So I'm running the optimizer on Touring Plans for our trip

sgerto

Living in a small world after all
Joined
Aug 24, 2017
And on the Tuesday (9/13) that we are going I plugged in Radiator Springs, two trips on Guardians, Monsters Inc, Incredicoaster, Luigi, Toy Story, and Pixar Pal around-swinging.

According to their system, I can get to the park by 8 and go on all those rides before 10a. Does that sound right??? I am going to use MaxPass if that matters.
 


Wow, I thought it was a glitch. Looks like I'll have to add more stuff to DCA, plus we were going to hop over to DLR as well.

Ok, reading that list again... no, I don't think that is accurate. I didn't see 2 rides on guardians and missed swinging on Pixar Pal around.

I gave up on touringplans when it told me to hit up Peter Pan at like 11am.
 
LOL it was a couple of years ago but my classic story of Touring Plans is when I was optimizing a plan for DL and it told me to show up and rope drop and rush off to...... "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln." I was like...uh, I feel like that's probably the dumbest thing I could do. .I love Lincoln, that's why he was on my plan but oh geez.

But I think the touring plans from the back of the official guide they produce ARE useful, and only because they really cut down on the second guessing, wandering and "what do you want to do" etc but yeah, with maxpass it really was a game changer. My philosophy is try to have a plan for your party before boarding a ride, so that way as soon as you are off, you are on the move!
 
I love the Touringplans “Don’t touch my plan, just review it” feature. It was pretty accurate last August (though I also checked the wait times on the app the two weeks leading up to our trip & integrated that information into my plan). That feature & the Lines app for wait times in the park, just in case that the Disney-App is being ornery, is worth the price of the subscription to me, even when I don’t use their optimizations.
 


And on the Tuesday (9/13) that we are going I plugged in Radiator Springs, two trips on Guardians, Monsters Inc, Incredicoaster, Luigi, Toy Story, and Pixar Pal around-swinging.

According to their system, I can get to the park by 8 and go on all those rides before 10a. Does that sound right??? I am going to use MaxPass if that matters.

Um, probably not, but MAYBE.

RSR, even with a FP, is at least a 20 min time commitment.

Guardians, with a FP, is 15-25 min commitment.

Monsters Inc as a WALK ON, is still a 5-7 min commitment.

Incredicoaster is a minimum 10-15 min commitment, even with a 5 min posted wait time.

Luigi is a 10-15 min commitment even with a posted 5 min wait time.

Toy Story is a minimum 15 min commitment.

Pixar Pal Around is 20-30 min commitment with a posted standby time of 5-10 min. It's a slow loader.

Just adding up those times has you very close to 2 hours and that doesn't account for walking from ride to ride and NOT having the rides be walk on. By 10am, you won't be seeing such short wait times.

I'd say you can get these all in in 3 hours, but not 2. The rides are just too spread out at DCA to accomplish that.

My recommendation is get the RSR FP first thing, head straight to Monsters, Inc and do that on the way to Guardians, do that Standby, grab a FP for Toy Story when you can get the next one, ride Luigis and the RSR, then head to Paradise Pier and do Incredicoaster standby, then Pal a Round, and finish up with Toy Story. Grab another Guardians FP as your third FP.
 
LOL it was a couple of years ago but my classic story of Touring Plans is when I was optimizing a plan for DL and it told me to show up and rope drop and rush off to...... "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln." I was like...uh, I feel like that's probably the dumbest thing I could do. .I love Lincoln, that's why he was on my plan but oh geez.
Did the same thing for me with my DLR version, lol. I think it looks at what's closest to where you are when making the logical path. It technically would be the best option time wise, but not wait time two hours later then get on it because it still has no wait time wise.
 
I love the Touringplans “Don’t touch my plan, just review it” feature. It was pretty accurate last August (though I also checked the wait times on the app the two weeks leading up to our trip & integrated that information into my plan). That feature & the Lines app for wait times in the park, just in case that the Disney-App is being ornery, is worth the price of the subscription to me, even when I don’t use their optimizations.
I did one for DLR for the Monday we get there and that one seemed more accurate. Going there from 12p-9p with late lunch at Blue Bayou and it used up almost the whole time we were there to fit in the stuff we wanted to do.
I just wish you could have the option to put both parks in the optimizer.
 
Um, probably not, but MAYBE.

RSR, even with a FP, is at least a 20 min time commitment.

Guardians, with a FP, is 15-25 min commitment.....

Pixar Pal Around is 20-30 min commitment with a posted standby time of 5-10 min. It's a slow loader.

Just adding up those times has you very close to 2 hours and that doesn't account for walking from ride to ride and NOT having the rides be walk on. By 10am, you won't be seeing such short wait times.

I'd say you can get these all in in 3 hours, but not 2. The rides are just too spread out at DCA to accomplish that.

My recommendation is get the RSR FP first thing, head straight to Monsters, Inc and do that on the way to Guardians, do that Standby, grab a FP for Toy Story when you can get the next one, ride Luigis and the RSR, then head to Paradise Pier and do Incredicoaster standby, then Pal a Round, and finish up with Toy Story. Grab another Guardians FP as your third FP.
WOW! That's very helpful, thank you so much!! I'm thinking because Touring Plans has Tuesday as a 3 out of 10 traffic wise they estimated so low???
There are definitely some flaws in their optimizer, on Monday it has me at the park at 12p but not even getting my first maxpass until 1250. That's the first thing you should always do when you get to the park.
 
