So long Touring Plans

Bye!

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Or worseā€¦you spent days coordinating your plan to obtain the perfect FP line-up, including a one-in-a-million 7DMT FP for 7 people. And then at the last minuteā€¦Genie decides you would RATHER ride IASW. :wink:

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Ryan love. Hush child. :wink:

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Yes Disney knows best after all :rofl:

This. Genie will give the nonplanners a plan but it wonā€™t necessarily be the best most efficient plan.

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Me neither. Oh boy.

I plan because I hate having to make quick decisions. Being in the middle of somewhere and having to think about what am I going to do next, it leaves me feeling anxious and overwhelmed.

I am more then happy to give up a plan if something that I really wish to do shows up, but I like having a default so I canā€™t avoid decision paralysis.

If Disney genie is just a ā€œdo this nextā€ thing, it might be helpful to a lot of people, but it is nothing like an optimized touring plan.

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I think from Lenā€™s post I am assuming that Disneyā€™s definition of ā€œa planā€ and ours might be different ā€¦

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I like multiple opinions to expose what people feel when they actually are in the park. Iā€™ve seen so many people around me that look like they are in a nightmare.

Heading to Disney, once in a lifetime, picking presidents weekend, not knowing you need ADRsā€¦ FPP reservations that can disappear at 60+. Assuming you can get your kids into certain character meals that have been booked many months before you started looking. I donā€™t see that trip going wellā€¦ and many people plan trips around the school calendarā€¦ which typically puts them in prime time to need planing.

Pretty much every other theme park, you can pay the poor planning tax ( express pass lanes). I personally would always recommend someone plan their first Disney trip out a year in advance just because of some of these things.

Heck, itā€™s still common enough for me to explain the fastpass system to someone I am in line with at least once a day. Planning a couple ADRs and a couple things to do a day is low planning. When some of those things require you to do then 6 months out thoughā€¦

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This is me!! I donā€™t stick to my plans necessarily but I canā€™t imagine going without one. Well I can, but I certainly wouldnā€™t see as much. That matters when you donā€™t go often.

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And Iā€™m also all for leeway, I donā€™t schedule our bathroom breaks or anything like thatā€¦but I need an order. The ā€œreoptimizeā€ button is my bestie.

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Since itā€™s official, I think it could be a great thing for the average park goer.

Disney doesnā€™t need people in the park to be efficient, but happy. I donā€™t know how many times I look at a big family, just through the gate, stop and ask ā€œso where do we go first?ā€

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To which the answers come in:

ā€œSpace Mountain!ā€
ā€œI donā€™t want to do a roller coaster first thing.ā€
ā€œLetā€™s go see the castle!ā€
ā€œAdventureland has that Johnny Depp themed ride, doesnā€™t it?ā€

:slight_smile:

So, yeah. I think even basic functionality might be helpful for newcomers.

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I totally understand your POV.

However, I use the TPs for the planning, not the execution.

By the time I go, I know what is realistic to achieve in say 3 hours. I use Evaluate, not Optimise. And although I have a plan, it will not resemble anything like 95% of linersā€™ plans lol! Itā€™ll have two rides and then a 45 minute break, where I put things like ā€œgo to wishing well, sit and chillā€ or ā€œwatch Gastonā€™s m&gā€ or ā€œexplore areaā€.

I donā€™t just smell the roses, I smell each individual roseā€¦ I could quite easily spend a whole day in every park without riding anything, without seeing any show. But I use the TPs to have an outline of the day and know we will cover NFL and Frontierland on Tuesday.

It is possible to use TP and not print out anything. I didnā€™t even look at the plans in the whole of the two weeks we were there. I simply didnā€™t need to. Spontaneity is my middle name. And it gives other liners here palpitations at the mere thought of it, Iā€™m sure.

And, as @PrincipalTinker said, Iā€™m here because of this forum. I donā€™t even use the app (which I feel guilty about because I realise it relies on liners to feed them actual wait times).

There is no one size fits all for TP. :slight_smile:

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I always forget to tap when Iā€™m done and am then afraid of messing up their data!

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It seems that if the app smartly gets people moving around the park, TP still has its place to make it more efficient (and after collecting data of wait times with the system, TPs will react to whatever models Disney used to move people around ).

If the app doesnt move people around smartlyā€¦ then TPs here are even more efficient :wink:

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I use relaxed walking pace and it gives us so much flexibility because of the added time.

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See Ya Real soon

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:heart_eyes::heart_eyes::heart_eyes:

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Hmm. The TP app looks like a website from the 1990s. It could be substantially prettier and substantively better if they invested some money it. Modern users expect more.

God knows Iā€™ve had my stresses with MDE, but when it works ā€” which is most of the time ā€” itā€™s really very good.

Really?

I am known for my obsessional planning, but Iā€™ve never been a slave to my plan. As much as anything the planning teaches you what is possible. You learn about the parks and the rides and the timings.

Iā€™m fortunate that Iā€™ve done four trips in two years and have another two coming up in the next year, but I absolutely agree with with @lizzieanne771 that an ADR and three FPPs and a bit of research and youā€™ve got yourself a great, packed day out.

This. Very much this. I hate whizzing from ride to ride, with my head stuck in MDE looking for the next FPP and missing everything around me. Iā€™m really trying to stop doing it.

This is surely true. The regulars on these forums represent a tiny percentage of TP members, let alone WDW visitors. WDW is vastly successful and it must be because people have a great time. It might be a different experience to the one you have, but they keep coming back.

Thatā€™s an entirely reasonable point.

Iā€™m slowly coming round to this point of view. Iā€™m praying that they donā€™t introduce FPPs at SWGE before my December trip. I donā€™t want an FPP for MFSR or ROTR and I donā€™t want anyone else to have one, either. I want to wait in line. A bunch of people put a bunch of effort into making that line spectacularly rich. I donā€™t want to be rushing past it or cutting it out altogether. But nor do I want my progress hindered as I watch dozens of people rush past me in the FPP line.

Yup.

Really?

Really?

Agreed.


I think the Unofficial Guide is really excellent in design and content, though necessarily it may not be current. But nor is the website. This is disappointingly common. (Iā€™m looking at you, DFB Guide.)

Iā€™ve had a mixed, mostly positive experience with the forum and the chat feature on the app.

I found the planning tools useful initially but I donā€™t use them now. They were useful to work out what might be credible to achieve.

The reservation finder is terrific. The fax room request is terrific. The crowd calendars are . . . of questionable value.

Thereā€™s a whiff of Kool-Aid in this thread. Len is not God. Disney is not the Devil. Each have their plusses and minuses. People are entitled to have views and to express them. A good business especially values the critical views. It doesnā€™t shush them away.

(I wonder how many of my friends I have alienated in this post.)

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