Recently we spent a week at Disney’s Polynesian Resort. We did 5 park days and maxed out our legs nearly every day. We’re locals and go often, however we rarely spend an entire day at a park. We average about 4-5 miles per day throughout the year. However, I was curious to see How many miles we would actually walk while on vacation.
Our arrival day we visited Epcot. We spent awhile meandering around World Showcase and then went back to the room to rest. We hopped the boat back to Magic Kingdom for a little while that evening, but everyone was pretty tired from lack of sleep the night before. Excitement got the best of us. This is the day we walked the least at 6.90 miles
Day two we visited the Magic Kingdom for Rope Drop. We managed 8.97 miles that day.
Day three was Disney’s Animal Kingdom at 10.76 miles.
Day four we attempted Hollywood Studios and failed. Everyone was just so wore out that we ended up relaxing much of the day, and then an impromptu trip back to Epcot for a few late evening rides.I didn’t even take the pedometer with us on this day after the massive failure at the Studios.
Day five we hit three parks. We managed 8.32 miles this day.
If you’re keeping track of the math, that’s 34.95 miles in four days with an average of 8.74 miles per day. We didn’t have ADR’s, we did very few Fastpasses so our back tracking was minimal and I also didn’t include the few thousand (ok, probably not that many) trips to Cap’t Cook’s to fill our mugs and get snacks.
If you’re not used to walking this much in a day, it can be a shock to your body after the second day of touring the parks. Our first vacation to Disney World, by day three, I had a blown knee and was pretty miserable. You just don’t realize how much you have walked until you are back in your room at night and the pain yells at you.
My tips for preparing your legs and feet are simple.
- Moisturize your feet. After your shower (yes, please shower, we all appreciate it when you shower on vacation), grab a bottle of a nice moisturizing lotion — I like Avon’s Moisture Therapy — apply it liberally to the soles of your feet and wear a pair of cotton socks for about 20 minutes each night of vacation.
- Start NOW walking often and walking as much as possible. Your legs, knees and ankles will thank you.
- Since you’re starting to walk now, find a nice broken in pair of sneakers. Wear them while you walk. Wear those same shoes on vacation. You do not want to attempt to walk this much on vacation in new shoes.
- Buy moleskin. Pack it in your suitcase. Don’t forget the scissors to cut the moleskin. If, after all this preparation, you still get blisters, moleskin will help to relieve the pain.
- Remember, kids have shorter legs and a lower tolerance for walking long distances than we adults do. Take breaks, drink a lot of water and rest as much as you can. I use a stroller for my 4 and 5 year olds because they can not do 8 miles a day.
Have you used a pedometer to track how much you walk while at Walt Disney World? How many miles did you walk?
Lisa writes here at Chip & Co. as well as her blog Adventures in Mousedom. As a local to Disney World, she offers a different insight into visiting the parks. If you’re super cool like Chip, you should check it out. Okay, even if you’re not super cool like Chip, you should check it out. Trust me. What’s the worst that could happen?
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We average about 10 miles a day. Last August, we walked 76.5 miles in our 7 day trip, and we keep a fairly good pace up. My daughters (15 and 10) did great, but my oldest (22) who was only there for one day with us did not. He was falling asleep every time we sat down. 😉
Im gonna get a pedometer for my next trip
This was really helpful and gave me the reality check I need to buy my new sneakers now and start walking. I’m going at the end of August. I’ve go work to do.
Never realized how many miles you actually walk at WDW!
Thanks for this article! We’re going in Nov and I had thought about bringing a pedometer to see how far we walked. Never thought about starting to walk now – will be doing that this week!
Three years ago my husband bought me a strollometer for my stroller for my annual week long disney trip with my sister and our 2 boys, we always try to stay in the boardwalk area so as our husbands say” we can get our walk on” At the end of day 5 we were at 126.5 miles and the batteries died that night while we were returning to epcot for a night cap after putting boys in PJS and bundling up . We have never used it again as that freaked us out. Yes we do walk to HS, and EPCOT from hotel , we also walk thru Epcot to catch Monorail to MK , the only park we use transportation for is AK, can’t wait to get our walk on again in Dec.
We took the family to WDW in September 2010. Starting that spring, my youngest (age 8 at the time) and I started our “Disney Walks” around the neighborhood. We would go out about once a week. We started with a mile and by the time we left for vacation, we were walking 5 miles. It was great to just talk about things (usually we planned our Disney days and/or day dreamed), but it was also a great help when we finally arrived – he was ready for the hours of walking!
We average about 11 miles per day. And I wonder why I am exhausted when we get back home!!!
I also recommend icing your feet/heels/arches at the end of the day in your resort room. Just take some clean zip loc baggies and fill them w/ice from the resort ice machine and rest your feet on them for as long as you can stand it, then a hot shower w/exfoliating foot scrub and, lastly, lotion to massage in to moisturize before bed. I swear this helps with some of the soreness and achiness the next morning….