Tell me about Touring Plans

[DisneyPrincess1984]

Pretty new to this site - just found it last week. I keep seeing people mention Touring Plans.

Talk to me about that. I visited the site very quickly and noticed there's a fee involved. Is it worth it? What all does this provide? Our trip is next year so just trying to get an idea.

Also, we've used a travel agent in the past but have never used an actual Disney agent. Any recommendations there, as well? Should we go with someone local (we are in Iowa) - or someone else?

My parents paid for our last trip - this upcoming trip will be the first time my husband and I have paid for our cost. (Parents are still coming with us but paying their own way). So I'm being much more laser focused on how to go about all of this knowing it's coming out of my trip savings account!

 

[LiveToTravelNicely]

You'll get a lot of opinions, but I think the cost of TP is worth it. I do take their information with a grain of salt vs treating it like the end-all of information. They have a crowd calendar (debated for accuracy on the boards all the time), dining reservation finder, room location and request tool, email you with park hour changes, default touring plans as well as create your own plans tool, etc.

 

[Gussie Granger 1969]

I used them for our last trip. They are OK, they actually messed up one of our MK days. I wanted to get a FP for Buzz and put it in my plans. They noted that it wasn't necessary so I trusted them. BIG Mistake. By not getting a FP, we waited in line way longer than I had intended and it put our whole morning out of whack. Like the PP said, take it with a grain of salt.

 

[AFwifelife]

I like it. Gives me a good outline of what can be accomplished in a certain time span and I can send out our plans to others traveling with us. Obviously they are all predictions so you can’t use it as a final word. If there’s something that you would be upset missing, get a FP for it.

 

[John Marecek]

The reservation finder was worth the price for me. You select your desired restaurant, date and time, and then you get a notification when one pops open. You can select up to 3 at a time. Now, you will need to immediately check, and it still may not be there by the time you get there, but it did help me get 2, and move another to a better time.

The crowd calendars everywhere are a bit in flux b/c things seem to have changed in the way Disney is operating the attractions. There's a Len Testa interview from The Dis explaining this in greater detail. Kind of fascinating, but from a planning perspective, very frustrating.

The men and women who operate Touring Plans are very smart, and have put together the best guest assistant out there. It's a small price filled with valuable information. I pick and choose what works for us. I think it's a good value.

 

[rwdavis2]

Yes it's worth it. It only what, $12? Barely a rounding error in the cost of a trip to WDW. The owner, Len Testa, was interviewed for a podcast run by this site just recently. Well worth the time to listen.

 

[NashvilleMama]

Definitely worth it. We follow the plans fairly rigidly in the mornings and we always go during HIGH crowd periods due to school breaks, and rarely wait in lines. My husband thinks I'm a magician because of it. It takes a lot of research and planning but their optimized plans have worked really well for us.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I don't even use their plans tool and I still think it's worth it. Love the Lines app.

 

[Greg Lembrich]

Definitely worth it. One of the few things that I would willingly pay more for without complaint.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

Pretty new to this site - just found it last week. I keep seeing people mention Touring Plans.

Talk to me about that. I visited the site very quickly and noticed there's a fee involved. Is it worth it? What all does this provide? Our trip is next year so just trying to get an idea.

Also, we've used a travel agent in the past but have never used an actual Disney agent. Any recommendations there, as well? Should we go with someone local (we are in Iowa) - or someone else?

My parents paid for our last trip - this upcoming trip will be the first time my husband and I have paid for our cost. (Parents are still coming with us but paying their own way). So I'm being much more laser focused on how to go about all of this knowing it's coming out of my trip savings account!

I like TP but I am not a paid subscriber. I use it for general info and planning tools. I've heard a lot of people say that the reservation finder is a great service. I've used mouse dining (free) for my reservations in the past and have had great luck getting hard to find reservations. But I would give TP a try if I was new to Disney planning as it sounds like it's a great resource. Mouse Dining is reservations only. There are also countless other really good sites for WDW planning, WDW Prep School, Disney Tourist Blog, All Ears, the list goes on. Also if you're a youtube watcher, check out Tim Tracker. He and his wife hit up Disney and do great videos on resort tours, theme park info, rides and restaurants. If you feel really overwhelmed planning I'd consider a travel agent but I enjoy the planning process and I know I would have a hard time handing over the reigns so I've never used one previously so I have no advice on that. I have heard good things about the dreams unlimited TA associated with DIS. Just go with your gut and do your research. You've been before so you have a general idea about WDW which is good. Now you're just watching your dollars and cents, which sadly don't go far at Disney. Where in Iowa are you from? My husband is from Mt. Pleasant (SE Iowa).

 

[mrsR123]

I still think they are the best. They have the most comprehensive information on resorts, dining, and attractions. They also have the most data on usage and crowds. All the calendar projection companies are struggling a bit as Disney adjusts capacity more and more to control their costs. TP will tell you, though, that having a good plan is way more important than which day to visit a park.

I think it's money well spent.

 

[Sarcazm]

I think it's worth it. Even if the wait times/crowd levels are off, the information available is invaluable. It gives you a really good idea on what rides/attractions are the most popular, so you know which ones to Rope Drop or get a FP+ for.

