I recently logged in to tweak some TP, and noticed the following:
I have 2 days where our FP+ window starts before we have told the software we are arriving at the park. When I hit Optimize, the FP+ reservation disappears.
To give a specific example:
On May 8th we are set to arrive at the MK at 5:30pm. We have a FP+ window for SM at 4:55-5:55pm (out of necessity). The TP software refuses to “accept” the FP+ window unless I amend our arrival time at the park to match the early end of our earliest FP+ window… in this case entering that we will arrive at the MK at 4:45pm, even though I know we won’t be there until 5:30pm. And of course, the second I enter that arrival time so that all of our FP+ selections “stick”, the software starts slotting attactions into this fictitious early time frame.
I had never noticed this before… I set up these TP months ago. it seems to be a new development.
Any suggestions?
E-mail webmaster@touringplans.com describing the issue and giving them the URL - they usually respond quickly to these sorts of things
A possible workaround could be to set your arrival time at 4:45, and enter a 45-minute break at that time, so it won’t start sending you to attractions until 5:30?
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That’s a good idea. I’ll try that if I don’t get a fix from emailing the webmaster.
To follow up, the TP people got back to me. They confirmed that this issue is new, due to them tweaking the software. They didn’t envision this scenario, but will try to accommodate for it in the future. Since we’re going to the world in early May, I don’t know if any future accommodation will happen in time to help us.
What if you say that your FP starts at 5:30, instead of the actual time of 4:45? Or 5:35 to account for walking to SM (or however long past 5:30 it would take to walk there).
That was one of the suggestions by the staff. The problem is, once you tell the software that your FP+ is 45 minutes later than it actually is, it them proceeds to schedule it later than it can actually occur in real life.
Example: My fastpass window in real life is 4:55pm to 5:55pm. I’m not arriving until 5:30pm. I tell the software that my window is 5:35pm to 6:35pm, and hit optimize. The software spits out a TP that lists Space Mountain (my FP+ selection) at 6:40pm… which would be fine if I was using the fictitious window, but is well outside the range of when my real life FP+ can actually be used.
I could get around the above by scheduling the FP+ where it needs to be and hitting “Evaluate” instead of “Optimize”… but at that point, I’m no longer getting the most out of the software I’m paying for, because Evaluate doesn’t give the same utility that Optimize does.
I think that this is the best solution until TP can fix the problem.