We’re traveling at the end of September this year and we have a slightly larger party (5-7) and a child with high functioning Autism. We are trying to start early with a TP then take a break go back to AOA (for a swin or rest) and go back to the park later. Is it possible to create two TPs for the same day ? One for the morning and then one for later in the day ? OR do you just use one TP for the day and build in the breaks ?
This is probably a very simple question, it’s my first time using TP Any help would be appreciated !
Sometimes I make two, so I can adjust the walking speeds separately (faster in the morning, slower later). Also if I make two, then I can specify which attractions etc stay in the morning half and which are in the evening half. That let’s me optimize each section yet it keeps the attractions in each half, it can’t mix them all together. I give names to my plans so I know if it’s an AM or PM plan, or Slow vs Fast, for instance.
You can certainly create multiple TPs for any day.
But, if I were staying in the same park both before and after the break and I were relying on Touring Plans to optimize the plan as well as it could, I would probably stick with the single TP for the day though. (And be sure that the plan has a nice large break included for your AOA time and any other expected in park breaks so TP doesn’t try to schedule anything then.)
The advantage of the single plan is that TP will massage the plan for the minimum waits and walk based on your settings. If you break it into 2 plans, you might try to visit a ride in the AM that has a much lower expected wait time at night.
This theory is less important if you have a specific set of rides that you want to do pre-break and another you want to do post.break. In that case the 2 plan day will probably work fine.
Another thing that come into play is having Fastpasses at times that TP thinks are not going to save you time, so they place the ride somewhere else in the plan…
Executive Summary: What I do is create a single plan, add the long break, pad it out a bit with some other possible breaks for breathing room, then use Optimize.
After Optimize is done, usually there are a rides I really want to do at a certain time, i.e. Splash not too late in the day, or use the Fastpass even if TP disagrees, like for a hard to get FPP. I’ll drag those attractions where I want them, then hit “Evaluate” (as opposed to Optimize) - then TP will re-evaluate the plan times without moving things around. I’ll usually then fiddle a bit with an eye on the changing wait times and see what seems best.
A week or so before the trip I’ll print out hard copies and make PDFs to keep on my phone for backup. Then I’ll try Evaluate again to see if the latest TP data changes anything significantly.
I was in much the same position last year - party of 10, and my son is high functioning as well. I went with having one plan for the day with an extra long break in the middle, and it worked extremely well for us. @JJT has listed the pluses for both ways quite nicely - I too printed out hard copies of my plans before the trip, and that was very important, but I never thought about PDFs for the phone - that is pure genius and I am stealing it for our trip in August (only five of us this time but my little guy is one of the five). Hard copies are great, but I often had to dig them out of my bag. PDFs would be so much easier to navigate since my phone is always in my pocket. I love being a Liner, everyone has great ideas! Thanks @JJT!
Thank you so much for all the input. I’m a little bit of a control freak (understatement) and I want to keep us contained to certain parts of the park - fantasy land for the morning and then adventure land in the afternoon to maximize our time. I never know how long my son will want to stay in the park - our last trip he only made it for the mornings. I’m hoping if we all go back for a break and then schedule our dinners in the park then he’ll want to come back. I think the PDFs are a great idea. I made binder to take with us and I’m going to also print a hard copy to keep with us for me to share with Nolan - so he knows what to expect each day. I might let him check off the attractions as we complete them. Everyone is so super helpful !
We have been twice in the past two years and found that making two TPs for Magic Kingdom really worked well for us.
We made one for the morning (rope drop until 1pm-ish) and then an evening TP for (430pm-ish until close).
The same could have been accomplished with a single TP with a long break in the middle but having two really helped me keep everything straight in my mind. Plus it was easier to sort/organize a TP that contained only attractions on the left side of the park for our morning (similarly, all attractions in the right side of the park for our evening).
MK can be overwhelming so being able to focus ONLY on the attractions in half of the park gave me a better idea what we wanted to see and how much could be accomplished in x amount of time.
Certainly do 2 TP’s then. Otherwise, one giant plan [one plan will save you more time I’d guess] will mix the lands together in the most efficient order.
Another alternative is to have a single plan with a huge amount of free time later in the day.
I tried that one day so we weren’t running from thing to thing all day - it gave us some structured “Must Dos” in the morning, then in the afternoon we only had a couple of specific intentions. So, we either shopped, snacked, or picked something based on a standing FPP or the best wait time.
Sort of a best of both worlds approach.
Worked well until I blundered the timing for getting in place for the Fireworks later in the day… but then that worked out anyway, as an off-duty janitorial CM took us under his wing and stood us behind the Carousel, where we watched another CM “conduct” the fireworks as we all swiveled our heads back and forth. Was pretty cool.
Any help would be appreciated !