What do you use to navigate the parks?

I’m sure some of you could find all of the attractions in your TP with a blindfold on, HOWEVER, I’m not there… yet. It’s our first family trip (me, husband, and 2 boys 4 & 7). I plan to be the FP master, refreshing and modifying, as well as telling everyone where we’re going next according to our plan and my husband will be the navigator. Do you suggest using the good ol’ fashioned map? The MDE app? Or is there a cool 3rd option your prefer?

If you say the MDE app… Is it pretty reliable? I’ve never used it before obviously so not sure how it works.

I learned a lot of the maps in advance by doing run throughs of the touring plans in my head before I left. I pretty much can navigate with my eyes closed, or with my head buried in my phone.

When I do get stuck I use the MDE app. It shows you where you are and what direction you’re looking in and it’s easy enough to figure out where to go next.

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We prefer the old fashion map. Just find it easier to look at and orient myself than looking at a screen. Easywdw.com has some very clear maps that I usually print out as well but I use that more for planning beforehand.

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I’ve been wondering this as well!

We are really familiar with the parks now, but we still use the paper maps in park to find some things if we need to.

This. Try to look at the online maps a bit before you go so you’ll know the general layout of things. Epcot and MK are especially easy to navigate IMO. AK and HS are less obvious at least to me. As long as you have a general idea (i.e., BTMRR is in Frontierland in MK, KS is in Africa past FOTLK and near Gorilla Falls, we want to watch Illuminations from near France, etc.), you’ll be able to navigate easily using a quick look at the map and the signage in the parks I would think. I try to save my phone for essentials, such as FPP modifying and double checking ADR times

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That’s how we do it. I am great at planning, DH not so much. He is great at navigating, I get lost going around the block. So he takes the map (good old fashion kind), I tell him where we need to go next and he gets us there. It works remarkably well :slight_smile:

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Same my DH caught on faster how stuff was arranged in the parks. So funny because I’m the navigator driving, but was always turned around at WDW paths… but we used paper maps and the ap.

We are going for the first time in March. I hate trying to look at the online maps, it’s a lot zooming in and out and flipping between the map and my TP online. For about $3.00 I ordered 2 maps of each park on eBay. It’s been really helpful for me to be able to look at the paper map while planning.

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This is a great idea! Different people have different styles of learning but something about holding a map in my hands really helps me. I think this is why Kindle will never replace actual books, and kids learn less well on iPads.

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Maps, and pre-trip studying them, helped me none. When I can’t figure out where something is(which is often), the mde is the best resource. It has a directions feature and will give you real time updates on where to go to get to your destination. Sorta like “Disney GPS”

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At one point, navigating WDW was as easy as walking my neighborhood, but after a substantial hiatus I had to switch back to paper maps on my last trip.

Unfortunately all I could put my hands on were these type of maps:
image

I find these to be distorted and difficult to read and much prefer this type available from easywdw:

I also think that navigation at night is more difficult and recommend studying the maps in advance.

To become better acquainted with the changes that have taken place, I have been using Google Maps and Google Earth. The street views are current and very complete and i highly recommend giving them a try.

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I love the EasyWDW maps, like the one shown above. I find the proportions more accurate. Here are all of them: https://www.easywdw.com/easy/cheat-sheets/disney-world-cheat-sheets-maps-touring-plans-and-wait-times-4/

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These are the ones I use, too. They’re so much clearer than Disney’s own maps.

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I don’t know about blindfolded, but yes, I tend to navigate without map in hand, as I know the parks fairly well from memory.

Are you good enough at things that you can familiarize yourself with the park layouts and know which sub-land things are in?

For example, know enough to know that Universe of Energy, Wonders of Life, Horizons and World of Motion are all in Future World East, and look for entrance signs from there?

If you’ve oriented yourself to which lands are in a park, you probably have enough General Knowledge get most navigation done without a map. Walk into Pandora (it’s the first land to the left side of the Tree of Life) and look for signs to FoP vs. NRJ.

If not, then yes, I concur with @profmatt’s assessment of map-ease.

Though I did do a lot of map-using during my first ever trip to DLP last fall.

This is all great info! I love the visual of the easy maps and will print those for my husband to “learn” before and use. I’m finding that the more I mess with my Touring Plans while looking at a map, the more I am familiriIng myself with each park. However, I am nowhere near knowing enough. We go in late May so I’ll keep studying up.

I’ve used google maps a lot, with the walking directions enabled. It’s been pretty accurate and helpful, since it vibrates when I should be making a turn.

Walk-through videos are great, too, if you have the time. I just watched one on AK, since we have never been to Pandora, and it was immensely helpful because there was a “tour guide”.

(Also, I figured out how to pet the plant to get it to spit & steam, that alone was worth the watch).

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I’ve been to the World countless times at this point and I still get lost and confused. I use DH for navigation. Like, looking at that google image above, I can’t even imagine where it is. I mean, I know it’s Cinderella’s castle, but where is the person with the camera strapped to his hat standing? Where does the path to the right go?