We have hoppin’ good news, frog friends! Here at the Frog Pond, we’ve been hard at work revamping our Park Planning app for the Orlando theme parks to help you experience the most popular theme park rides and attractions with the lowest waits. (Psst ... we have an app for the SoCal theme parks too!) It’s now easier than ever to follow along with our optimized preset park plans or create one of your own directly from your iPhone. Let us show you the ropes on how to take full advantage of our free app so you can save time each day and focus more on the most important part of your vacation — having fun!
Creating a Park Plan in Undercover Tourist’s Orlando Planning App
Whether you’re using one of our preset park plans or you’re customizing your own from scratch, all of the details about your favorite attractions at the Orlando theme parks are right at your fingertips.
As soon as you open the app, you’ll be able to view our park plans and current park hours for all of the major Orlando theme parks, including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando, from the "Home" tab. Near the top, you'll be able to see the current day's crowd level and view our full Crowd Calendar.
You can choose from a range of 1-Day Plans to 2-Day Plans (as well as Park-to-Park Plans specifically for Universal Orlando) for all three parks. Once you select a plan, you’ll be able to see the list of rides, along with current wait times, sorted in the recommended chronological order. You would also be alerted with a red exclamation point symbol if a ride is under refurbishment.
You can follow along on the map, which designates where each item on the park plan is located with a corresponding identifier. Rides are represented by a number in a circle marker, while restaurants are represented by a letter in a square marker. Use the toggle arrows in the top right corner to view your location while panning around the map or follow your direction as you move around the park!
Be sure to hit “Save to My Plans” to save a copy that will appear on the “My Plans” tab. You can choose to keep the preset park plan as is, or you can click on the “Edit” button to rearrange, add or remove items. Once you’re in edit mode, hit “Add Things to Do” and browse all of the rides and restaurants, which are organized by resort and park name. Select multiple rides or restaurants to add them all to your custom plan at the same time. You can even build more days into the plan if you wish — just scroll to the bottom!
As you go about your day, mark the items in your custom plans as completed, and they will be crossed off your list. If you view the list of park plans from the “My Plans” tab, you can see the status of each plan (Not Started, In Progress or Complete) and how many items are left to do. You can share your custom plans with other people or view other people’s custom park plans directly in the app. When you’ve accomplished everything on your plan, you can delete it from your list of park plans (simply swipe to the left on the "My Plans" tab or click into the specific plan and tap "Delete Plan" under "Edit").
Whenever you pull up an item from a park plan, click on the name and you can find more details about that specific ride or restaurant. It’ll provide the type of attraction (or restaurant), the length of ride, the height requirement and if it's available with a skip-the-line service. Some select rides may have a short video clip, so you can get a feel for the experience ahead of time. Unlock even more info by hitting “View Details.” Read a summary of the ride or restaurant, learn some fun facts and discover our frogtastic tips all in one spot.
Want to See Wait Times? There Are Several Ways to Find Them
Wait times are included in the list view of every park plan, whether you use a preset plan or create your own. But what if you want to see wait times for every ride? That's easy-peasy. Hop to the "Things to Do" tab at the bottom of the app. You can then select which park you'd like to see wait times for. You can also filter for rides with videos, rides that you favorited, wait time, height requirement, rides included with a skip-the-line service, tadpole-friendly rides, ride duration, restrooms and food. Or hit "Show All" if you want to see everything.
Benefits of Undercover Tourist’s Orlando Planning App
Because the theme parks have so much to offer, it can be overwhelming to figure out exactly what you want to accomplish. It’s nearly impossible to get to everything in a single day, so you’ll need to prioritize and set up a plan of attack ahead of time. If you’re like us frogs, you want to maximize your time at the parks. Our Park Planning app is a tool that you can utilize to do just that!
There’s no doubt that it’s still important to download the theme parks’ official apps so you can access special features such as Disney Genie, mobile food ordering or virtual line access (if in use), and thus you may end up having multiple theme park apps. With that in mind, you’d only need room for just one more, as our app combines the major Orlando theme parks and you can easily look up information and gather all of your park plans in one place.
Even with a slow data connection, you can quickly access reference information such as daily park hours, current wait times and minimum height requirements. During operational hours, view every ride’s daily wait time curve, which allows you to gauge when the ride will have its lowest and highest wait times. We also display Today's Orlando Crowd Level in the Home tab, which is hopful for understanding how busy the parks are.
Some frogs may like to follow a structured park plan to a tee, while others would rather wing it. It’s toadally up to you. But for those in between who want to plan ahead but still have room for flexibility, you can keep a running list of rides and restaurants you like by marking them as favorites. To flag a ride or a restaurant as a favorite, pull up the details page and hit the heart icon at the top right corner. Then, once you’re viewing the “Things to Do” tab and use the "Favorite" filter, your custom list of rides and restaurants will appear on a park map as purple icons. Scroll horizontally to view rides and restaurants from each park. It will continue to show the current wait times for the rides for easy reference.
More Hopful Hacks for Using Undercover Tourist’s Orlando Planning App
- When you’re adding items while editing a park plan, use the “Other” option to include any non-ride or non-restaurant plans, such as “Get souvenirs from Emporium Shop” or “Meet SpongeBob SquarePants.” This can be a good spot to record your parking spot, which you will need to find at the end of the day if you’re driving yourself!
- Watch the short, full-screen videos of select rides so you can get a glimpse of the experience. By viewing beforehand with your tadpoles, you can eliminate any surprises, such as a ride being darker than you would’ve thought or a seating arrangement that could cause your frog squad to be split up.
- On the “Things to Do” tab, you can opt to view every ride and restaurant inside each of the major Orlando theme parks by toggling the “Show All” button. If you’ve marked any as favorites, they will continue to show up as purple icons.
- Use the park map to your advantage when an unexpected change hoppens, such as a ride being down, by viewing the nearby attractions and checking their wait times.
- Need to find the nearest restroom or First-Aid station? The app’s park map has specific icons for these locations too!
- Looking at a favorite ride and want to see other similar rides nearby? You can see that list at the bottom of the ride details page.
Don't froget to download Undercover Tourist's Orlando Planning app before your next vacation! We welcome any feedback so we can continue to make improvements. If you love the app, we'd love it if you leave a review in the App Store!
Related: Planning a Disney World Trip in 2022? Here Are 18 Key Things You Must Know
Hoppy planning!
