Walking Mileage at WDW

[disneysteve]

the step calculated distance was about 20-25% longer than the GPS oriented tracker.

Pedometers are inherently faulty. They're fine for a ballpark figure but you really need GPS tracking for accuracy.

Part of the problem with pedometers, especially at a place like Disney, is that they are motion-based. So unless you turn it off when you get on a ride, it's going to log "steps" from the vibration of the ride. That inflates your actual figures.

 

[mickeymom629]

We are here now, and I lost my fitbit right before the trip Anyway, we haven't gone to a park yet but DH and I have stayed 3 nights at ASMu (got out before the blizzard!) and were in Country Fair Bldg. 6, about the furthest away you can get from the food court/bus stop/lobby. Now we are in Kidani for 3 nights, and about at the end of the hallway. Just walking around the resorts, I have no doubt most guests put in a lot of mileage before ever entering a park!! Last night we walked from one end of a Kidani hallway to the other end at a pretty good pace and it took 9 minutes, so I think it's about 3/4 mile!

 

[disneysteve]

I have no doubt most guests put in a lot of mileage before ever entering a park!!

Absolutely. Walking around the resorts can be significant. Also walking to get to the front gate of a park. We often skip the tram and walk from where we park to the front gate. Even with the tram, walking from the far end of a parking lane to the tram can be a hike.

 

[okilydokily]

I have a hard time believing most mileage reports. Pedometers are worn on rides and queue lines. Even if GPS is used, I think they are all way over stated. Walking in the front of Epcot and all the way around the WS back to the front is only about 2 and 3/4 miles. Even if you walk to/from the car, some people claim they make the loop 4 times in a day.

 

[bluezy]

Pedometers are inherently faulty. They're fine for a ballpark figure but you really need GPS tracking for accuracy.

Part of the problem with pedometers, especially at a place like Disney, is that they are motion-based. So unless you turn it off when you get on a ride, it's going to log "steps" from the vibration of the ride. That inflates your actual figures.

Yes, that's exactly the point my son was trying to "prove". He had a co-worker insisting that people walk almost 15 miles a day at Disney (based on his pedometer and how he "felt" at the end of each day) so he was curious what it really was. My son was confident that it wasn't typically 15 miles (unless someone was literally walking laps around World Showcase or something), so he wanted to get an accurate measure of what he and his wife would walk on their trip. They aren't particularly organized when it comes to planning their days in the park, so there is a lot of extra walking -- which might be pretty typical for the average guest . Even with the poorly planned routes, they still (according to GPS measurements) didn't walk more than about 8 miles a day with the exception of one day that they walked 10. (While the pedometer based measurements were closer to 10 miles a day and 13 miles on the longer day.) They are heading to Disney again in a few weeks and they have tried to plan their days a little better this time, so it will be interesting to see what their walking distance is on this trip.

And my son did also notice that he was recording "steps" even when he was sitting on certain rides. I think he said the Safari at AK was a big one -- which would make sense with all the bouncing.

 

[disneysteve]

I have a hard time believing most mileage reports. Pedometers are worn on rides and queue lines. Even if GPS is used, I think they are all way over stated. Walking in the front of Epcot and all the way around the WS back to the front is only about 2 and 3/4 miles. Even if you walk to/from the car, some people claim they make the loop 4 times in a day.

Time on moving rides (not simulators) will add to the GPS total. But 8+ miles is still pretty common for actual walking when you include ride queues, restaurants, walk-through attractions (like Living Seas, for example), browsing in stores, getting to and from your car, and don't forget, as someone mentioned, walking around your resort. If you are in a building far from the main building, just walking back and forth to get a bite to eat may be close to a mile.

Ride queues can be fairly long, too. We often joke when the sign says it's a 10-minute wait what they really mean is that there's no wait but it's a 10-minute walk to get to the actual ride.

