Review Accomodation in walking distance to WDW

[aussiejen]

Hi All,

This will be my families first trip to WDW. We visited DL May 2010 & loved it!
We'd now love to visit WDW in May 2011 but are not sure where to stay so i am hoping you lovely people can help me with reccomendations.
We are after accomodation in walking distance to WDW and is decent.
We stayed at The Howard Johnson whilst in Anaheim & loved it...
My children will be 4yrs & 7yrs old .

thanks Jen...

 

[sasquatch]

WDW Property is HUGE. I would think that Disney's Contemporary Resort and Bay Lake Towers are the only resorts walkable to Magic Kingdom. I understand there are some resorts between Hollywood Studios and EPCOT that would be walkable to each of those parks. There are also off-property hotels near Downtown Disney, but to say that you would walk from Downtown Disney to EPCOT would be ridiculous.

This map gives you an outlay of the property, but it is not drawn to scale. From this map, it appears that the whole WDW property is walkable, but it is not. http://www.wdwinfo.com/resortmaps/propertymap.htm

I hope this helps.

 

[sympatico]

The Disney Contemporary Hotel is walkable to Magic Kingdom, the Yacht and Beach Club and Boardwalk areas (Swan and Dolphin ) are walkable to Epcot but these are all Deluxe Disney Hotels and are expensive. If you stay at one of the many Disney Hotels you will be able to use the Disney buses free. Disney's value resorts are the Pop Century and the All Star resorts which are less expensive and you still are able to use the free Disney transportation. This includes the Magical express buses to and from the airport.
As was said, Disney is huge and you just don't have a regular chain hotel next door to a park. In the Downtown Disney market area there's a Hilton, Holiday Inn, Buena Vista Palace, Regal Sun, Best Western and Doubletree but these are only walkable to that area and you'd have to take a Disney bus to one of their hotels and then change to another bus to go to the parks.
If you want to stay off site at a chain hotel then for ease of getting to and from the airport and parks you need a rental car. If you don't want a rental car then my advice is to stay at one of the Disney resorts.
There are many timeshare condo type accom. in the area : Bonnet Creek, Vistana, Floridays etc . There are also pool homes, townhouses and condos that are close to the parks but with all of these off site accom. you need a rental car for ease of getting back and forth to the parks.

 

[brymolmom]

DLR and WDW are different animals in terms of hotels and where to stay. "Walking distance" does not exist at WDW. There are some exclusive (ie: pretty expensive) resorts that you can walk to ONE or maybe two of the 4 theme parks. But it is not like DLR where you can stay at one of 40 offsite hotels and walk to everything.

However, WDW does provide transportation for anyone staying at their onsite resorts (bus, boat or monorail). So that is almost the same as 'walking distance'.

 

[Sammie]

Yep, Walt Disney World is 43 square miles, you will not find a hotel walking distance.

 

[Lumiere Lover]

I suggest you pick up the Birnbaum book for Walt Disney World. You need to be well informed before you arrive at the resort. WDW is HUGE, and you need to make plans before you go. Touring plans and dinner reservations need to be made before you leave home.

Enjoy your trip!

 

[Sammie]

Good advice to get a guidebook, also go online to Disneyworld.com and look at all the resorts offered on property.