under 25 minutes), SDD down to 20-25 min close to close, and TSM only going up to 35 minutes a half hour into open and sitting around 20 min for the hour before close).

Fingers crossed this is how it is when we are there the first week of February!

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Okay so yesterday I reevaluated my plan and now it shows AMAZING wait times. At first I was excited and assumed they know something I don’t. Now I have looked closer and there must be a glitch. It shows me doing everything this Monday Feb 3rd for the first few hours with next to no wait… lol - there’s no way I’m going to be waiting 12 minutes for SDD 45 minutes after park open lol

Anyone else noticed that?

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No but I kinda want to go make a new one just to have that awesome feeling when you first looked at it and felt hopeful it could be true!

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Have you reoptimized? Back to normal?

I re-optimized mine after reading your post and my RD for TSM went from 78 min to 47 min. I see from last week, most reported RD times for TSM were less than 30 min.

Glad you guys go before me and can hopefully tell us how it really goes!

I just did now and it’s still the same! I look forward to doing TSM, AS2, and others all with 4 minute waits - and SDD at 10 minutes. I’ll let you know how it goes. Touring plans will get a stern letter about my disappointment when wait times are 20 times that :laughing:

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My fingers and toes are all crossed for you!!

Okay so today was the day. Everything worked out amazing! The wait times were definitely not as my new and improved (yet highly inaccurate) touring plan indicated lol. (No 12 minute wait for SDD :laughing:)

Anyway, here is a detailed recap! We decided to head to CBR bus stop for 6, arrived at 5:55, just as the bus arrived (nailed it :slightly_smiling_face:) then got through bag check and tapstiles with no issue, and lined up for TSL. We were just in line by the washrooms on that stretch towards toystory land. We stayed to the left for TSM. Boarding groups opened at 7 exactly, I got group 19 (nailed it again lol). We then walked right on to TSM following the line and not stopping. As soon as we got off we walked to AS2 and had a 10 minute wait (by the time we got off it said 30min). We then used our 0730 FP for SDD. my DD4 rode with my husband and loved it, my DS7 and other DD4 rode in front of then in the front row and were terrified (the pictures confirm their report of this). My son didn’t like that he’s the one who has to ride alone sometimes, so we thought it would be better for them to go together and me alone… But apparetly not lol. I’m sure they would have been fine if both riding with a parent.

Anyway, we had the three TSL rides done by 745, and then our boarding group was called at 750. We decided to meet Olaf and Minnie and Mickey, and then do our 0830 ST FP before going to ride ROTR (we had a 2h return time). That ended up being a good call since the ride went down shortly after, so we weren’t stuck on it, and we were told we could return at any time today. We then decided to go for ‘lunch’ at 0930 lol, and then did the frozen sing-along with our 3rd FP. after frozen we went to ROTR, essentially no waiting and we were on and off the ride in 30/35 minutes. I had picked up another AS2 FP, which we then used, then got done Mickey bars, before heading back to our hotel by skyliner to chill (relaxing in our room by 1) We may go back this evening for a couple hours depending on how the kids feel. We didn’t want to do TOT or RnR, but there were lots of FP times of those two available to pick up.

Magic kingdom felt pretty busy and chaotic to me yesterday … And I felt today seemed better. Still busy…I’m assuming Disney always feels busy, but have nothing to compare it to since this is our first time!

Hope this helps one if you :slight_smile:

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That sounds like you nailed it!!! Lol

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You rock! Thanks for sharing. Sounds like it went perfectly! So happy for you guys.

Did the kids like RotR? Sounds like everyone went on? Since tomorrow still shows at 8am open time now my whole plan next week is up in the air, so we may end up all at the park now to try to get the BG so wondering about my 4yo too.

Now I want to hear about your MK day :slight_smile:

They did it okay, I wouldn’t say they terribly liked it. DD4 X1 enjoyed it enough, my other daughter was very apprehensive because we had done star tours a bit before and that scared her. She managed and came out unscathed, but probably wouldn’t have been game to do it again.

As far as MK. we took a Minnie van just to eliminate any stress wondering if we’d get there on time. We got through and were waiting by the train station by 720 or so. I had to leave with the two girls for a bathroom break while we waiting (had to leave and re-tap in), and made it back no problem.

They let us in about 742, we quickly walked in, parked her stroller and went to PP to find it was down. Do we went to see Cinderella and Elena, but everything had ‘waits’ because PP AND SDMT were down. After the first two princesses 2/3 kids were anxious to do rides so we did the carousel and then went to PP which was now open (with a wait accumulated). We then did Rapunzel and Aurora, and then went to WTP and teacups. We then saw barnstormer was running so did that and then VOLM. we could see SDMT cane up about 10 minutes before the event ended, but we had been told we could use FP until 11 with our bands, so decided to stick with doing Ariel after VOLM. After Ariel we went to SDMT X2 and then went for breakfast. After breakfast we did SDMT one more time, then went to meet Minnie and Daisy. The lines were pretty slow, so we skipped Donald and goofy.

After that we to ETWB for FP1, and then right over to HM with FP2. We then did Mickey’s philharmagic and went to Gaston’s tavern for le fous brew and cinnamon buns. I had switched my FP for BLSS for IASM since it was closer and the kids were getting tired. After IASM I picked up a dumbo FP, then an immediate teacups FP, then an immediate BLSS FO, which we did on our way out.

We skipped some things we had planned, and ended up leaving just before the parade. Hopefully we’ll be able to see it when we go back Thursday (that’s when we plan to do frontierland and adventureland). It seemed SUPER busy. It was predicted crowd level 6 and ended up being a 8. I can’t imagine a 10…

We then went for a swim back at the pool, which was nice and uncrowded (I think too cold for done folks who were literally bundled up in coats etc…as Canadians we found it lovely!)

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I didn’t know (or remember?) that you had the morning event… great they let you do the FPP until 11, after such a frustrating start to the day. Sounds like you got a lot done and able to cover the rest in another day. Thanks for the update- and good luck on your next round! My one MK day is a CL 6, wonder how it will play out.