GPS in Florida

[shreked]

Anyone use their own GPS in DW? good results?

 

[TIGGERmetoo]

When we drove down last March we used our son's GPS. It worked great. We're flying this trip but going to rent a car and DH is going to bring his GPS with.

 

[ToddyLu]

I have odften wondered about using a GPS. I am usually very adapt at getting around anywhere I travel....however, when it comes to Disney, even after 9 trips, I have no clue how to get anywhere. DH and I are flying down in Dec and he loves getting a towncar (yep I have tried to get him to go DME, but no luck, yet). It is like I am in a Twilight Zone or Disney Vortex to the 5th Deminsion---Like Groundhog Day---the same way to the parks each time but I just can't seem to remember the landmarks so each trip from the resort to anywhere is like a new experience......then again, I am blonde.

 

[Ellester]

Our experience with our Garmin was that it worked just fine getting us down there, but getting around property was a little tricky. Several times, the GPS tried to get us to go down service roads that were blocked off to "civilian" traffic. After the third or fourth time, we gave up on the GPS until we were off of Disney grounds and just followed the purple signs. We were staying at VWL and got quite a tour of the area trying to get to the Queen of the Universe Shrine courtesy of the Garmin!

 

[WizardLarz]

1. What brand?

2. Did you download a special add-on?

3. how detailed were the directions?

 

[WDWCrazyfromGA]

We loaded the file from mousesavers and it has worked great at WDW

 

[rock_doctor]

Any descent unit with current maps should do just fine for you. I have a Magellan and love it, if you get a Magellan they will give you the newest maps on SD card for free, just the cost of shipping the card. New maps for the Magellan are available everywhere i.e. best buy, walmart and so on. So future updates are as easy as grabbing them off the store shelf. Before we left home i entered all of the hotels (Cont, Poly, Pop) and walmart so all i had to do is just pick the places i wanted from the list of saved address. The directions were accurate in all cases and since we go for a min of 10 days we drive around quite a bit.

 

[buzz5985]

Any descent unit with current maps should do just fine for you. I have a Magellan and love it, if you get a Magellan they will give you the newest maps on SD card for free, just the cost of shipping the card. New maps for the Magellan are available everywhere i.e. best buy, walmart and so on. So future updates are as easy as grabbing them off the store shelf. Before we left home i entered all of the hotels (Cont, Poly, Pop) and walmart so all i had to do is just pick the places i wanted from the list of saved address. The directions were accurate in all cases and since we go for a min of 10 days we drive around quite a bit.

I have a Megellan also. It's probably 5 years old now - and have never downloaded any of the new maps. Didn't have a problem.

 

[skelfbsfb]

We use a TomTom version 1 without any hassle, took us straight to the place without any hitches.

 

[jerseygal]

All Buena Vista Addresses were not Buena Vista, but instead Orlando.

Someone else had said to put in Kissimmee, but that wasn't right. Orlando worked better with all the addresses.

Good Luck!

 

[shreked]

Thanks... found the files will give it a try

 

[Coach81]

Breaking in my new Garmin for our upcoming trip in March.. planning on using it and my new radar detector as well!!!!

 

[mac_tlc]

We always take our Magellan with us. Don't need it for directions, but the kids love to hear the voice say "Disney Vacation Club Way" .......

mac_tlc

 

[JWG]

Our Garmin (1350) has worked fine down there. I did download a file of WDW locations off of some website. It included all the resorts, theme parks, auxillary locations (mini-golf, etc.).

We had no issues other than anything near Magic Kingdom takes you through the main plaza and toll booths versus the back route via Fort Wilderness.

 

[hansel1]

I used both a tomtom and garmin at the same time while I was down there in may. The garmin was easier for finding locations within the garmin itself. For example If I wanted to go to animal kingdom I just pushed themeparks and it brought it up with less button pushes than tomtom. Tomtom however was more accurate on the actually gps location of things.

The problems with gps units is they all have their pros and cons and no one has made a perfect unit yet.

 

[johnsonville5]

We were at Disney World in June 2010 and decided not to take our personal GPS to use in a rental car since we have read about the high number of "break and takes" in Orlando. When getting our rental car at Budget they caught me in a weak moment and I took their GPS for $60.00 for the week since he assured me that all of the Disney places were on it. As it turned out the thing was worthless both on the property and off the property. It took me 7 miles out of the way to find Target. A Target that had been open 1 year was not on it and it was within a mile of the propety. The truth is you do not need GPS - just follow the signs.

 

[hansel1]

We were at Disney World in June 2010 and decided not to take our personal GPS to use in a rental car since we have read about the high number of "break and takes" in Orlando. When getting our rental car at Budget they caught me in a weak moment and I took their GPS for $60.00 for the week since he assured me that all of the Disney places were on it. As it turned out the thing was worthless both on the property and off the property. It took me 7 miles out of the way to find Target. A Target that had been open 1 year was not on it and it was within a mile of the propety. The truth is you do not need GPS - just follow the signs.

I agree. Neither garmin or tom tom had that Target in them. It is a pretty nice target too.

 

[rock_doctor]

That is actually fairly common. The software they include in factory gps units tend to be quite old and it is expensive to update it. In some cases a new dvd can cost several hundred dollars. The most accurate gps is actually your cell phone with google maps installed. A couple years back, bored, i used my Sprint Mogul using the gps and google maps, walked all the way around Pop w/o looking up one time. It was very cool. People though i was nutz, which was also kind of fun.

 

[lucyem]

I just bought a new Garmin. My husband has an older one that was just too outdated and cost more to update maps then to buy a new one. Plus at one point he tried to download more maps and it never worked. Mine comes with lifetime updates. Took about 5 minutes to update the maps from the ones on the factory. The factory installed maps did not have my street on them and our house is 250 years old LOL! I also installed the mousesaver gps files. So handy! I had started trying to locate various WDW places and their addresses and putting them into the GPS. That got very confusing. The mousesaver files was MUCH easier. We do not normally drive around WDW but we do drive to WDW from New England so a GPS is a must.

 

[disneyboy2003]

If you have an iPhone, BlackBerry, or Droid, you can download a Google Maps app for free. Your smartphone likely already has the ability to receive GPS signals.

Google Maps takes your smartphone's GPS signal, and plots your exact location onto the map. Google Maps can also give you driving directions, too. There's never a need to update the maps in Google Maps, because it's automatically updated online. For example, Google Maps easily found the new Super Target in Kissimmee. There was no need to buy or upload an "updated" map.

Of course, using Google Maps requires your phone to be connected to the Internet, so data charges may apply. But it's such a handy application, I've used it many many many times in unfamiliar cities & countries, too.