Touring Plans....Walking, Walking, Walking

I’ve created a touring plan for Magic Kingdom starting at rope drop. The first stop after that is Buzz Lightyear, and the 2nd is on the other side of the park. Is it really more efficient to walk from one end of the park to the other repeatedly? Or just approach an area and hit a couple of rides and the best times?

Use the settings at top to minimise walking that will help. I always split MK in half and do a tp for each half. Then I move stuff about do it suits our touring style and evaluate instead of optimising.

1 Like

If you are using Optimize, then yes, it is - the system takes into account walking times and wait times to find the best plan for you. To be honest, I have never seen too much of a difference when shifting from “Balanced” to “Minimize Walking”, but that might just be with the particular attractions I have chosen.

However, if you chose “Evaluate” then you can have some crazy walking because it just takes the steps in the order that you entered them and figures out how long it would take. :slight_smile:

I’m not one that likes to hop so I change mine and do my own plan :slight_smile:

I am not a fan of the zig zagging. I always add everything we want and then optimize. Let it create it’s crazy plan of walking back and forth and then manually move things around so that it makes a more logical flow in terms of walking from one to the next. After that I use evaluate and make sure I can live with the estimated wait times and then just tweak as necessary but stick to evaluate after that or it will reorder everything again.

2 Likes

I’m not a fan of criss-crossing either and it’s hard to imagine it’s really more efficient. I pick one side to start the day in, and focus our FPs on the other side in the late morning/early afternoon. To pick the morning side, I asked my kids what they wanted to ride several times, and we went with that first.

Thanks all! I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t like the criss crossing. I’ll optimize, reorder and evaluate. Sounds like a good plan.

I do exactly what @Outer1 does. Maybe it would result in a slightly shorter wait time, but Buzz to Splash to SM to POC is just TOO MUCH for me to maybe shave 5 or 10 minutes of total wait time off of my day… To me it’s kind of like a GPS route that saves you 2 miles on a 20 mile trip, but adds 7 traffic lights…

2 Likes

Aw, come on, a little cardio won’t kill you! :wink:

Glad I’m not the only one. Everything is so geared to following touring plans religiously but with a group of 10 ranging from 5 to 63 with a couple people with bad knees and backs I tried to minimize the walking and still ended up with crazy plans that go back and forth multiple times from one end of a park to another. I would rather spend an extra 5-10 minutes in line than spend it walking back and forth so I made my own plan, looked at the wait times and we’ll go with Pirates of the Caribbean model and use it as a guideline. And I agree some of the times given to get from one place to the next are pretty high especially from the gate at rope drop or just going from one to another so we’ll see. Our group has agreed to be flexible so if we have to drop something to make a FP and catch it later, we will.

The other thing I’m keeping in mind is that there are so many interactive queues, that a wait time for many of them will just make it more fun anyway! I’m planning to go do Peter Pan without the fastpass later in the day with my granddaughter just so we can experience it without forcing all the rest of the group to stand in line with us if they don’t want to.

Also using them to keep track of attractions in same area so we don’t get clear on the other side of the park and then realize someone really wants to see Muppets so keeping all the options open for grandson 17 yrs and 5 year old. Also ran into issues with putting in R&R and ToT while also having Star Wars Launch Bay and Disney Jr Live for those who don’t want to do the rides or only do one of them. TP doesn’t recognize different people in the group doing different things concurrently and we really don’t want to get so structured we have 5 different plans going at the same time. For us the key will be flexibility, being able to sit if we want or stop at something we hadn’t planned on or just not moving all the time so we can enjoy the atmosphere!

FWIW, this is how I use TPs. I get FPs for the killer wait time rides (7dmt, TSMM, etc.). I plan to rope-drop and hit high-wait rides for which I don’t have FPs. I then use the TP app and optimize in park when the crowds start rolling in. I’ll hit the ride suggested by the TP, then do rides in that area (Small World, Philharmagic, etc.). I check them done, but don’t necessarily follow the TP order. I may optimize to see which of the rides in the area is lower-wait, but maybe not, and depends on the park (“current wait time” within the area I’m already in is more influential than following the order suggested by TP). When I’m done with an area, I’ll re-optimize and head to the next suggested ride, then ride around in that area.

In my experience, the family is willing to put up with a lot of mommy planning, but trekking back and forth across the park is not acceptable. It’s possibly as much a psychological issue as it really is a walking issue, but the struggle is real. They’d rather have a snack while waiting in line than be walking back and forth.

To clarify - I do some “trekking back and forth” at rope-drop, and if necessary to make FP times, but the family loses patience/steam after about 10:30 am to do the back and forth, and then I focus on the best experience we can get for wait times while staying in a certain area.

1 Like