Touring Plans

[Steve R]

Hi Everyone, 37 days and counting to our first family WDW holiday, finally finished pre-booking the fast-passes!!

Does anyone have an opinion on Touringplans.com's daily planners? do they work, and does it mean you have to go charging around the parks like a bull in a china shop? I've subscribed to this app having read the excellent unofficial guidebook, and I'm tinkering around with the daily planners, but it seems to me you've no real freetime to just relax and enjoy being in WDW.

thanks for any tips you might have.

Regards all.

 

[chmurf]

Hi Everyone, 37 days and counting to our first family WDW holiday, finally finished pre-booking the fast-passes!!

Does anyone have an opinion on Touringplans.com's daily planners? do they work, and does it mean you have to go charging around the parks like a bull in a china shop? I've subscribed to this app having read the excellent unofficial guidebook, and I'm tinkering around with the daily planners, but it seems to me you've no real freetime to just relax and enjoy being in WDW.

thanks for any tips you might have.

Regards all.

If you're a first timer, then it's probably good to have someone "hold your hand" at least for the first couple of days, just to get acquainted with the resort and its sheer size.

Then, you may be among the vast majority who simply toss the touring plan down the nearest drain after a few days.

In the end you have to decide between efficiency and flexibility.
A daily touring plan can be your life saver, or it can become a ball and chain.

Use them to get the global picture, then when you know your way around the parks you can forget about them.

Some will like those plans, because they just have to follow the plan and not think about anything else. Some will absolutely hate it, because they'll realise that following the plan will have them miss out on other things.

One thing is for sure, you won't be able to do it all. Daily touring plan will try and make sure that you do as many rides, attractions and show as humanly possible. This means that you'll miss out on smaller things, that sometimes make the best of a WDW vacation.

The only way to know if those plans are right for you, is to try them.
you can toy around with them, so you can see how things are done, and you might even not need them once you hit the park, because simply doing those plans will give you enough experience and insight to be able to do things by yourself.

 

[BlueGiraffe]

Hi - I have 35 days, yay!

I thought the same as you. It was great to see that we could fit so many rides and attractions in, but I did wonder how much we'd actually get to see while seemingly rushing from one place to another. And because of the FP+ I'd selected for AK, I just couldn't get that plan to work without me having to go back and forth across the park.

But I think I'll print them off anyway, and just use them as a guide.

 

[scoobydooby]

I think the touring plans are excellent. My view is this. They save you so much time they create time for slowing down and smelling the roses. Fact. You won't see much while standing in a line. You can always miss a couple of steps out to do the wandering around thing. I have recommended them to several friends who have toured both with and without them. They all agree with is better. That said, with good use of FPP they are reasonably redundant at AK if you know your way around. For me I definitely advise you to use them. But then I won't stand in long lines.

 

[crabbie1]

I think the touring plans are excellent. My view is this. They save you so much time they create time for slowing down and smelling the roses. Fact. You won't see much while standing in a line. You can always miss a couple of steps out to do the wandering around thing. I have recommended them to several friends who have toured both with and without them. They all agree with is better. That said, with good use of FPP they are reasonably redundant at AK if you know your way around. For me I definitely advise you to use them. But then I won't stand in long lines.

You know I have never used them. Are they better suited in the busier times or can you use them anytime?

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[scoobydooby]

You know I have never used them. Are they better suited in the busier times or can you use them anytime? Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

The busier it is the better use they are. As we generally have visited at Easter, Christmas and August I have little experience of quieter times at WDW. I did use them last month though and still valued them. I honestly think they are one of those things that are difficult to believe are as good as they are until you use them. They are not as good with the FPP system but to be fair they won't have enough data yet I imagine to have fine tuned them. I can say I toured Christmas week and they saved my sanity! Also. They work best if you do rope drop.

 

[Donald D Duck]

The busier it is the better use they are. As we generally have visited at Easter, Christmas and August I have little experience of quieter times at WDW. I did use them last month though and still valued them. I honestly think they are one of those things that are difficult to believe are as good as they are until you use them. They are not as good with the FPP system but to be fair they won't have enough data yet I imagine to have fine tuned them. I can say I toured Christmas week and they saved my sanity! Also. They work best if you do rope drop.

Also to add, if you don't want to follow the whole plan, just go through the first 4-5 steps as that typically gets the bottle neck attractions out of the way.

 

[crabbie1]

The busier it is the better use they are. As we generally have visited at Easter, Christmas and August I have little experience of quieter times at WDW. I did use them last month though and still valued them. I honestly think they are one of those things that are difficult to believe are as good as they are until you use them. They are not as good with the FPP system but to be fair they won't have enough data yet I imagine to have fine tuned them. I can say I toured Christmas week and they saved my sanity! Also. They work best if you do rope drop.

Great will have a look. We will be going in school hols after may so will need them by the sounds of things.

 

[zavandor]

I used Touring Plans in the past, also paid the subscription fee, and was very happy. However last two trips I've followed the advice of easywdw.com and it's excellent. Follow his cheatsheets word by word and you'll have a wonderful trip.

