Oh how exciting! I'd be glad to share a couple of other "little finds" that I enjoy. There's the empty path to nowhere that I stumbled upon one day last year. It's near Magic Kingdom, in fact, right outside Magic Kingdom. With your back to the Magic Kingdom, before entering the park, the monorail entrances are on your right. Closer to the lake, still on the right, are queue (I think that's what you call them) lines for some boats. Well, if you head for the boat queue's on the right, you'll find a path that hugs the lake and leads to nowhere. But for about 5 minutes, you walk, alone, on this path and the realization that you are in Disney with no one else near you will at the very least, make you smile. Ultimately, it ends with a bench and you'll be facing the Grand Floridian. Since swimming is contraindicated, you'll have no choice but to return from whence you came. My other favorite walking path, the golf course walk, begins in Saratoga Springs and leads you to Old Key West, passing through and by Lake Buena Vista Golf Course. My husband was with me that day and we accessed the path near the Golf Pro shop at Saratoga Springs. A beautiful, quiet roughly 12-15 minute walk enjoying some previously unseen WDW landscape. I believe it bordered a waterway. I should mention that none of these areas are off limits to guests, these are approved, often paved, paths that are accessible and safe for traversing. Additionally, with Disney Springs expanding by the day, there's plenty of opportunity to walk around there (used to be called Downtown Disney). It'll help too, if your wife has a basic understanding of how buses run, which is primarily resort to park and park to resort (with some exceptions of course) and what is nearby any resort or park. For instance, the Animal Kingdom Lodge and it's DVC's are a stand alone property, as far as I know. You can't walk to any other parks or resorts from that location. Still a magnificent property worth checking out if she's never been there. She should also have a relative understanding of the WDW layout in general...like knowing Animal Kingdom is closer to Disney Springs than Magic Kingdom. The last piece of information she should have in her meandering cap is an awareness that different resorts may have other transportation choices besides or excluding buses. For instance, there is not a bus from the Beach Club to Epcot, instead there are boats and walking paths to the rear entrance of Epcot aka "the countries". I should have mentioned too the area around the Beach Club/Boardwalk is a fantastic, resort laden, beautiful area that not all WDW visitors make there way to. It's busy, but so wide open that it doesn't feel crowded. I hope I didn't make this confusing...I tend to do that and I do have to end with one caveat: On some of the paths mentioned, specifically the golf course path and the previously mentioned path to Ft Wilderness (from my original post), your wife may find herself completely alone for periods of time. It's Disney but we live in crazy times. I consider the paths safe but when alone, I demonstrate the same caution I use under similar circumstances in real life. Happy travels to you and your wife! Please let me know if she discovers any other hidden gems!
