getting to parks and 'hopping' if driving

[Poohlovr]

Another tip I've read on these boards many times (never tried it, though) is to park at the park you'll be at the latest that evening.

For instance, is you're going to park hop from MK and then go to Epcot (since it's open later most nights in the off-season), you would park at Epcot in the morning, take the monorail to MK. When you are ready to leave MK, take the monorail back to Epcot. When you are ready to leave that night, there's your car.

While this wouldn't help with driving to one park per day, it would save driving between parks.

And, I agree- the signage generally is good on WDW property. I get lost driving close to home and I've driven all over WDW with little difficulty.

Hope you have a wonderful trip!

 

[chefgal]

thank you all for the great tips! I like the parking at the last park idea! We also belong to AAA and will call them for a south orlando map.
Our timeshare we will be at is Hilton International drive(NOT the one by sea world). I alreay had mapquested airport to Hilton and hilton to downtown disney. I will tryand get an address for the parks and do the same--THANK YOU. We were mislead MAJORLY from Hilton as they TOLD us they had buses from their property to the parks, but finding this different upon my phone call to them back in sept. when the guy said "park at dtd and no big deal", changed our initial plans drastically.
thanks again!
ps. if anyone has the parks address, that would be great but otherwise we will follow the signs I guess

 

[kaytieeldr]

Honestly, follow the signs - I think Epcot and MGM are the exit after the Downtown Disney one, Magic Kingdom is one or two after that, and Animal Kingdom is the one after that. They're REALLY well-marked, plus even if you take the 'wrong' exit, as long as you're in the Disney range, you CAN get to whichever park you choose, easily. The exits I list above are just the most convenient for each respective park.

In fact, I don't think you actually even need the park addresses (although Magic Kingdom is 3111 World Dr, Orlando, FL 32830). Just type the Hilton's information as your starting point and the name of your destination park as your ending point, e.g. "Magic Kingdom" and "Lake Buena Vista, FL" and Mapquest will give you a screen with some choices (or not, I only tried this one park - if nothing else in the area has a name like, say, Epcot, you should go right to the directions page).

 

[NotUrsula]

Really helpful things to have are a small compass and a penlight. They help immensely when navigating by map, especially at night, it's about $5 well spent for both. Also, always do a "subway fold" on your roadmap before going out for the day, so that you already have it folded to the area where you will be moving; not the entire city.

The AAA roadmap of Orlando used to be in two parts, but the last one I got was of the entire metro area. It's huge, probably 4' x 6'. Just in case, when you call tell them that you want coverage of the airport and the WDW area on your Orlando maps. BTW, You can do as many TripTiks online as you want, just log into your AAA account and print them off to your heart's content.

 

[jenelope]

I second the recommendation of using AAA Online TripTik service. They're really good, detailed maps and can be customized by your preferences (i.e., no toll roads, no highways, etc.). Plus, they have most hotels and attractions available from a list, so you may not need addresses.

I tend to get lost easily, so I took my mapping one step further on my last two trips. After getting a good idea of what my various routes were, I went to Google Maps and used their hybrid sattelite/road maps to walk myself through my trip, just to look for landmarks.

And as someone who gets lost easily, I can reassure you that once you're on property, if you get lost, you won't stay lost for long. It seems like all wrong turns either end in Animal Kingdom or Downtown Disney.