Hands-on with the new 'Get Directions' feature of My Disney Experience

The new version of My Disney Experience with "Get Directions" functionality is now available on the App Store and Google Play.

From any attraction, restaurant, shop or hotel's page, you can touch 'Get Directions,' and then choose where you are departing from.

Entering a few characters produces a short list of possible matches. You also have the option to reverse the 'From' and 'To' locations.

My Disney Experience - Get Directions feature

My Disney Experience - Get Directions feature

Once the 'To' and 'From' locations are entered, hitting search shows the suggested route, and 4 possible methods of getting to the destination. By foot, by bus, by monorail, and by boat.

In this example of Space Mountain to Splash Mountain, it is only available by foot, and the app gives an estimation of the walk time, in this case, 10 minutes, and an overview map of the route.

Touching 'See Walking Directions' details a turn-by-turn route plan.

My Disney Experience - Get Directions feature

My Disney Experience - Get Directions feature

As you can see from the example above, the turn-by-turn directions might not be the best, suggesting things such as head southwest, and turn right - without any indication of distances.

However, if you are inside the park, the app will give you turn-by-turn directions with your current position shown on the map, just like a car GPS nav.

If planning offsite, the series of left, right, left directions will be hard to follow. But the overview map at least gives a good idea of where you are heading.

You can also get directions across property. In this example, Space Mountain to Morimoto Asia at Disney Springs. The system offered up a bus route, monorail route and boat route - ranging in time between 44 minutes and 74 minutes.

My Disney Experience - Get Directions feature

My Disney Experience - Get Directions feature

The directions are sometimes not at all clear, in this case, even mentioning Pleasure Island.

Opting to do that same route via monorail, and the directions mention Magical Express, which is the service that transports guests to Orlando International Airport.

My Disney Experience - Get Directions feature

Although there are certainly some issues with some of the results, the 'Get Directions' feature will be of a huge help to many guests who have no idea where they are going, and might even suggest some new routes that repeat visitors may not be aware of.