a few things that confuse me
peter pan first at 9:11 with a 20 minute wait…? wouldnt getting straight to 7DMT make sense?
leaving the park at 11 for 4 hours… after only 2 hours in the park? thats crazy and its a default plan.
7DMT at 8:02 and then watching parade at 9… seems very challenging.
I am assuming that you are using this base plan: https://touringplans.com/plans/37178. If you look in the plan notes, it says that this plan is not optimizable. That is because it is designed not to be the “best” way to accomplish the listed attractions, but instead a way that will be more enjoyable for a family with an age range of kids.
Re some your specific questions:
The wait at 7DMT usually spikes at opening and remains level throughout the rest of the day. Unless you are planning to be first at the turnstiles at RD and then sprint to 7DMT, it is usually not the optimal first attraction.
This plan is designed to be more relaxing, so you hit up as many things as possible during the first 2 hours, then head back to your resort at 11 when things start to get crowded. You relax, have lunch, take a swim, nap, or otherwise enjoy what the resort has to offer, and then head back at 3:00. The mid-day heat is dying down, and the crowds will start to go down, and you will be refreshed and ready to enjoy the rest of the day.
@brklinck is spot on regarding 7DMT; the time you would spend in line there at RD would be enough to do several other attractions with shorter lines. And the wait for PP at RD will be markedly lower than later in the day.
Without seeing the plan I can’t really make a lot of other comments, although you long “in between” times may be the result of not having “enough” attractions to fill the day. Three hours at TSI is way more than is actually needed (I would plan 90 min to take into account waiting for the raft to get there, leisurely exploring the island, and waiting for the raft back). 5 min from the gate to TSI is unrealistic unless the park is empty and you want to jog. Did you specify that you were leaving the park for your break?
I don’t typically take mid-day breaks, but 4 hours is not unreasonable. Unless you are right on MS, it will be at least 45 min (and maybe closer to 60) by the time you get to the bus stop, wait for the bus, ride the bus, and are actually back IN your room (worst case would be 20 min to get to the bus stop, 20 min wait for the bus, 20 min ride on the bus, and 5-10 min to get to your room). If you are on the mono loop or are driving, this will be shorter. If you assume that it will take approximately the same amount of time to get back into the park and to your next attraction, that gives you a 2 hour “actual” break to nap/swim/eat/relax. However I would be more likely to do it from 12:00 to 4:00 - or even 1:00 to 5:00 if the park is open late and you plan to stay until closing.
Not a lot to go on, but these are my observations…
Others have already shared some good observations. Namely, if there’s a lot of “free time”, then it seems to show up in the touring plan in one big clump, rather than being evenly distributed throughout the day. If you add more attractions or “breaks” (for something like shopping, looking at details in a certain land, stopping for popcorn, playing in the grass, or anything that isn’t considered an attraction, show, or meal), then it will fill in that time. If there aren’t enough items on your touring plan to fill in all the hours (and you’re staying for something later in the day like a meal and/or fireworks), then the optimzer doesn’t know what to do with all the extra time.
Regarding 7DMT, there is a rush for it first thing in the morning and it’s hard to predict exactly what your wait time will be. If you want to watch the morning Welcome Show before entering the park, then you’ll be behind a lot of people who will queue up in the tunnel and start walking down Main Street as soon as they are allowed to (before that show ends). If the Welcome Show is less important to you than seeing the Mine Train with minimal wait, then position yourself in one of the tunnels under the train station and you can head there first. Of course, that also assumes that you and those in your party can walk relatively quickly. You don’t have to sprint and be the first people to the attraction, but you also don’t want to get passed by too many people.
Some more about 7DMT at rope drop. If you choose to watch the Welcome Show or don’t find a dash up Main Street all that appealing, then the wait isn’t too bad (typically around 30 minutes) after the first rush of people goes through the attraction. If, for example, you want to see a short ride like Peter Pan first, then you could return to the Mine Train after the people who went there first thing in the morning and you’ll still wait in line, but it won’t be unbearable. It may be worth doing so once, since there are some entertaining things to see/do while you’re in the standby queue and that’s just about the only time to see it without waiting in a really long line or darting past everything if you happen to be at the front of the rope drop race.
I hope that makes some sense and explains why it can be difficult to suggest when to visit 7DMT.
thanks all some good help there. plan IS published it says it is right at top of its page and has this link Disney and Universal Touring Plans
this is a standard plan with removal of what one 20 min ride…
the standard setting of 11 as the main break time in a standard all day plan is suprising to me!
do people really think arriving at 9 and leaving at 11 is a good suggestion?
7DMT info makes sense, im planning to go straight at rope drop and was assuming we would get a sub 30 minute wait but ill accept what everyone and the TP says on that one.
the big gap on a standard plan starting at opening and finishing at final parades is odd but im not sure what solution would be? add repeats of rides?
i do understand that on a busier day that number of rides might leave no sognificant gap.