 

[bluezy]

We are here now, and I lost my fitbit right before the trip Anyway, we haven't gone to a park yet but DH and I have stayed 3 nights at ASMu (got out before the blizzard!) and were in Country Fair Bldg. 6, about the furthest away you can get from the food court/bus stop/lobby. Now we are in Kidani for 3 nights, and about at the end of the hallway. Just walking around the resorts, I have no doubt most guests put in a lot of mileage before ever entering a park!! Last night we walked from one end of a Kidani hallway to the other end at a pretty good pace and it took 9 minutes, so I think it's about 3/4 mile!

Yes, depending on your location within a resort, you can do a lot of walking before you even get to a park. The Country Fair buildings are about a 1/4 of a mile from the bus stops/main building. As are the Little Mermaid rooms at AoA. It is about 1/4 of a mile from one end of the "horseshoe" to the other in the Kidani buildings. We always request/pay for a room close to the main building/bus stops at whatever resort we stay at just to try and cut down on our daily miles at Disney (which is probably some of the reason why our days are on the lower side of average for miles walked at Disney)

 

[Tomh]

I have a hard time believing most mileage reports. Pedometers are worn on rides and queue lines. Even if GPS is used, I think they are all way over stated. Walking in the front of Epcot and all the way around the WS back to the front is only about 2 and 3/4 miles. Even if you walk to/from the car, some people claim they make the loop 4 times in a day.

I agree that most reports based on pedometers are not accurate, however, I don't think we have ever just walked into the front of Epcot, and around World Showcase one time. There is always some degree of walking back and forth, and around Future World, and most days we cover the World Showcase probably twice, more if DS decides to do a lot of the Agent P Adventures.

I use the tracker built into my phone, it counts steps, but I always leave it off until we are in the park in the morning, and usually turn it off one the way out in the evening. I figure the steps I don't count there help to compensate for the extra steps it counts during rides. I'm sure our numbers are still a bit high, but I would be on our longest days being close to 12 miles.

 

[disneysteve]

I don't think we have ever just walked into the front of Epcot, and around World Showcase one time. There is always some degree of walking back and forth, and around Future World

Right. You have to count walking in the front gate, then walking to and through Mission Space, then out and over to Test Track and through that, then out and across to Imagination, then out and over to The Land, then Living Seas, then back to The Land for lunch, then into World Showcase, into the Mexico pavilion, etc. It isn't just a straight lap around Future World and around World Showcase. It's a lot of in and out and back and forth walking.

 

[okilydokily]

pending on your location within a resort, you can do a lot of walking before you even get to a park. The Country Fair buildings are about a 1/4 of a mile from the bus stops/main building. As are the Little Mermaid rooms at AoA. It is about 1/4 of a mile from one end of the "horseshoe" to the other in the Kidani buildings. We always request/pay for a room close to the main building/bus stops at whatever resort we stay at just to try and cut down on our daily miles at Disney (which is probably some of the reason why our days are on the lower side of average for miles walked at Disney)

8 miles I can certainly agree with being reasonable for one day, though I am thinking it is usually less. I think getting to 12-18 miles that I often see people posting is probably a bit exaggerated. A lot gets eaten up in queue lines where you are waiting. You may not be walking per se, but are fidgeting and moving and can be recorded as extra steps. As long as I am having fun at Disney, I don't really think about miles walked.

 

[disneysteve]

A lot gets eaten up in queue lines where you are waiting.

Lines count for GPS, not so much for pedometers.

 

[okilydokily]

Lines count for GPS, not so much for pedometers.

if you are moving around, it can count as a step even though you are not really walking anywhere. Most people are not just standing there still until they can move forward.

 

[Oneanne]

I make it a goal to get at least 20,000 per day but when I'm there in April I'm going to try and break my all time high of 30,000 for at least one day.

 

[Mooghan]

Here's mine from last month ( I miss it so much already). I just had a problem on our first night because I tried syncing my fitbit to my phone when they were on different days, my phone automatically adjusts time zones so it knew it was 12:30 AM on Sunday December 6th, but my fitbit said 11:30 PM on Saturday December 5th so some of my steps got double counted on Sunday- D'oh!

