Please critique my EPCOT, 2 adult, Crowd Level 1 Plan

Walt Disney World Touring Plans
117

Thanks, everyone that has helped so far.

I am hoping that this post will be close to the end of this long topic.

The reason for THIS post is that I just feel compelled to tell all the people who have actually followed my journey to this post, what an amazing day my husband and I just enjoyed while working on the TP plan. :grinning::grinning::grinning:

He amazingly agreed to sit with me and help update all the Notes for each Plan event…:smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

With our combined computer skills, we did something that truly blew my mind today. :star_struck:

When I went to Epcot decades ago, I am not even sure that the internet existed :wink:

We started by forcing ourselves to summarize, in the TP plan ‘Plan Summary’, the steps we have taken so far in order to optimize the plan to where it is now. :sweat:

BUT, there were very few Notes on each Step of the Plan, so that had to change :sunglasses:

At this point, my husband set up a blank Chrome browser instance and just started making these tabs:

  • Tab1. A tab at TouringPlans.com, setup to edit your latest plan for the day.
  • Tab2. A tab open to Google Maps at Epcot (He is able to enter and leave Street View at will and fly around things, an acquired skill. Epcot is spider webbed with blue Street View paths that can be walked along and they have 360 degree panning WITH the ability to look up and down at any angle as you walk and move you head… WOW)
  • Tab3. A tab that takes us to TouringPlans attractions at Epcot.
  • Tab4. A Wikipedia tab that lets us look up things like the Pavilion histories.
  • Tab5. A tab open to here so we can look at the ride seating arrangements and transfer some info from it to our notes for the ride…
  • Tab6. A tab open to Google for ’ epcot XXX “Chris Barry” ’ items (replace XXX with what article you want, say ‘Germany’) . He is our favorite reviewer.

Then the fun began… :grinning::grin::laughing::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Our plan had 25 steps, so we started at Plan Step 1 and started adding/editing the steps’ notes…

This is the new fun process we took from there and we repeated these STEPS:

  1. In Tab2, fly around the attraction with Google Maps, the maps have labels with even the Pavilion restaurants on them :slight_smile: , this is where we saw things like massive building attached to Germany with no ride label on it so we simply had to find out why…
  2. In Tab2, we land, say in front of Germany on the blue Street View path and then spin our head 360 degree to take in the whole panorama… Then we look into the pavilion and follow its Street View blue path into the pavilion, looking around as we walk in… It is almost like you are there in real life…
  3. Then, with the mental notes of what we saw on our trip in and out of pavilion (there are even blue Street View paths in the restaurants), we go to Wikipedia Tab4 and/or TP Tab3 and look up what they have to say about Germany. All along here we are making notes in the ‘Germany Pavilion’ on the Tab1 Plan.
  4. Then, read Chris Barrys’ review (find it by editing Tab6 and open any results found in new tabs). A lot of our notes came from his reviews :wink:
  5. Then, if needed, we open new tabs for further research.
  6. After all notes are done for the Plan Step #, then we close all tabs that were opened beyond Tab6

Move to next Plan Step # in Tab1 and then Repeat Steps 1-6 above for the new ride/act/pavilion…

By now I am sure you want to see our Plan with all the notes we made, here it is:
https://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=3936765

I KNOW that these notes which we made today in our plan, would not be the notes which YOU would have made in your plan, but that is EXACTLY why this process is so neat. You could be putting your own notes in your plan.

I can’t see how anyone would NOT have fun doing this process.

This is a crazy and wonderful use of the technology which is available to us today.

I CAN say for sure that there is no reason for anyone to wander around Epcot aimlessly anymore…

This does not bode well for Disney, as it may no longer take 4 day trips to Epcot in order to effectively see all of Epcot :wink:

After you do this process, you WILL feel like you just spent a day at Epcot but please do not cancel your trip as, in person, the trip memories will be much longer lasting :wink:

EDIT: I edited the first post of this Topic with a link to this post so that people who stumble across this topic can jump here to ‘read the last chapter of the book first’ :wink:

3 Likes
118

It only works for ‘Optimize’. There may not be ways for the Optimizer to make FPs work in an ‘Evaluate’ scenario, without moving steps around.

1 Like
119

@len, could you spare a few more bytes of data storage and double the length of allowable size for the Notes of each Step (preferably before this Wednesday :wink: ) :question:

When we are using the Plan at Epcot, I think that I would like to manually add, to each note, what Arrival Time, InQueue Time and even Walk Time etc that we ACTUALLY had, so that we can truly evaluate how close we were able to stick to the Plan. (LOL, I will even be having a GPS logging APP running, silently in the background, all day for use in my ‘day after’ analysis, how obsessive is that ?)…

1 Like
120

Yep - I’ll ask the team to make the change.