 

[Elise79]

I have never followed them - taken them with us but never used them. The reason was we travelled in September at the time and the parks were dead - even the headliners had short lines. We used virtually no FPs.

Since then we just learnt and now we travel at peak times I still don't feel the need for them. Smart use of FP and a bit of common sense and we still do everything we want too.

We had 4 days in April - we didn't spend all day in the parks. We rode the headliners in all the parks except TSM (we are just not fans we went at rope drop but DD decided she'd rather ride RNR twice) and all the minor attractions we wanted to do. Even spent an evening in WS doing the muppet spy missions as part of flower and garden. We won't queue over 30 minutes for anything.

Now I know some people love touring plans and being told where to go but I don't think they are for everybody.

 

[scoobydooby]

Actually I always make personalised TP this last few years so I am deciding where to go, they just choose the most efficient order for me

 

[joolz1910]

I subscribed and used the busy day guide but thought the plans were too restrictive for us. I have 3 kids and wanted them to be able to be a bit spontaneous. I accepted that we wouldn't be able to do everything and we would have a return trip. I just picked my parks and a few must-do's and then went with the flow.

 

[Steve R]

thanks all, some good tips and recommendations. We'll probably take plans for each day we're in the parks and see how they go. I do recall from reading a top 10 list from Disney Dining about how best to enjoy WDW, and that is to stop and acknowledge the fact that you are in WDW.

I know we'll not see and do everything, but as this is almost certainly our one and only time at WDW, I want to make sure we see the headliners, but I've fast-passed the majority of those already.

Given that it's going to be extremely crowded and extremely hot and humid, the last thing I want is for us to be stressed out.

 

[chmurf]

and a bit of common sense

this!

I tend to see TP as the GPS. It's very useful, there's no denying it, but once you start relying on it, it's more and more difficult to go without them, because you start to stop looking at the road signs and "feeling" the road.

No matter how well you program your GPS (or your Touring Plans), no matter how well you tweak it. If you fall upon a "roadblock" that's not been entered/updated, or if it stops working (or you lose your TP itinerary sheet) then you're in trouble, because you're then basically lost, and are so used to rely on "technology", that it's difficult to revert to low tech. Only those who are repeat guests will know what to do. First timers will just be left with the park's map, like the next guest who's just winging it.

There is no denying the usefulness and the efficiency of touring plans (even if with FP+ it's still not tweaked enough) but common sense is far more useful and efficient. One of the reasons why is that the brain is essentially faster than any computer or AI of this age.

 

[chmurf]

but as this is almost certainly our one and only time at WDW,

I know for some people, issues in life make it a "once in a lifetime", but here, all of us regulars, are all people who did their "once in a lifetime wdw trip" several trips ago.

It will be my 16th once in a lifetime trip to WDW, and I'm a relative newbie compared to other DISers on here ...

toss a coin in one of those foutain pools when you're there, it apparently works... it did for me anyway

 

[BigMommaMouse]

I have TP for my trip in Oct. I have used them before too. Years ago I followed TGM and had the Best trip. Not because of his plans (although they worked well) but all the information I gathered about every thing before I went. We were able to fit so much in, and stop to smell the rose's.

With TP and Lines you can now put your custom plans on your phone, as you need your phone now for FP+, it is good to have it all in one place. But I do worry about breaking the phone, losing the phone but I think that is just me holding on too what I know best.

Another very great site with plans is easywdw. And that one is free.

Have a wonderful trip.

 

[zavandor]

I tend to see TP as the GPS. It's very useful, there's no denying it, but once you start relying on it, it's more and more difficult to go without them, because you start to stop looking at the road signs and "feeling" the road.

That's what the cheat sheets from easywdw are very handy. They have a suggested touring plan, but they says also how to deviate from it (if you want to skip an attraction or you run late).
But they also give raw information about FP+ priorities (so you can pick yours at the attractions with the longest queues you are interested for) and how lines develop during the day. So if you don't want to follow the touring plan and you are choosing which attraction to do next, you can see which one will have a longer queue later in the day and it's better to do immediately and which one you can leave for later. Most experienced Disers don't need this info and know the anytime attractions and the headliners, but for a first timer it's very useful.

 

[jmuller120]

Just got back from my first trip to WDW the other day and using Touring Plans to get a schedule before and then using the app to optimize our time in the park was invaluable. We never waited more than 15 minutes for any ride except a 25 minute wait for BTMR. I didn't follow the plans exactly every day but having the ability to use the app and get suggestions of where to go next were great for me and family on our first trip!

 

[WiganTony]

Although we haven't used the plans on previous visits, I did subscribe for our visit in August so that I could set up a personalised plan showing the rides we wanted to do, which in turn then gave me an idea of what the best times were to book our Fastpasses.

For example, on one day in MK, by getting there for rope drop, our plan reckons we will only have a 10 minute wait for the Seven Dwarves Mine Train, but later in the day the anticipated standby wait would be in excess of 60 mins, so makes sense to book a FP for this later timeslot.

Similarly, if we then went directly to Splash Mtn, we would have a 15 min standby wait compared to 45 minutes later in the day.