WOW! That's very helpful, thank you so much!! I'm thinking because Touring Plans has Tuesday as a 3 out of 10 traffic wise they estimated so low???
There are definitely some flaws in their optimizer, on Monday it has me at the park at 12p but not even getting my first maxpass until 1250. That's the first thing you should always do when you get to the park.

Their crowd predictors aren’t reliable. The crowds at DL are just too unpredictable.

Maxpass RSR and head for guardians! May not get them all in in 2 hours but you’ll have a prettt productive morning!
 
@sgerto - if that's your "Tuesday" plan on TP.com for November 13, I'm happy to have our Disneyland guy, Guy, run through that to see how it actually works in the parks. Let me know if you're interested, and if Guy needs to do anything special about walking times, breaks, etc, that are not part of the plan.

Their crowd predictors aren’t reliable. The crowds at DL are just too unpredictable.

Some stats on our Disneyland predictions, which use a 1-to-10 scale for estimating wait times:

Disneyland estimates are +/- 1.14 over the past week.
+/- 1.07 over the last 30 days
+/- 1.18 over the last quarter
+/- 1.24 for all of 2018
The predictions are exactly right about 27% of the time. We're +/- 1 over 63% of the time this year.

For DCA: +/- 2.00 over the last week
+/- 1.23 over the last 30 days
+/- 1.12 over the last quarter
+/- 1.35 for all of 2018
Exactly right 24% of the time, and have been +/- 1 on 60% of dates.

I don't think it's possible to predict wait times to any closer than +/- 0.90 on our scale. Disney's own posted wait times aren't accurate enough to get below that.

If you wanted to compare that to just guessing: Suppose you just said every day of the year was going to be a '6' at Disneyland (the most common crowd level seen so far in 2018), you'd be right about 21% of the time, and +/-1 about 51% of the time. Not as good as the calendar.
That's not really guessing, of course - we've already defined the wait time ranges, the distributions, and the scale; also I picked the most accurate "guess" possible. But for the sake of comparison, ignore all that.
 
@sgerto - if that's your "Tuesday" plan on TP.com for November 13, I'm happy to have our Disneyland guy, Guy, run through that to see how it actually works in the parks. Let me know if you're interested, and if Guy needs to do anything special about walking times, breaks, etc, that are not part of the plan.



Some stats on our Disneyland predictions, which use a 1-to-10 scale for estimating wait times:

Disneyland estimates are +/- 1.14 over the past week.
+/- 1.07 over the last 30 days
+/- 1.18 over the last quarter
+/- 1.24 for all of 2018
The predictions are exactly right about 27% of the time. We're +/- 1 over 63% of the time this year.

For DCA: +/- 2.00 over the last week
+/- 1.23 over the last 30 days
+/- 1.12 over the last quarter
+/- 1.35 for all of 2018
Exactly right 24% of the time, and have been +/- 1 on 60% of dates.

I don't think it's possible to predict wait times to any closer than +/- 0.90 on our scale. Disney's own posted wait times aren't accurate enough to get below that.

If you wanted to compare that to just guessing: Suppose you just said every day of the year was going to be a '6' at Disneyland (the most common crowd level seen so far in 2018), you'd be right about 21% of the time, and +/-1 about 51% of the time. Not as good as the calendar.
That's not really guessing, of course - we've already defined the wait time ranges, the distributions, and the scale; also I picked the most accurate "guess" possible. But for the sake of comparison, ignore all that.


I’m not even sure what all that said.

I was just referring to the OP saying the crowd predictor for that day is a “3” and that the general feeling on this board is not to rely on those because 3 means different things to different people and You should always plan on it being busy.
 
I’m not even sure what all that said.

I was just referring to the OP saying the crowd predictor for that day is a “3” and that the general feeling on this board is not to rely on those because 3 means different things to different people and You should always plan on it being busy.

On our calendar, a "3" means the same thing to everyone, all the time. I know that's not true for other calendars.

We define what each crowd level means in terms of the wait times posted outside specific attractions, at specific times of day. For example, a crowd level of '3' at Space Mountain means an average wait of 29 to 34 minutes between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

We can all see the posted wait times at Space Mountain, so we can all figure out what the average wait was. That's how we check the calendar's accuracy.

I know other calendars don't do this - a "3" on other calendars means something like "low crowds", but nobody ever agrees on what "low crowds" means. In that case, yeah, you're absolutely correct - "low crowds" means different things to different people.
 
And on the Tuesday (9/13) that we are going I plugged in Radiator Springs, two trips on Guardians, Monsters Inc, Incredicoaster, Luigi, Toy Story, and Pixar Pal around-swinging.

According to their system, I can get to the park by 8 and go on all those rides before 10a. Does that sound right??? I am going to use MaxPass if that matters.
I think if you remove Toy Story and ferris wheel then that is reasonable. I would Get FP for Guardians first thing. Use it, then grab FP for Racers while doing standby Guardians. Then do Monsters Inc, head over and do either luigi or if FP for Racers is ready do that. Then finish with Incredicaoaster.
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Latest posts

Top