2 Likes
121

Looks really nice! (Still a very full day!) If you continue with your mindset of “We can skip it if running behind…” you’ll be fine.

Sorry… .I took so long to get back. My weekend got pretty busy. Hope you have a great time this week!!

1 Like
122

Now I think I am simply reading too much here on the forums… :wink:

I just started to read the All Time ‘Top’ topics in the Touring Plan Forum…

I came across this topic of last year:

Were @len posted at post #23 there:

Which means that today I have to HOPE that TP has really figured out how to maintain the, currently still in use, CL1-10 system.

How can the CL1-10 system even work, when the whole CL1-10 system is based on posted wait times and when @len says that Disney now tries to make the same wait times on CL1 and CL10 days by changing ride capacities…

  1. Has TP wait time prediction improved since Disney began this draconian ‘bottom line’ practice almost 2 years ago :question:
  2. Are TP wait time predictions for RD non-FPP FEA strategies worth planning on :question:
123

I’ve been a TP user since 2012. It has taken me multiple trips to figure out that TP should be treated as a “guide” and not an exact step-by-step plan.

I’ve had trips where TP says I’ll be on a ride at 9:12am with a 5 minute queue and I’m done at the exact predicted time. I’ve also had even more trips where TP says there will be a 25 minute wait and it’s closer to 35 - 40 minutes. This is why I’m such a proponent of not overfilling a TP and adding in free time / breaks.

I will say just having a TP puts you ahead of 85% of people at Disney parks. TPs do allow you to get so much more done than the average guest. However, they are not perfect.

I’m, also, not a fan of the Lines app. While it can provide more up to the minute queue data, it is not intuitive or user friendly. More often than not, it’ll Optimize your plan making you walk all over the park just to save 10 minutes in a queue.

124

@len, in the very least, it would be nice if, when I re-evaluate my meticulously crafted, nearly-perfected plan, it warns me that the Fastpasses I originally had no longer line up.

In the example that prompted the question to begin with, it seems like rather than shift everything, including the step with the FP, it should have left the FP alone and then just inserted free time. Instead, @carmen had to insert a break manually to act like free time. If the only change when evaluating is that a break was removed without anything in it’s place, the time slot should have been made as free time due to the FP (ideally).

1 Like
125

Yes, and I changed my break strategy during this topic because of the recommendations you kindly provided… BUT I do not see how that ‘adding break/free time’ strategy could make up for, up to QUADRUPLE, actual wait times that are mentioned by the OP of that topic in his first post and are due to Disneys’, as of then, NEW policy …

126

It would also be great when I got the message… “The plan may not get to all your attractions before you leave the park. A solution may be to select fewer attractions or to take shorter meals or breaks.”

If my TP would indicate which step(s) are the issue. I’ve stared at my screen for hours trying to figure why isn’t my plan “updated” with no errors.

127

There’s the rub. Disney doesn’t really care about Touring Plans. In fact, I’d guess that if it weren’t for the fact that Touring Plans ultimately encourage more people to go, I’d wager to guess Disney really doesn’t like Touring Plans at all. We’ve seen time and time again that Disney tries to squeeze out any “outsider” from providing an advantage to guests.

So, if Disney does something to mess up the kinds of predictions TP makes…well, they don’t care. It now is the onus of Touring Plans to try to figure out how to work around the changes and still offer something useful. At the same time, each user of Touring Plans has to realize that they don’t really have special access to Disney, which means their predictions are, in a sense, little more than an elaborate guess! (Okay…maybe “estimate” is a more accurate term…but lacks the effect I’m looking for!)

1 Like
128

I completely agree. That’s why I added

THIS! (I was trying to figure out a way to say this very thing. Thanks!)

129

All I am asking here is in effect ‘has TP figured out how to provide more accurate wait times since that topic?’

130

I am not sure if ANY guide can be of much use if it has to take into account rides that have quadruple wait times throughout the day…

131

I find that the knowledge about general loading rates, capacities, routing etc gained from putting plans together helps a lot with dynamic re-planning once in the park - and yes, you should expect to be doing that re-planning to make best use of the developing situation.

On 3 out of 4 mornings on our latest trip we diverged from the plan before even the first step due to better opportunities (walk-on FoP, FEA downtime, walk-on 7DMT) - you then just keep an eye on things and get back on track as you go. Average wait times over the day will tend to work out, especially if you have the big-name rides covered via FPP or RD so only have to worry about ones that don’t really build long lines.