 

[DisneyPrincess1984]

I like TP but I am not a paid subscriber. I use it for general info and planning tools. I've heard a lot of people say that the reservation finder is a great service. I've used mouse dining (free) for my reservations in the past and have had great luck getting hard to find reservations. But I would give TP a try if I was new to Disney planning as it sounds like it's a great resource. Mouse Dining is reservations only. There are also countless other really good sites for WDW planning, WDW Prep School, Disney Tourist Blog, All Ears, the list goes on. Also if you're a youtube watcher, check out Tim Tracker. He and his wife hit up Disney and do great videos on resort tours, theme park info, rides and restaurants. If you feel really overwhelmed planning I'd consider a travel agent but I enjoy the planning process and I know I would have a hard time handing over the reigns so I've never used one previously so I have no advice on that. I have heard good things about the dreams unlimited TA associated with DIS. Just go with your gut and do your research. You've been before so you have a general idea about WDW which is good. Now you're just watching your dollars and cents, which sadly don't go far at Disney. Where in Iowa are you from? My husband is from Mt. Pleasant (SE Iowa).

Cedar Falls Iowa - born and raised and now raising our family here, as well. Big UNI Panther fans and supporters. My husband is from Aplington, Iowa. Thanks for all your help!

 

[DizneyMommy]

I was using the app for years at DL until Disney came out with their own app with actual wait times and I use that for wait times while in the park instead. I glance at the crowd calendar but we really don’t plan our trip around it. I did subscribe to WDW for This upcoming trip to use the actual touring plans. I put in what I wanted to do so that I could see the estimates of walking distance, wait time, etc, and also to have one place to plug everything in and see it on my phone. I didn’t go by their suggestions because I know what we want to do and when, I just used it to organize a little better and I guess confirm that my plan makes sense for booking FP times. I also used the room request but I think that’s free. I think it’s totaly worth it! Their wait time charts are great, if nothing else they show a trend even if the times are a little off, and helped me plan what to ride when.

Love the book too! The Unofficial Guide books are invaluable.

 

[Greenfield1984]

They are also the authors of the Walt Disney World Unofficial guide.
I may be wrong but I believe you get free access to touring plans with a purchase of their book.
Even if you dont the book is worth buying as well.

 

[DizneyMommy]

They are also the authors of the Walt Disney World Unofficial guide.
I may be wrong but I believe you get free access to touring plans with a purchase of their book.
Even if you dont the book is worth buying as well.

Not free. It was a maybe $5? discount. I think I paid $7 with it.

 

[3gr8boys]

I love touring plans (and the unofficial guide)....though I have no idea which features I get for paying and which were free to begin with.

-I had a blast going through all of the room views for my resort to figure out what area/building/room I would prefer

-I anticipate putting the Touring Plans line app to good use next month

-I like reading the various info on the website (dining advice, etc)

-I like the layout of park hours/schedules information on my "dashboard"

-I had a great time playing (extensively!) with the custom touring plans feature....helped me map out a FP+ wish list. I know things won't go exactly as planned, but at least I had a framework to start with.

-the dining reservation finder is awesome (helped me get the perfect BOG dinner, PPO GG and Y&Y lunch when I decided to make some ADR adjustments)

As for the TA question, I can't offer any help. I really couldn't enjoy not doing the p!anning/reserving on my own. I have seen conversations about TA pros and cons on other threads.

 

[disneyinthespringtime]

I created an account (after lurking here for weeks!) just so I could reply to this...

I LOVE the TP site. It is easily worth 3 times the cost.

Favorites:
- forum that does an amazing job of searching past threads as you type in a new queation to find precious ones that help answer it well (everyone has a search function but the level of user friendliness of this one is rare)

- room request / view tool

- reservation finder

- getting to play around with the customizable touring plans to map out an outline of your day

- plus I found the advice on it helpful.

- have not yet used the app but it lists Disney’s time estimates and their estimates of actual times (which differ sometimes) and lets you update your TP as you go to adjust for on the ground park conditions.

 

[SaintsManiac]

Their Universal book was worth its weight in gold on our trip last year. We'll be taking it with us next year, too.

 

[Tangtpt]

I'm a big fan of it. My wife and I haven't been to WDW since 2003, so obviously lots of things have changed since then. Back then, we just winged it across all of the parks, but you can't do that now, especially with FP+. The biggest thing for us, especially recently, was it helped us tremendously in figuring out our plans for rope drop and for when to schedule our FP+s through the customizable touring plans. We also haven't stayed on-site, so using that is helping us figure out our room requests. I've also been playing with the Lines app (which I believe you can only get with a subscription) and can't wait to see how accurate it is. We are using TouringPlans as one piece of our planning arsenal, including MouseSavers, the Disney Moms Panel, YouTube and one or two other random websites that I don't remember right now. We also found a recent past edition of the Unofficial Guide at a used book store for a couple of bucks (yes, book stores still exist!) and, even though the content of TouringPlans and the Unofficial Guide is largely the same, there were one or two pieces of additional information in the book that we are finding useful.