Day 1: Travel Day & Disapoolza at Diagon Alley- 12674 steps- 5.13 miles
Day 2: Animal Kingdom & Epcot- ~35400 steps- 14.75 miles
Day 3: Hollywood Studios & Epcot- 22762 steps, 9.24 miles
Day 4: MK & MVMCP- 23590 steps, 9.56 miles
Day 5: Rest/Monorail hotels tour/Epcot- 22359 steps, 9.05 miles
Day 6: Epcot- 24195 steps, 9.78 miles
Day 7: MK & Hollywood Studios- 20188 steps, 8.19 miles
Day 8: Travel - 11006 steps, 5.12 miles

So our grand total for the week was 172174 steps & 70.82 miles.
It was a wonderful week and I want to go back right now!

We did a TON of back and forth walking at AK- We went to and from Asia/Dinoland to Africa about 4 times

 

[wdw&sonny]

I'm always amazed at how many steps/miles some people are able walk day after day at Disney. My feet, knees, hips, and back would never survive 7 straight days of 10+ miles a day. I keep track of my miles at Disney and my longest day ever was about 10.5 miles at Epcot -- and that included a little crisscrossing of the park. Most days we average closer to 7-8 miles. We definitely try to plan our days so that we're not constantly running from one side of the park to the other but rather make one big loop around each park, so that might help in keeping our miles down even though we spend long days in the parks.

My son and his wife used two different tracking methods on their last trip (because he's a technology geek/numbers guy) -- one GPS oriented and the other one was (calibrated) step oriented. Even though he and his wife were together the entire time and walked the exact same places, the step calculated distance was about 20-25% longer than the GPS oriented tracker. He also came back to his room some nights and retraced their steps using an online distance tracker and that was usually about the same as the GPS tracker his wife used. His theory is that the step tracker was calibrated to his "normal" stride, but a large part of the walking they did at Disney was not normal strides. There were a lot of steps taken while standing in a queue or just browsing through a gift shop that were about 1/2 the size of a normal stride. So while he felt the number of steps was probably accurate, he didn't feel like the distance calculated by those steps was accurate for that situation since many of his steps were much smaller than his average stride (though he said it's much more accurate for his every-day walking and running). Regardless of which method is more accurate, Disney vacations will always include *a lot* of walking.

Agree. Calibrated steps are overestimate of the actual walking done at WDW.

 

[Crystal824]

I always track too, but we don't keep track year to year. I would say we average about 20,000 steps a day while there.

 

[qa4ever]

It also depends on what type of device you use. The ones that are worn on your wrist are not as accurate as the ones that clip onto you. I know someone who is a cashier and says she won't move her feet for hours but will get thousands of steps because of the wrist movements of scanning groceries. Regardless, trackers can help you learn what is normal for "you" and then you can see how active you are compared to that. Disney days are very active days! Some people's counts are likely exaggerated a bit, but still very active nonetheless!

 

[LindsayGorg]

I used my phone in Sept and tested it to see if moving around/walking in place added steps, and it didn't seem to, and it didn't count rides. We (2 adults no kids) averaged about 10-12 miles a day according to my phone, and our longest day was 18 miles - that day we hit EP with a lap around WS in the morning, HS, AK (lots of back and forth between everest and KS), EP again for another 2 laps around WS, and MK until 11:30pm. We drove and walked the parking lots, so it includes all those steps as well. I don't think the numbers are 100% accurate, but they are fairly close.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

People want to believe that they are walking more miles so accept the steps. The step to mileage conversions are terribly wrong in amusement parks, but if it makes your vacation better...

 

[ars0525]

I wear my FitBit, but I too agree the rides can skew it. No way do I climb that many flights of stairs! lol

Since the new FP system I actually walk less cause no more crossing the park multiple times for FP runs. I also have an AP & live here now so have slowed my pace (haven't done a real commando day in awhile). 15K steps is about "average" for me. Epcot & AK tend to be a bigger walking days too it also appears.