UG, TMG, or other touring plans park recommendations for each day?

[christyd2]

Hey everyone. I'm trying to plan which parks to visit each day during our stay. I have the Unofficial Guide, but I've been hearing great things about Tour Guide Mike's touring plan.

I know some probably prefer this, but 5 of the 8 days we're there, the UG recommends 2 parks as they "best" to visit. I'm actually finding it hard to narrow it down to 1.

Does anyone know if the UG Crowd Level Calendar is the same as TGM or any other touring plans? (for best parks to visit on specific dates) If they aren't the same, which one (UG, TMG or any other plan) have you had more success with?

Thanks!

 

[shari71]

TGM is similiar in that he tells you which are good days for which park, but he also breaks it down a little more by morning and evening. He also gives his reasoning as to why he decides this, so you can decide to go with him or not. He also has three tiers of caution, whereas UG is more all day and I don't really see why they reason it out.

I use both, but not religiously. More like guides. I do have to say though, that my last trip, both were not really great, but then again, how can they know that there was going to be a surge in crowds from years past. Our MNSSHP date was picked on low crowds and it was anything but low crowds.

 

[mousermerf]

The UG is based on historic trends, conventions, special events, EMH, and other factors al in a complex mathematical formula.

TGM picks his based on his experience.

UG's is actualy a measure of the wait time at top attractions. Data is constantly being collected and future days recalculated on emerging trends. The margin of error is often very minimal. If you hit touringplans.com and read the wait time blog you'll see when things are right on, a little off, and sometimes not even in the ballpark (though those mistakes correct for other days later).

TGM is based on his experience.

Linky to UG's crowd blog, which explains what research they're up to: http://www.touringplans.com/tp2/UG2_index.php?PageID=20

 

[lentesta]

Hey Christy,

Since I run the UG's website I'm going to give you a biased answer. ;-) As far as I know, we're the only ones to send people to cover all four parks, every day for weeks on end, to determine the patterns that cause some days to be better than others. (More than 200 days in the past two years.)

It costs so much money and takes so much skill and time to do this reasonably well, that I don't think any other travel organization or website even tries to do the same thing. My guess is that everyone else just estimates, but doesn't actually have any hard data from the parks to support those guesses. If they did, I'm sure they'd be out trumpeting this to everyone. Because no one's doing that, I don't think anyone's making that investment.

Len