How do I go about making a touring plan? I’ve read over the touring plans listed, but I am still not understanding how to use the available information. We’ve always planned according to our FP, now I’m a little lost. Thanks!
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Perhaps start with this?
Thank you! I just put together a personalized plan and it had me walking all over the park instead of trying to ride as many rides in one area at a time. Is there a way to minimize going back and forth in a park for rides on a personalized touring plan?
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I think I figured it out. I need to move the balance button to “minimize walking”
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Yes, minimize walking feature helps somewhat. I like to run the ‘optimize’ first and then move the steps myself and hit ‘evaluate’. When you ‘evaluate’, the steps remain in the same order, so it takes some experimenting to come up with plan that looks good to you.
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Thank you for the suggestions!!
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If I like the “optimized” plan because of the minimized walking, can I trust the times for when to arrive at the rides? In other words, if I follow the optimized plan, I should have minimal walking, but I could have an increase in wait times? If I wanted the best of both then I would. have to click the “balance” button, correct?
My daughters have chronic illness so neither long wait times and criss crossing all over the park is ideal. I almost think the criss crossing would be worse.
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I agree on criss crossing and I try to avoid it, especially when travelling with kids.
On the waiting times - because the parks were open for less than two months under the ‘new normal’, I wouldn’t expect the wait times to be very precise. It takes some time for Touring Plans to gather the data. I would use the plan as a guide, but be ready to adjust while in the park.
Hope you enjoy your trip!
Thank you!
“Optimizing” is a good first start. However, as you’ve noticed, it will send you all the way across the parks just to “save” 3 minutes of queue time - even if you had to walk 11 minutes to get there.
IME - Enter all the attractions / breaks you plan to do. Then “optimize” it followed by rearranging any crisscrossing / long walks - then hit “evaluate” in the order you’d prefer to do them.
FYI - I’ve seen to many “perfect” plans that go from ride-to-ride nonstop. You really need to put a 10 – 15 minute break in your plan every 1.5 – 2 hours. I’ve had more than one person tell me, “I’m on vacation. I don’t need to schedule when I pee.”
These breaks are a buffer for unexpected Magic / toilet / gift shops / drinks / etc.…
When putting in these breaks make sure to account for the walking time to your next attraction. Any time you insert a “rest” into a plan, the walking times after the rest are wrong due to a bug in TP software. For example, you are at Dumbo, then rest, and then plan to go to Jungle Cruise it only allocates a one minute walk time, instead of what should have been like 10-15 minutes.
If your next attraction is nearby this isn’t a big deal, but it is something to consider.
It’s always IMHO better to have the break & not need it than get behind.
Also, before COVID, while I LOVE TP it’s not perfect. On average I have to cut 2 - 4 attractions / shows every day. This is even with giving myself all those breaks. More often than not TP will greatly underestimate a couple of predicted queue waits. (Often an additional 30 - 50 minutes) So… be prepared to figure out what you can be ok missing or not getting a repeat ride on.
I have kept my plans over the last two- three years and written out all the data. (predicted vs. actual waits)
In “normal” times (pre-COVID)Touring Plans averages a -81 minutes longer than predicted each day. Again… I’ll never go to WDW / DLR / UOR with a personalized TP , but I’ve learned that you have to leave yourself large amounts of unscheduled time & add in breaks to be able to accomplish all that you want.
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Great advice, thank you!
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Also set your walking time to relaxed.
I also noticed that usually, when I manually moved things around on the list, and then optimized, that it left it where I’d put it. Or, I’d find a good reason for it to move it. But, it does seem like it leaves things in the order you put them, unless there is a reason to move
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After going through it a few times, you will get a better feel of where to go and when. I look at it as basically an outline. When in the park, after you ride a ride, you can go into the Lines app and check off each ride and hit optimize. It will update your plan based on the current conditions. If you like the way it is, you don’t have to bother doing this. You should still monitor the wait times to avoid an upcoming long wait you might want to skip. I’ve been reading a lot of trip reports and watching youtube videos. Posted waits of 20 minutes or less are basically walk on.
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