Just got back yesterday-went to the parks Monday-Friday (1/29-2/2) and the wait times were horribly off, not just the expected times on our plan, but also the posted times in the park. I was constantly optimizing all day and unfortunately spent a lot of time stressed out and on my phone trying to figure out how we were going to salvage the day, even with fast passes. Epcot and HS turned out fine, AK and MK were a bust. Rides broke down almost every time we got on them, and the character meet and greets were not as magical as they used to be. Iâm also frustrated that I couldnât seem to add more time to how long an attraction took. Is there some place to do this? For example, I would add âNorway Pavilionâ to my plan, and it would give me 10 minutes for it. I knew it would take longer than 10 minutes, but couldnât see any way to change that. I could add it again to give us 20 minutes there, but when I optimized it would have us leave and return later. Iâd love thoughts and ideas on this.
If you get to MK entrance (not get on your transportation 30 minutes early, but to the actual entrance) 30 minutes before they open, run for the mine train ride and youâll have a shorter wait. The adult can run, the other adult can go meet them in line and get a parent swap if needed.
You can add breaks after the ride to add time. Not ideal, but it works.
You can do this in the web version by clicking on the Edit button next to the pavilion name, but you canât do this in the app. Hey @Len - feature request for the app here! 
Thanks for letting me know. I do everything on the app, so I never thought about getting on the computer. I donât go on the computer unless absolutely necessary 
We were there 1/28 - 2/1 and had similar experiences. Wait times were totally unrealistic. For example, SDMT was on our plan as our 3rd stop with a 33 minute wait. We skipped it the first day because the wait was 90 minutes. We were lined up for RP 15 minutes early and went straight there and had a 40 minute wait. Haunted Mansion was listed as 19 minutes and we waited 60. We picked one of the slowest forecasted weeks of the year and ended up with crowd levels of 5-7.
We did touring plans in July 2010 and January 2013 and had very different experiences. Even in July 2010, our wait times were reasonable, 30 minutes or less. Now everyone has an app with wait times and can make their own decisions. We do not plan on returning, the crowds and lines were too frustrating.
You should really check out the web interface - it is far superior to the app and has a greater range of functionality. It was designed to be the primary place to build and work on plans, and the app was designed to be used in the parks on the day.
consider using Ridemax software instead, I used this years ago and it was pretty accurate as long as you do the plan within the month that you go, sometimes you do the plan too early and the software updates after that. Iâve used Touring plans schedule once and it was way off - this time I have both for upcoming trip in April 2018 so we will see which is spot on.
The only thing Ridemax was off the one year I used was that Soarin was 30 minute wait with fastpass instead of 15 minutes - but that was also with the old system of paper fastpass and you can get almost every fastpass multiple times - i do not like the 3 FP new system at all
Iâll pile on to your quotes with one I seem to be using with my DS14 a lot lately:
âA goal without a plan is a just wish.â - Antoine de Saint-ExupĂ©ry
Thanks for this, and Iâm sorry for the wrong estimates.
What was Disneyâs posted wait time for Haunted Mansion when you waited 60? And is âRPâ the Princess meet&greet?
Regardless of what TP can do I did come away from AK thinking Disney had let me down a bit
I was there in July on a night where Hotel guests could enter the FOP queue after other guests could not
So I was thinking itâs a great time to do that ride
The queue was far shorter than the EMH queue when we joined it but took far far longer. It barely moved. People were sitting down in the queue etc and it was painful.
So from reading lots of posts above I am convinced that there were less staff manning FOP at these hours than earlier in the day and less rides operating etc
So I feel that itâs almost impossible for TP to be able to second guess stuff like this happening?
Goof luck to you programmers figuring it all out!
On a second note I also came away from Disney thinking I had never remembered it being so crowded before. Huge groups of students. Masses of people everywhere
Maybe thereâs just loads more people than ever before going to Disney this year and so comparing crowds to previous years and waits to previous years is redundant
I thought there were too many people in MK last July. For it to be as enjoyable as it could be.
Victimâs of their success?
For those of you who hate the queues Universal staying in the Hotel with an unlimited express pass makes touring a them park like heaven in comparison to some of the stresses at disney
Hopefully that doesnât change
Thanks for reading my comments. Sorry it was not clear. I meant to type RD as we were at the Hub by 8:45. We lined up to go straight to Mine Train at 9 am and still had a 40 minute wait. Every time I looked on the app or walked by the attraction, wait time was at least 60 minutes, usually 90. I was frustrated that that the wait time was listed in our plan at 33 minutes.
Concerning Haunted Mansion, we went there the morning of our first day of our trip. The wait time that Disney posted was about right. My pre-planned touring plan listed the expected wait as 19 minutes and we waited 60. I donât know what your app showed as a wait. My point was that the forecasts in the touring plans were way off, not that your app was inaccurate.
I am reading this and thinking the same thing. Disney sounds like a nightmare lately, but I am loving my Universal trips and am hoping to God the curse doesnât migrate over there! I have a trip planned this August that I am very much looking forward to!
We have used TP each year since 2014. I have also found that the crowd calendar and line predictions are less accurate now than they used to be, and not for the better. I plan on the computer and use the app in the parks. I re-optimize on the regular and find that doing so keeps us moving with fairly accurate predictions of our wait times. We had a couple of rides on our last trip (1/15-20) where the times were vastly underestimated. We commented at the time that had we known, we would have chosen to do something else, but it wasnât the end of the world. All in all, we find TP to be very much worthwhile. I have my fingers crossed that updates to the models will make TPâs accuracy more what it was in 2014 than what itâs been lately, but even if not, I wonât abandon ship.
I learned this the hard way too. Now, whenever the website fails I immediately go to the MDE APP. Iâd start with the APP if I didnât dread the interface so much!
Iâm old-school so it didnât even occur to me that an APP would work when a website fails. You are right⊠if laptop fails, go immediately to the app. Wish Iâd have tried sooner.
Weâre here right now, and while crowds are higher our plans are in general a great help. Yes, weâve dropped a few items (marked as SKIPPABLE) in my plan notes, but weâve also come out ahead at times and hopped on the app and managed to squeeze some rides in early.
Haunted Mansion yesterday though⊠wow. Never saw the line less than 60 minutes and no day of FPs left? Well, one popped up but we are a party of 4. This surprised me, weâve never had trouble getting a day-of HM FastPass.
I would also second the statement above to skip AK on morning EMH days. We have traditionally taken advantage of morning hours, but the park was insane both days we went with morning hours.
We went 2/4-2/9 and found a mixed bag on wait times. Although TP wait times were off for the plan the in park app seemed to be within about 10 min of actual time. The exception was for meet and greets which were much longer waits than either Disney or TP estimated. Some were off by as much as 30 minutes even for fast pass. We waited over an hour for Ariel with posted of 20 min and plan time of 15 min. Close to the same for Elana. We also could not even guess during EMH because we waited 50 min for Astro orbiter because there was only one cast member for the whole ride (10 min posted), but went into buzz light year in less than 10 min with posted wait of 25. No real rhyme or reason to it. Oddly enough lines did not seem that long so I think it must be staffing.