2 Likes
132

Exactly!

So many people walk around WDW aimlessly asking their kids, “What do you want to do now?” The amount of money you pay per minute to have access to the parks during operating hours is too much to waste. I really don’t know how more people haven’t heard of / used TP before. It’s like dropping loose change on the walkways of WDW with every step you take.

133

@JDAdams, thanks, and I agree that having gone through the whole optimization process in my TP plan has already made me more capable of changing things on the fly, I guess I just hit the park with these new super planning powers, Marvel heroes beware :wink:

1 Like
134

RD non-FPP strategies for any big name ride ideally boil down to “Get there early enough to walk on”. Personally I don’t see the point in getting there just early enough to be in a (really early) queue. The advantage, indeed the whole idea, is to be on, off and then stay ahead of the “wave” of people so you can get around multiple other attractions while they are all trapped in the line for the ride you did in 5 mins.

This is what we did at MK (walked on 7DMT, WtP, PPF, SM x2), AK (walked on FoP, NRJ, EE x 2, D) and HS (EEMH so did almost the whole park - SR, SDD, ASwS, TSM, RnRC, ToT, RnRC). It really makes a huge difference and makes the rest of the day a lot less stressy!

1 Like
135

You want to buy something, even if you don’t think you do.

2 Likes
136

Hi everyone, I am sorry that I persist in updating this topic, but I know I will forget these great tips which I am now learning before we need to plan our next trip to WDW and this topic is where I will come back to, in order to, see how I should plan the next trip :wink:

Taking everything to heart in the last 13 posts here, I have revised my optimization strategy for the day.

I have learned that, in order for the plan to be more flexible to glitches at Epcot tomorrow, I really should have a plan which I can use the TP ‘Optimize’ button, with some predictability, that it will not re-order my walking plan too much, which is a big complaint that I have read for using that button.

SO, I have had to investigate the nuances of the dreaded ‘Optimize’ button.

I have found that there IS a way to have Optimize NOT re-order the steps of my walking plan that will FORCE Optimize to keep my walking plan.

The secret is that ‘Optimize’ only moves meal time steps around within the time flexibility that you assign to the Arrival time of an ‘Add Meal’ step.

Knowing that fact, you can develop your preferred walking plan as simple steps using the ‘Add Meal’ button. :wink:

This is what I have found that works for a RD to a nonFPP ride at Plan Step #1 situation:

  1. Start your Plan Step #1 by adding a meal at the closest restaurant to the attraction and in the Confirmation # for the meal, type ‘SKIP MEAL - go to such and such ride’.
  2. For the ‘Time of Day’ field, select the time you plan to arrive at the attraction (minus the time it takes to wall from the meal location to the ride).
  3. To keep a tight window on the Step, select the smallest ‘Flexibility’ you can (currently 10 min).
  4. Then you need to set a duration, which is a bit tricky to determine, but if you have gotten here, you can understand what I am about to say and how to get that info :wink: . The Duration needs to be the sum of the current Wait and Busy times as if you were to ‘Evaluate’ an actual ‘Attraction’ step at the time you would arrive to the attraction… I am sure there is a way to get that easily but I won’t go into that now.
  5. The you can make further Notes in that Confirmation field and the Notes field.

The above case is the hardest concept to grasp here, which is a RD to a nonFPP ride at Step #1.

It is much easier to keep your Pavilion walking order and times using a similar method.

It turns out that all 11 pavilions have sit down restaurants at them, EXCEPT the American Pavilion (go figure :wink: ). The American Pavilion does however have an ‘Add Meal’ location close to it at the ‘American Adventure Frozen Treats’ cart…

So, you can force the park walking plan to be adhered to by the ‘Optimize’ button by adding meals at each Pavilion… and by putting the duration you want to stay at each pavilion in the meal duration field.

When things start to glitch up tomorrow, I can gradually reduce my pavilion Duration times, increase the size of Arrive Time flexibility windows or even change meal arrival times to make a re-order the walking plan. :slight_smile:

AND here is my latest plan where my personal walking plan for the day does NOT get changed by an ‘Optimize’:

https://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=3942729

One neat thing about this method is that my walking times for the day have been more closely determined by the Meal method, since when you use ‘Breaks’ in your plan, then the walking time from the place before your break to the place after your break was never taken into account.

One downer is that Wait time for the Step #1 RD to nonFPP ride is missing from the Wait time total :wink:

EDIT: And here is the same plan, with minor adjustments, that is uses the ‘Relaxed’ walking speed, with a note that says ‘Walk fast’ to the RD ride at FEA:

https://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=3942555

1 Like