I’m currently planning a June 2019 trip, with crowd levels at around 6 on Touring Plans. The Touring Plan I’m making for Magic Kingdom has Peter Pan at 37 minutes at 10:47am, and 7DMT at 30 minutes at 1:39pm.
I know that can’t be right.
I noticed this last year as well when matching what was expected based on my TP to what we actually experienced. Wait time on the touring plans were not the same as actual times in the parks. Is anyone else noticing this? Is something wrong with the calculations on the plans?
In my experience the predicted wait times have been pretty accurate. However, if you have questions about the predictions for a particular plan your best bet is to e-mail webmaster@touringplans.com, giving them the URL of the plan in question.
I don’t understand why, when I DON’T have a Fastpass for 7DMT, it isn’t putting that at or near the top of my plan when optimizing.
Instead I have:
Mickey & Minnie (makes sense, b/c I have it on “less walking”, so do that on the way in)
Buzz Lightyear
Dumbo
Under the Sea
Meet Rapunzel & Tiana
all this before 7DMT, Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise, Pirates, etc.
One might think it’s set me to tour each land completely before moving on (saving walking), but no, the plan goes from Fantasyland to Frontierland to Pirate’s Adventure (Adventureland) to Fantasyland to Adventureland to Tomorrowland to HEA then Jungle Cruise. This is after Optimize.
The thing to bear in mind here is that the Optimizer is looking at minimizing the total wait time for your plan, not specific attraction wait times. Also, the various attractions have different wait time profiles, so the net effect is that by doing 7DMT a little later in the day (with a longer wait time than if you did it earlier), you are hitting a sweet spot for other attractions and therefore getting more done in less time overall.
All that back and forth you mention would drive me nuts. I can’t tour like that. I have to tour like a clock. Not precisely, but at least finish one land before moving on.
Have you considered doing multiple touring plans. For example:
9am-noon - do a touring plan for fantasyland. optimize it.
noon-3pm - do a touring plan for another land. optimize it.
etc
People often get so focused on reducing their wait for a specific ride (FOP, SDD, 7DMT, etc), that they don’t realize that utilizing the times when everyone else is rushing to those rides means the lines for the OTHER rides are so short they become practically walk-ons. This means, overall, you are saving time waiting in line OVERALL even if it means you’ll have to spend significantly LONGER in some lines.
To exemplify this (I’ll make up number here), let’s say 7DMT has a typical wait of 50 minutes at opening/RD. Then, time creeps up to 75 minutes a few hours later. BUT, during the time period when 7DMT is a 50 minute way, most of the “lesser rides” have a wait of 10 minutes or less. So, you can get through 5 of the lesser rides in the same time you’d be waiting for 7DMT.
Now, if instead, you decided to wait for 7DMT at RD, you get on in 50 minutes. But then after you get off, the wait times on the lesser rides have increased to 20 minutes each. This means that for the same 6 rides (5 lesser, plus 7DMT), you spend a total time of 50 + (5 * 20) = 150 minutes. In the former case, however, you spend 75 + (5 * 10) = 125 minutes! So, hitting 7DMT when the line is longer actually SAVES you 25 minutes total waiting in line.
And to add to @ryan1’s example, 7DMT is an interesting attraction in that the wait times at RD are longer than they are a little bit later. The reason for this is that everyone makes a mad dash to it at RD, creating a large initial queue. Many of the people arriving just after RD see that queue and go elsewhere, so once the initial rush has been through the ride the queue length actually drops for a little while. Therefore, you can go to a couple of other attractions, then 7DMT, and wait less time for it as well as less time for the attractions before it.
Yes. I think that the “minimize walking” feature only works to a degree. Your idea to break up the park areas and do a plan for each is a good one.
I wish there was a ride priority setting that would drop certain rides if it made one’s total wait time too long. There are definitely rides I’d do if the lines are short but would skip if not. The TP program treats all rides as equally important.
For instance, JC can really take a lot of precious early-morning time. The difference it made by taking that out of the plan was pretty impressive. But it’s not really a must-do ride for us, so we’re willing to try for a FP later or ride it just before closing.
I’m not sure what back and forth we’re referring to.
Mickey and Minnie is first thing you come to. Then, as you head back toward Fantasyland, take the path through Tomorrowland to get in Buzz. Next comes Fantasyland, where you do Dumbo, Under the Sea, and Rapunzel. It seems quite efficient, walking-wise, to me.
I’m going to make a copy and move things around manually and then compare the two. I’ll get a good plan worked out, I’m sure.
I think I’ll leave plenty of extra free time, and mark some lesser attractions as Skippable, in case the low wait times mid-day this plan is predicting aren’t actually true.
This plan is for a travel client who’s a first-time visitor (and also my best friend) and I’d like her to know which items are “must-dos” and which are “nice-to-dos” so she and her family can hit the best things and have a wonderful trip!
For what it’s worth, on the last trip when I used the TP wait times, virtually every predicted time was off - sometimes as much as 100% (e.g HM predicted 20 min; actual 45 min or POC predicted 20 min; actual 50 min). I was told, after the fact, that that week was an" anomaly" (the actual CLs were 2-3 points higher for every park, all week), but I’ve lost a lot of trust in TP…
Were the waits off once the crowd calendar was corrects for the day? I’m just always curious if when the waits are off if people are using the app with the live data or if they are using the paper copies working with the predicted data?
