Like someone said above, all those little toilet breaks and just going to the food hall in a Disney hotel can all add up to a lot of walking... This year i have my Samsung Galaxy S4 which has a pedometer in-built, and that calculates and allows for walking/running/steps and puts it all into graphs and miles vs calories *Nerd*
Your body burns calories whether your doing "aerobic" activity or not so all that walking is burning more than you think. Aerobic activity just means in that hour is when you heart/cardio system got a workout of which is burning "fat" and does not solely determine how many calories you would be burning all day. You could be burning more calories than norm just not burning more fat. Your body while sitting burns calories so if most of the day you are walking/standing (even standing sill vs sitting burns more calories) then you are naturally burning more. We eat a TON of extra calories while in Disney and NEVER gain a pound so aerobic or not we must be burning enough to keep all those many calories burned off. We easily are doubling or more of our normal calorie intake each day while there! If i ate like i do at disney at home while in my normal routine i would easily gain 5-10 pounds! My DH works out regularly 5 days a week at home for about 2 hours total with an hour solely for cardio just to keep his weight in check at home and we watch what we eat. So if he is keeping weight off with eating double the calories on vacay and not working out then alot more calories than an hour of aerobic activity is being burned. That is just our opinion and experience.
Even so it would still be more accurate than step counted pedometers. Taking 4 inch shuffle-steps around a T-shirt rack counts as 17 "steps" when you've really only traveled 3 feet.
I didn't mean you don't know how it works I was just trying to explain my point of view. We are active folks esp the hubby and he works out at least 5 days a week and sometimes 7 days a week for 2 hours a day 1 hr weight training and 1 hour cardio. He cannot eventhough he Is very active at home eat like we do in Disney and not put on weight. If he has a bad week splurging at home he puts on weight. He splurges every day all day for 10+ days in Disney and even loses a few pounds while in the world with no daily workouts like at home. So that is not necessarily true for all saying active folks don't really see a difference being in Disney. He doubles his calorie intake at least every day in Disney and he loses weight and I do the same and just don't gain. Like I said if we did the same type of eating at home eventhough esp my DH is very active we both would gain weight. So more must be happening calorie loss wise while in Disney at least for us. That's all I was trying to get across.
But on a serious side, I would say we average per day about 7 miles, while at WDW.
You walk more than 18 miles a day at WDW? Do you ever stop for rides or just walk continuously? The average walking speed is about 3 miles an hour. To walk 20 miles in a single day you'd have to walk 7 straight hours at 3mph without ever stopping for a ride, eating, bathroom, parade, etc.
I now have a fitbit and can't wait to see what I can do when in the parks.... went hiking at Bushkill Falls in PA over the weekend and it said I did the equivalent of 46 floors. The total floors for the day was 78.... Disney will easily be my best steps per day....am excited to try it!
