Do we have to optimize touring plans? I used the pre-made ones for mixed generation families and was just doing that. Aren’t those made as “optimized” already?
They may not be optimized for the crowd level or specific day you’re going on. You definitely don’t have to optimize it or change it, but you should be prepared to be flexible.
3 Likes
I would optimize. Delete any attractions that are listed that aren’t on your must do. Add any that are missing that you want. Then optimize.
Then if you don’t like the plan, you can manually rearrange things, and then EVALUATE what it predicts as your wait times etc with your new order.
1 Like
Definitely optimize. Those plans are generic and are designed to “work” on any day, but by “work” I mean do better than people who go with no plan whatsoever.
1 Like
Where is that functionality to “optimize”? If it’s TouringPlans.com, I’ll find it, but I just got access to it. Thanks.
It is in the Touring Plans section of Touringplans.com. If you want to optimize a ready-made touring plan, you first copy it, which makes it a personalized TP which you can then optimize and/or customize as you see fit.
2 Likes
I started with the AK mix generation plan. Got the FPP times they requested, all looked great. Optimized it and now it has us walking back and forth across the park, even with ‘minimal walking’ selected 
My experience is that the “minimize walking” slider doesn’t minimize walking enough. In my brain, “minimize walking” means I only want to backtrack once or twice and only by one or two attractions. Apparently the algorithm takes it to mean, “only zig zag across the park three or four times and backtrack a lot.” That’s why I use manual ordering + evaluate.
3 Likes
Minimal walking is a bit of a misnomer as the software isn’t looking to minimize your walking distance. Rather, it is choosing a solution that is reasonably close to optimal wait time that has less walking than others.
1 Like
From an algorithm perspective, it should not be hard to allow the cost of walking to be greater than it currently is. If you are right, I don’t know why they don’t just allow the slider to go further to “No really, I’d rather wait more and walk less.”
3 Likes
So do you think I can use the general plan they have listed without optimizing? It has minimal walking, but I fear then the plan will not work with wait times etc
It really depends on how closely you want to stick to the plan. If you’re willing to drop a few things if you get out of sync it should work okay. I think the best solution is to copy it, personalize it and then evaluate and see if it works for you.
1 Like
How do I share a plan I made? When I evaluate it, it says ‘updated’ in green and doesn’t have any error messages now. Does that mean it’s good? I’d like to share it somehow so I can get some feedback to ensure I’m doing it right 
Yes. No error messages means the algorithm predicts it will work. Obviously closures, weather, and crowd variance may change that. There should be a check box for “publish plan” inside the edit menu. Then copy and paste the link here.
Yes, I believe that the system currently works on a “cost” basis, so it shouldn’t be too hard to add additional settings with a greater walking cost. However, as the essential purpose of the Optimizer is to make plans with minimal wait time, we still may find that the resultant plans have what some people would perceive as a lot of walking. To get what those people want, TP would probably have work from the opposite perspective and start with a “least distance” based algorithm that then takes into account wait times.
select your plan, click edit and on bottom left, click publish. Then go back in your plan and at the top there will be a url that you can copy here so folks can look.
e.g.
This plan is published.
Share this link with anyone you want to view this plan:
Disney and Universal Touring Plans (there will be a number)
Here’s a step by step guide on how to publish your plans:
When you go into your TP, hit the EDIT button in the box immediately under the Plan Name.
At the bottom of the “Basic Plan Information” screen, there is a box down the bottom that says “Publish this plan”.
Click that and then hit SAVE.
You will then return to the plan, and at the top of the Info Box at the top, it will give you a URL that you can then paste into a post on the forum.
I don’t know anything about the actual algorithm itself, but I suspect it’s some kind of randomized optimization and if I had to guess I would think it uses simulated annealing. Part of my evidence is the claim (I’ve never experienced it, but it’s been reported) that running the optimizer multiple times may minorly improve the results. If it is some kind of randomized optimization and it was initially designed with flexibility in mind, changing the cost of walking is trivial - it’s just assigning a variable a higher value. You wouldn’t need to rethink or redesign anything.
Ok, here is my plan! I’m hoping I have the right idea down! This is an all day plan - out of 6 full days in the parks, our first and last day are full days. The other three are late arrivals in the afternoon or have a long mid-day break at the resort.
Looks reasonable. We took way more than the suggested 20 min. on each of the big walkthroughs (Maharajah and Gorilla Falls). It looks like you have a lot of breaks built in so you might not need to redo the plan, but just rearrange on the fly if things are taking longer than expected. Also, if you’re splitting up (e.g. Parents go on TriceratopSpin and Teens go on Dino) you can put the longer ride in the plan and put in the notes the people who will go on the shorter ride. Unless you don’t want to split up and you’ll just have each party wait for the other.