Taking a trip to the World in July, and working on some Touring Plans. When I optimize it tells me to start EE at HS with A2S and then go to TSMM and then SDD. This has to be like the worst strategy right? Why is TP telling me to start with a ride that won’t have more than a 30-40 min wait later in the day?? I do have 2 meal breaks in my plan, is that throwing things off?
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That is a weird start–I can’t imagine why it would make that suggestion.
Many liners start with SDD, then TSMM, and then A2S. That makes the most sense, I think.
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That was my thought, start with SDD, or go do ToT or MMRR. It has ROTR in a mid afternoon slot as well expecting around a 90 min wait.
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TP never assumes you will be at the front of the pack, even for EE. As such, then, if you do SDD, then TSM, and then ASS, you are “following the pack”…which means you are actually getting the longest waits for all three of those. By recommending ASS first, you get a walk-on (no wait), then TSM, which will still likely be a walk-on, and then in line for SDD before EE is over. This means your TOTAL wait time for all three is less.
However, IF, in fact, you are at the FRONT of the pack for EE, then doing SDD first puts you at the front of the pack for all three. There is a fine line between when you are front of the pack and when you aren’t. If you are a couple minutes back, it might put you so that you end up getting off SDD after EE is over, and now the lines for TSM and ASS are longer.
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Are you getting Genie +?
If so, you could: Rope drop ToT (basically walk on unless it’s down for some reason), probably 10 min wait for MMRR, and then go to your Genie + for SDD.
Personal experience (except substitute RnRC for ToT), this works very well. TSM and AS return times are usually easy to get, especially early.
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TP is trying to optimize TOTAL wait time for the day, not reduced wait times across all rides, individually.
To illustrate this, I’ll make up a story…let’s say that you do ASS, TSM, and then SDD. ASS has a 0 minute wait. TSM has a 0 minute wait, but SDD has an hour wait. This puts your TOTAL wait at 1 hour.
Now, let’s reverse that. You do SDD first, then TSM, then ASS. Your wait for SDD is 20 minutes, for TSM 30 minutes, and ASS is 30 minutes. Sure, you got on SDD quickly. But your total wait across all three rides is 1 hour 20 minutes…so you end up waiting 20 extra minutes total doing it this way! And, since this puts you further behind others now in the park, your wait for other rides might be slightly more than if you had gotten to them 20 minutes earlier.
Many people have a “maximum wait time threshold” they tolerate. TP doesn’t have such a concept. So, you might prefer to wait longer overall as long as you never have to wait more than, say, 30 minutes total for any single side. If this is the case, you probably won’t be able to use TP’s recommendations.
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What time are you telling it you plan on starting?
If you’re not using early park entry and it’s a higher crowd level day then heading straight to SDD would probably not be your best strategy, because by the time you get there the line will likely be as long as it will get all day. For instance, in mid-July last summer on a Saturday the wait shot up to 100 minutes by 9:30AM and only rarely went any higher all day long, but it did sometimes go down below 90 though. Rise was similar, though that stayed more steady at over 100 minutes.
If the line is already as long as it’s going to get then you’re better off taking advantage of some other windows of opportunity for shorter waits, and that’s what Optimize is good at doing.
I agree with Ryan. So then the question for you is whether you can realistically be at the front of the pack and stay there until you get in line for SDD. How big is your group? Are there kids in your group? If so, what ages?
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It’s just me and my girlfriend, no kids so I’m fairly confident we could get to Early Entry fairly early and be towards the front of the pack for Slinky Dog. Is it best to just ride SDD then reoptimize the touring plan once that’s done?
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I have the plan starting with EE, I didn’t select that we are using Genie+ because when I do that, it gives me some weird Genie+ selections for rides that look like they’d have availability as a 2nd or 3rd Genie choice according to Thrill Data, so I’m thinking of just putting those in manually on the day of.
This makes sense to me! Thanks for explaining it! If we do finish SDD during EE should I possibly go to ToT or MMRR instead of TSMM for my next ride? I know those two Toy Story options are close, but it seems like it would save more time if I did another big headliner during EE correct?
Yup, that’s exactly what to do if you end up being front of the pack (i.e. the line for SDD is <60 minutes). If you happen get there further back than you planned and the line for SDD is already >75 minutes then I would go with the suggested plan.
Being adults I think you should make that choice based on how comfortable you are with walking a lot, and walking fast. If you know you’re not going to be miserable with a 28k step day and a bit of cardio then feel free to criss cross and chase down those short wait times. One thing to keep in mind though, is that if you’re close to the end of EE then you may not make it there before everyone else, so it could be a waste of that time.
Sorry to resurrect this if we’ve all moved on … but I thought Len said on the Disney Dish that they were now going to assume you are much closer to the middle of the park at EE (near where the EE folks basically RD). Which would change things about where to go for that first ride. It has definitely changed what the software is telling me to do at MK for RD. It is now saying to definitely do 7DMT and then move on to other things. I know they haven’t made this change yet for AK, but thought they had for HS.
But I’m having a different issue that maybe someone else is experiencing? I have a day in July at HS where we will be buying Genie+ (starting with first LL booking at 7:00 AM) and entering the park around 11:00 AM. The software will spit out a new plan every time I hit optimize but it will never, ever plan for me to get more than 3 LL’s during the day. It will actually have up to 8 hours between obtaining LL #1 (around 7:00) and LL #2 (around 3:00). That seems absolutely insane to me and I’m wondering if they’ve put some kind of override on the software that only allows for 3 LL’s at HS. But I’m not sure why they would do that! Any thoughts?
And sorry @coltsfan5555 for hijacking your thread! I just didn’t feel like starting a new one! When will you be there in July? My DD23 and I will be there for 4 parks day July 14-17.
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Are you talking about the return times or the times you can book? It should at least have you getting LL#2 at 11am (assuming a 9am opening) and then at 1pm.
I think we got 4 at Christmas (but TP didn’t have the updates by then).
We booked MF:SR, then MMRR, ST and grabbed ASS as we were leaving GE.
We will be there July 8th - 14th so just before you! And I’ve also noticed a weird LL strategy. Like you said, you’d think you’d want to get them every 2 hours, instead of waiting that long between return times.
No, the plan has me getting a LL at 7 and the next at 3. Nothing in between. It’s very odd.
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That’s clearly wrong then. 
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I was coming on to say this. It is possible the app is saving minutes by going in that order (zero wait for ASS and TSMM makes up for the longer SDD wait?) It is possible if you hop in line for SDD at the end of EE, before park opening the wait has taken a dip?
However, here is their recent testing and order suggestion. RNRC was closed, so they don’t include it.
I think at HS, you will end up having to wait for somehting at some point - just too mnay top tier rides. However, given the make up of your party, I would 100% consider single rider for MFSR - if you are okay not piloting.
It is possible it is correct…depending on how much time it is saving you overall. It could be that by getting the 3 pm LL, it is for a ride that saves you much more time than the amount of time saved by getting something every two hours (for rides where it doesn’t actually save you much time). Again, without specific data, it is hard to say for sure. But, for example, getting a ride at 3 pm that saves you 40 minutes might be better than getting 3 earlier rides (every two hours) which each only save you 10 minutes.
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