E-mail webmaster@touringplans.com describing the problem and including the plan URL
Should we still optimize when we get into the parks or just optimize it a few times at home? Only 8 days to go…
Optimize now, and print out your plan as a backup. I usually only optimize when in the parks if my plan starts to go off-schedule.
I have two things I am struggling with:
- When I choose the same attraction twice in the same day it wants to put them back to back when you optimize. How can I put them at separate times and still optimize my plan. Example, I want to ride 7DMT in the morning and at night.
-How can I change a time to ride something, example, Splash Mountain in daytime and not at night and still optimize my plan without changing my ride time for that specific choice
I have always considered myself a Disney Parks veteran but this has made it that much easier.
Thanks so much…
You can customize the order of things by using Evaluate instead of Optimize. That will give you the wait times for what YOU choose instead of arranging things the way the software wants you to do it. I like to print out the Optimized plan as a reference or baseline and then change one thing at a time. Evaluate after every change and note if you made things better or worse. Look at both total wait time and walk time after each change.
For example, you can move Splash to the evening. Evaluate. If the wait time is horrendous in the new spot, move it later and Evaluate again. If TP tells you that you can no longer make it to a show with your new plan, move something else. If it all goes pear shaped, click Optimize and you’ll end up back where you started. I hope this helps!
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Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it!
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I’d love to hear how your plan turns out. 
It worked perfectly, thanks so much for the advice. Can’t wait to try it out on our trip. Thanks again for all of your help!
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Reading a lot about rope drop - do I need FPP for toy story mania if I am there at RD on a crowd level 10 day? Will the TP tell me which fast passes I should do?
I think the safest thing to do on a level 10 day will be to FPP the 3 things you care the most about. If TSMM is one of those things, then you should try to get a FP for it. You can do it at RD, but you will still have a wait on a level 10 day, so having a FP for later is good insurance.
On a level 10 day, rope drop will really help, but you’ll need to arrive super early to be in the front of the RD pack. On a low crowd day, you could probably line up 20 minutes before park opening and enjoy short lines for a couple of hours. On a level 10 day you’ll want to be at the gates about an hour before park opening. There will be a ton of people and a mad dash to the biggest attractions - Tower of Terror, Toy Story and Rock 'n Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios.
Also, making a personalized Touring Plan will give you a good idea of the wait times on your particular day. Yes, it will suggest FP choices for you.
I have FP+ times that are for an hour window (obviously), but the evaluate method will not use the FP+ if it is in the second half of the hour. I have one for Toy Story from 11:55 to 12:55. The plan has be there at 12:37, but waiting 57 minutes! Why? Don’t a big deal, but it messing up the rest of the day. It will use it if I am there before 12:15.
E-mail webmaster@touringplans.com, explaining the issue and providing the plan URL. They should get back to you quickly with a resolution.
Thank you for the suggestion.
We found that on a less-crowded day (like Tues/Wed/Thurs) we used our Fastpasses in the morning and were able to easily get more for popular rides throughout the day. However, on Friday and Saturday, we used our morning Fastpasses and no more popular ones were available after that. In retrospect, on Fri/Sat we should have gotten popular FP for noon/afternoon when the lines are really long, and use the shorter standby lines in the morning.
Test Track was 25 min by 10am on Fri, but 50 min in the afternoon. By then my husband and daughter had no choice but to stand in line and wait (while I when in the single rider line and waited 10 min).
By 10:30am Saturday Toy Story Mania was 90 min wait.
Due to several FP timing/walking time messups at Magic Kingdom, I switched around the timing of my FP selections for Animal Kingdom to go in order of how I would walk around the park and it worked really well, much better than the days before at MK where my FP were all over the place. This took a few minutes of planning with the park map the night before, but saved us a lot of walking and time at the park. Not sure if you could do this last minute all the time, but it worked last Friday (first week of Oct).
This would be great to know.
Were you able to implement this function? A British website is spreading like wildfire that purports to show future FPP availability. Although I don’t see it going 60 days out. Thanks!
So what happens when you repeat steps 2 and 3, but then you get to 4 and you cannot book those FastPasses? Anna & Elsa are gone. I cannot select the right time for 7 Dwarves. Winnie the Pooh becomes the third pick, and it’s currently scheduled for later than we wanted to be in the park. Of course I can keep trying. This all feels a little chicken and egg. I am really stuck on what to do. (I changed the plan times, but we just have too much thanks to no FP for A&E.)
I’ve copied, then personalized, the small children 1 day plan for MK, and what starts out as 230 in line and 439 busy becomes 350 in line and 370 busy. How do I use the stats at the bottom to determine whether my personalized plan is any good?
Re your first question, further down in the post I cover this:
This is where PTPs become more than an art than a science - there are so many possibilities that you just need to go with what makes sense and verify using the Optimizer that you will be able to complete your plan within a reasonable amount of time.
Re your second question, what are you doing that makes it go from 230/439 to 350/370? The stats essentially allow you to compare different plans to see which one is better, in terms of time spent waiting and time spent in attractions. They really don’t tell you whether a given plan is “good” in and of itself, as you could have a plan that has a lot of short attractions that have long wait times, so the wait time/busy time ratio will be skewed by that.
My stats changed as I personalized. For instance, adding Anna & Elsa just dumps a whole lot of minutes into my line time. I am also trying to do a plan through 10 PM instead of the midnight park closure.
I think I need to give up on A&E for now. If I get a FP, I will add it back, but we’ll need to skip if we don’t go a second day or get a FP.
Dropping A&E and adding a few attractions gets us closer to our 10 pm finish.
IS there a good time/wait ratio?
Or maybe the better question is, how do you use the stats? Otherwise, I feel like I am essentially comparing apples and oranges, as you seem to be explaining.