When do you make your TPs?

Do you make them early? Right before FPP day? Right after FPP day? The week before? Do you optimize/evaluate again? The week before? The day before? The day of?

I’m 40ish days out from FPP day and was going to start making some but figured the park hours would change, the CL would change, I’d decide on a different ADR time, etc. so why bother making the perfect plan this far out. I already think I know what FPP I’m going to try to get and except for a few, they can be modified a couple days out anyway.

I made mine several weeks before FPP day. I prioritized what attractions I wanted to see and then used TP’s customized touring plans to see the attractions and times for which it would be most efficient to use FPP. Made the FPP reservation process very easy as I knew exactly what I wanted and when. Of course if you don’t get exactly what you want you will need to re-do your plans after the FPP booking process. Good luck

I "play around’ with TPs as soon as I have set dates and have figured out which days I will probably spend at which parks - but those are basically just “something to do”. My first “semi-serious” ones come after ADRs are made. I don’t get “serious” until after I have my FPPs. Truthfully, nothing is “final” until about 2 weeks out - and even then I reevaluate every day the night before.

Am I a bad person if I say that I don’t always make a TP? I’ve been enough times that I don’t feel the need to do and see everything – and so I may put a few things down on a TP just to get an idea of timing for the first few hours of the day, and then not look at the TP when we’re there. I really don’t plan anything for afternoons and evenings. We just take it in stride and try to modify and play FPP roulette as much as we can.

This is our first “trip of a lifetime” but I made TP’s long before ADR day in order to guess how much time we were going to need at each park and consequently which days we were going to be at each park so I could appropriately plan ADR’s. We’re on dining plan, so booking ADR’s was a pretty large part of the planning.

It didn’t exactly work out (I would switch a few around if I didn’t have everything booked) but it gave me a framework to start from.

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An excellent strategy! I’ve been enough times that I pretty much know the what/where/when so for me a TP is more of an intellectual exercise. And truth be told, there are very few days when I have followed it exactly as planned for an entire day…

I pick the days and try to make a touring plan by the time ADRs roll around although I could probably change them, none of them are too hard to get, I think. It would be hard to do if we had very many, but we don’t.

However, for me it’s been very helpful to try to be as detailed as possible well before FPP day because I haven’t been to WDW in a few years and have gotten great advice here about some of the new rides, etc. It’s hard to incorporate the advice if you haven’t already got a plan to apply it to. Just yesterday I redid my plans after asking a simple question.

If I hadn’t made the plans, I wouldn’t even know what question to ask!

My question is when do you finalize your TP’s. Asking for a friend who may or may not be warming up the laminator as we speak (with 7 days to arrival).

I would do it as soon as the final hours are out, which generally is the month before. We travel far and invest a fair amount of money so I don’t like to leave much to chance, though I do know last-minute changes are inevitable.

Maybe I’ll play around with some TPs before FPP day just for fun, revise after I get FPPs, and then “finalize” a week or so out. I would just hate to manipulate the plan to perfection :laughing: and then have it change dramatically. We do follow the plan to the extreme but can be flexible when things go astray (extra bathroom break, ride closure, etc.), although I try to build time in for that kind of stuff up front (relaxed walking speed and inserted breaks). Too much time left until we go and not enough left to plan!

Well, I definitely waited until I was pretty sure new crowd predictions and new hours wouldn’t come out, and just the other day I realized one piece of the plan wouldn’t work (putting DS9, DS7 and DD5 on Barnstormer without and adult) but I think I’m pretty set now.

Oh that’s guaranteed to happen anyway, at least for me :rofl: Maybe not drastically but enough. I make my TPs as soon as I have dates and have reviewed some crowd calendars to know which parks we’ll do on which days. Then I continue to fiddle until ADR day (having TPs helps know what ADRs to go for on which day and time). Then once ADRs are booked I readjust if needed. Then I’ll keep fiddling until FP day so I know which FPs I want and at what times. Then after FPs are booked I adjust based on what I got. Then I keep reviewing and changing up until we leave. I take breaks of course but it always seems like I’ve got the perfect plan until I get an idea to change 1 little thing and that has a ripple effect on everything else. But somehow it always ends up better! So my planner is satisfied during the planning process and when we are actually there. Too much? Maybe for normal people but I never claimed to be normal. :yum:

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So, basically, your answer to my original questions was “yes” :laughing: :crazy_face: That would definitely satisfy the planner in me too.