Yes, for this plan it is a good idea. As I mentioned before, it is intended to be a less stressful plan for families with an age range of kids. It also is not designed to be Optimized - it is more of a touring strategy than a touring plan, as it is not chock full of attractions leaving a lot of time for meeting characters and soaking in the Magic. However, if the break time and duration does not fit your needs, change it and re-optimize.
This is a result of the smaller number of attractions that this plan has. As others have mentioned, when there are blocks of free time you can fill them by adding additional attractions and re-optimizing.
Yeh i still dont feel leaving at 11 after 2 hours and then coming back at 3 for a potential 6 or 7 hour slot sounds right… better to leave at 12 and back at 4 id imagine but i am inexperienced in all this
yeh in fairnes i am finding with further tweaking and optimising its improving.
Yes, it is a great tool but you do need to work with a little while it in order to be able to use it effectively. After playing around a little bit more what you might want to do is make your own plan from scratch with the attractions you want to do and breaks/meals when you want to have them.
It seems like a lot of it comes down to what you hope to accomplish during your touring. A less hectic pace where the kids get to enjoy the park as they please or a more rigid plan that allows you to get more done
A bit of related wisdom that I have learned. The more that you view a TP as a minute-by-minute “schedule” as opposed to viewing it as a “well-planned strategy”, the higher your stress level will be. Rides break down. CL is higher than predicted. Wait times are longer than predicted. The kids need more potty breaks than expected. You get the idea. In all of my trips, I have NEVER had a TP stay exactly on track, and a couple of times, when the stars were way out of alignment, I had to basically scrap them by lunch time. But you know what? The “freedom” of not being “tied” to a computer-generated schedule can be very enjoyable in it’s own right. I’ve been enough times that so other than a few “favorites”, which are typically done at RD or with FPPs, if I don’t get to do an attraction, it’s no big deal; I’ll just prioritize it on my next trip. I know that this is heresy and could get me excommunicated from the Church of Optimized Touring, but at my age, I just don’t want to have work that hard on vacation.
im not sure it does come down to relaxed or hectic…
Either option do i want to travel for 45 mins… get to MK get through barrier at 9 then be walking out at 11 after 3 maybe 4 rides?
to then do another 45 minutes travel out of park… to come back with a small child and do 3pm till 10pm… one 2 hour and one 7 hour stint in the park.
that frankly seems crazy to me but also like im the only one who thinks so
Bswan26 - I have been looking it as more of a shopping list in an organised order but when the 4th thing on my list is leave the park… i dunno.
I guess there is an assumption that to do a Disney trip efficiently you have to be a little bit crazy to be willing to follow such a rigid plan on a vacation. What I meant to convey is that, I think it just depends on what kind of family vacation you want. Is it important to see x amount of rides or attractions? Or just to be able to enjoy the parks and see what you can.
Not sure why you’re so focused on “having” to leave at 11:00; you can take your break any time that you want to. As I mentioned previously, if I was going to take a long mid-day break, I would leave between 12:00 and 1:00 and return between 4:00 and 5:00; this would give you roughly 4 hours in the AM and 5 hours in the PM. It’s beginning to sound like you really just need to start over and build a personalized TP from scratch. It’s not really very difficult to do, and it will allow you a lot more control over when you do things (breaks, rest time, meals, etc.)
I agree entirely In my 20s it was how many rides could I do. In my 50s it more about enjoying being there and revisiting favorites. And meeting other Liners whenever I can
[quote=“stustaff, post:14, topic:19690”]
Either option do i want to travel for 45 mins… get to MK get through barrier at 9 then be walking out at 11 after 3 maybe 4 rides?to then do another 45 minutes travel out of park… to come back with a small child and do 3pm till 10pm… one 2 hour and one 7 hour stint in the park.
that frankly seems crazy to me but also like im the only one who thinks s[/quote]
On days when I’m in a park for rope drop, I typically have lunch around 11-11:30. I’ll probably some attractions after lunch, depending on how soon I want to return to the parks later in the day, but my goal is usually to see as much as I can when crowds are the lowest, then rest when crowds are at their worst. If I were having lunch outside the park, then I might leave a park at that time. It does seem strange to leave after two hours, but you’re leaving the park at the busiest (and hottest) part of the day.
That doesn’t mean this strategy is right for you, but hopefully explains why someone else might not think it’s crazy.
From 9-11 you can do more than 3-4 things, probably more on the order of 6, but I agree that 11 is too early for a break. I think you need to see the optimize button as a starting point, not as a final plan. Then start arranging how it makes sense to you. You can take a break at 12/1, or not at all, depending on what you want to do. You can add more stuff to your plan, or put in a several hour block labeled something like “do whatever I want to at the time”. I find the software really helpful for approximating how long things will take, planning to avoid likely long lines, and keeping me realistic, but other than that, I try to think out what will work best and be most interesting to my family. Then I try out the plan in the software and see if it’s realistic or has obvious pitfalls.
Didn’t you get the memo? We excommunicated you years ago.
I have also scrapped plans mid-flight - not because they were not working, but because I wanted to go in different direction or just slow down in general.
but when the 4th thing on my list is leave the park… i dunno.