How big?

Hi, I’m trying to get my head around the size of the parks. I don’t want to be backtracking and cross crossing etc so I’m splitting eg MK into its 4 lands and will stay in each of them until we are done. But, how big are the individual lands? Should I plan to do rides/shows in the order of walking or are they reasonably close together to zigzag a bit within a land? I’m trying to balance walking and waiting. I’ve set my plan to balance but they are out of walking order but maybe that’s ok! Help??

Each land in itself is not that big. So, crossing across the land in a different order than you figured is not going to add a whole lot of time. For instance, in Adventureland, you won’t have more than a 1 minute walk to any ride from any other ride, (maybe Pirates is like a minute and a half if you walk slow). This would apply to the other lands pretty much too. Maybe a two or three minute walk for some, but nothing too crazy. So, zigzag freely!

Now, when you get to Animal Kingdom, things are much more spread out and you will definitely have longer walks, so I usually try to keep them in some kind of order. However, sometimes the extra 10 minutes of walking is worth getting a 30 minute shorter line based on anticipated wait times later in the day. So, find your balance there.

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I always just tell the personalized touring plan what rides we want. I try not to overload # of rides (can happen especially at MK). If I have too many, the plan will actually alert me re that, though.

I tell TP that my #1 priority is short lines, that we don’t mind moving around the park. I believe you can state that less moving around is your priority, though. Sounds as if you may have already done that.

So, as long as the plan is telling you to - say- ride Space Mountain then head right after that to Pirates, that’s the best way to go. Unless you have mobility problems, the distances in MK really aren’t that great.

We were able to move around the park briskly and without any trouble, with the plan set for lines priority 1st- and we had a double stroller one year, with a 2 and 4 year old.

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One way to see the size of WDW, the parks, and the lands is to look at the satellite view on Google maps. You can zoom in or out to see the details, or to compare the size of Epcot to MK, for instance. It shows the scale of any image, such as one inch is xxxx feet.

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Thanks all, that’s reassuring. I’ve been to Disneyland Paris and all I keep hearing/reading is that WDW is sooo much bigger. I think I’ll plan my TP using one land /area at a time and prioritise waits within that land. Thanks again.

@sharon…if that’s your plan, it might be best to make a touring plan for the first land you plan on visiting. Select the rides you want to finish there. When that’s done, you’ll have a time that you will finish touring that area. Then set up a second touring plan for the next land you plan on visiting with the start time when the other touring plan ended. Continue this until you’ve reached the end of the day or the end of the park. This will give you multiple touring plans per day but will give you accurate times of when you plan on starting each individual plan and that will give you accurate wait times.

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Great minds think alike! I was just mulling this very idea over in my mind whilst on the school run. Thanks.

I had never thought to look in google earth at Disney. Guess what I’m doing this evening, excellent idea!!!

The nice thing about photos, they aren’t stylized like most maps. You know you are seeing the real deal, and not getting fooled by someone’s drawn map. Have a guide map handy when looking at Google map photos, so you have better labels of everything.

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This website:

allows you to use google maps to “map a walk” meaning, you can start at the gate, and create a path through your touring plan and see how many miles you will walk…

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Well I’ve had lots of fun using google Earth and gmap-pedometer. Disney and geekiness in one! Thank you.