Review: TouringPlans.com’s “Lines” In Action

Before I went on vacation I did a review of touringplans’s app “Lines.” The review was based on Lines as a planning tool. How does Lines hold up in action?

The most useful part of lines is the user submitted wait times. They tend to be more accurate than the applications estimated times. The estimated times are close to reality if everything falls in line. However, the estimates don’t factor in weather or other unexpected events. One day in the Animal Kingdom it rained and the crowds were non-existent. Lines wasn’t even close on that day. A few other days it was insanely cold which also redirected a good chunk of the crowds. Again Lines was off. On the other days it was much closer. Lines also lets you see what’s going on at the other parks which is great if the park you are in is crazy busy.

One fun aspect of Lines is the badges. You get badges for submitting rides a set number of times or for other tasks. I’m not going to list all of the badges because I want people to find them on their own. I few caught me off guard. A couple I will mention are submitting a wait time during extra magic hours (both morning and night) and submitting during the first hour a park is open and the last hour a park is open. I ended up with 20 badges by the end of my vacation. You also get ranked depending on how many times you have submitted. I ended up being an “Unofficial Chief Collector.”

There is also a chat feature in Lines. This is actually useful. You can get real time answers on your questions. I’m sure it wasn’t designed for that but it works. Post a question and you’ll get an answer in no time.

Overall Lines is a great app. Everyone should use it…actually no that would be bad. If everyone used it the wait times in Disney would be all out of whack. Maybe a few people should use it.

TouringPlans.com's Lines Review Part One

I'm doing a two part review of the app from www.touringplans.com. The first part is will focus on Lines as a planning tool. The second part will focus on Lines in action.

Lines is an application / website which provides a combined historical and real time data on wait times in all of Disney Worlds theme parks. The initial wait times provided are based on historical data. However, the times can be updated by users who are in the parks giving you real time feedback on how long you can expect to wait in line.

Lines was not developed as a planning tool. It was developed for active use. The interesting thing is Lines turns out to be a very useful planning tool. TouringPlans has a crowd calendar which estimates what the crowd levels will be like on any given day. Lines displays that estimate but it also lets you see how that translates into actual ride times. It also lets you see why TouringPlans provides a recommended park. You can compare the crowds between the recommended parks and parks to avoid. All of this information helps you to determine if you really want to hit the park with extra magic hours or go to the recommended park.

Lines is also an amazing tool for creating your own touring plan. You can pick the rides you want and see what the wait time is at different times. With this information you can make a killer touring plan that would make Len Testa jelous.

In part two I win explain my experience when using lines in the parks and updating rides times. As long as my wife doesn't kill me, I'll be sending an update for every ride I go on.

Apple's Tablet is Out and It's Called....The iPad?!?

Good grief Charlie Brown what was Apple thinking? The iPad?!? Seriously? I'm sorry but it sounds like a high tech feminine product. I'd love to know who came up with that. What kind of thought process was involved?

If I can ignore the name I'm a little disappointed. There is no USB connector. For it's size that's unacceptable. The pricing is messed up. On one wants the one with only 16gb. We want the big one but we don't want to pay that much. Oh and I have to pay extra for 3g and get it its own data plan. Fantastic!

My guess is the price will drop over the next few months when they see the response they get and future versions will transform it from a glorified iPod Touch into a nice little gadget.

I still have no plans to buy it. Lines, Disney Dining, and the Disney Maps look just fine on my iPhone. Plus lugging that around Disney World wouldn't be fun.