I’m trying to play around with touring plans for a trip in November, but i can’t take them seriously. See attached for an example. This was a first draft. HS on a Monday. I added all the things I wanted to do, and this is what came out.
Do these wait times look ridiculously inflated to anyway? Going off the past 4 Mondays at HS, they sure look like it to me. The software must think crowds are going to be greatly increased in the week between Jersey week and Thanksgiving week. Call me optimistic, but I don’t think so.
I have been playing with plans for early December. The only park that seems realistic is MK. Both EPCOT and HS have extremely high wait times. If that is what it will be like, I will reconsider going.
And, I can’t look at your plan, I get the message that I don’t have access.
Yeah, I’ve only played with HS and AK. I thought AK was realistic, until it optimized Saturday the exact same as Wednesday. No way are wait times going to be the same on Saturday as on Wednesday!
Just so we’re clear, I think a touring plan is a great thing to have when going into a park. I just don’t have a lot of confidence in the software right now, thanks to the mega-disruptor that is COVID. Hopefully I’ve learned enough over the years, that I can put together my own plan in a good order.
Your times are similar to what I was getting. I also tried switching days, from a Sunday to a Tuesday in HS and got no change in wait times.
I will run the plans closer to our travel dates. Or I will run them every week, because that is how I obsess.
Yeah, we were just there in August and didn’t use a plan. I had a vague idea where we should start and then we just went from there. It’s a lot like how we do DLR and wouldn’t fly under normal circumstances at WDW. But knowing how things went on our recent trip and comparing it to the touring plans I’ve created for October … I think we’ll be able to do more than the plan is suggesting.
What I’ve done is use the personalized plan to map out the route I want to take. I will be with a friend who is still suffering some long term COVID effects and I don’t know what her energy level will be, so I don’t want to criss cross the park(s) with her. Right now it says we won’t get everything done before park closing. And we may not. But we will make decisions on the fly to skip some things or do some things twice. But the plan gives me a nice base to start from. It’s certainly not traditional planning by any stretch.
The crowd calendars are not updated that far out? I have been making a TP for a day with in a week ( in the new app) and then optimizing it to see how the days are going.
Do touring plans even work right now? Like, has anyone used one since re-opening, and was it remotely accurate?
I do not fault the team at all - these are weird times - but with low crowds, weird hours, and safety precautions (extra cleaning) in place, it would seem that none of their data could be close to helpful
This feels like a time when we lean on our usual Liner expertise to guide us, but mainly go with the flow (so hard for us, I know!)
I’m getting similar results for a Monday, November 2 visit to DHS. At least 45 minute waits for everything. Crowd level shows a 1. MK on 11/3 looks like what we’ve been seeing. Even Epcot on Sunday, 11/1 looks ok. It’s just DHS that looks wonky. Trip is still just shy of 2 months away. I’m thinking we will just make a plan to start with MMRR and then go to Toy Story land and hope they have rides starting before official park open time.
I did my TPs for same time. I dont think they are realistic in the fact that there are no way for TP to predict this accurately right now. Crowds will be lower than normal, and beginning of Dec is, as Ive always seen it 3, 4, 5, and sometimes 6s. I havent gone back to look at the historical data though. So Im ok with this.
What I will say is that I wouldn’t necessarily expect there to be a difference in wait times on different days of the week for the foreseeable future.
With the capacity capped at very low levels it’s unlikely that the weekends are going to be that much busier than weekdays. Maybe a fraction but not a huge amount, and certainly not for DHS which has the lowest capacity of all the parks.
I’m going next week and the touring plans look reflective of current wait times. I did one with everything in AK (that’s open) - it has us “done” by 3:00pm. Reality is we’ll go on our favourites multiple times. I can’t wait for the short FoP wait …back in January we waited over 2 hours!! (First time I had ever done that- I was with first timers - we could not get FP+ so we waited)
I see TP is showing some 2’s and 3’s on the crowd calendar for November. It has been pretty much all 1’s since reopening. That little jump can make a big difference in wait times. Keep in mind, a 3 in current conditions in not like a 3 pre-covid. You’ve got some attractions, shows, restaurants, shops, etc. closed when normally the crowds can disburse to these places. And of course, some attractions are not utilized to their full capacity, and also any extra time sanitizing periodiacally.
WDW and TP are probably betting that as time goes on, more and more people will be comfortable to travel and attendance may be close to “capacity” on a fairly regular basis. Unfortunately, I think the TP’s will end up pretty accurate.
This really gets me thinking, NOW is the time to officially launch the Virtual Queue system on a widespread basis. C’ mon WDW!!
Right, but those updates have always come repeatedly before a trip months ahead of time. I didn’t think the crowd calendar was updated that far out but I guess I ignored the email I got about my April trip. There is no way I would pay attention to the crowd calendar this far out anyways, but that is me.
Well, it absolutely had to be done. It’s a guess, but still way more believable than the old old numbers that were previously viewable. They seem pretty realistic to me. (The first 6 months anyway)
And we may not. But we will make decisions on the fly to skip some things or do some things twice. But the plan gives me a nice base to start from. It’s certainly not traditional planning by any stretch.