whats the best sat nav for orlando and disney?

**disneymom** · 28-01-2012, 10:53 AM

ok so last time we hired a car and it had a sat nav but was expensive and it was only a portable hand unit anyway so we may as well buy one that works in the uk and us.

So which is better? garmin? tomtom? or something different altogether?

Is it easy to buy any uk one and add a us map?

**Tink** · 28-01-2012, 12:21 PM

Wendy will be along to give some good advice, I'm sure.

We used a Garmin here. It's pretty good, but as with any sat nav, you need to know where you are going! Makes me bonkers. I mean, yes it will get you where you need to go (usually) but often by a route that makes no sense, if you know the area.

So, I don't know if it's our machine/system or sat navs in general.

**Wendy** · 28-01-2012, 12:58 PM

We've got a Garmin Nuvi which we bought in the UK with Europe and North American Maps.

We wouldn't be without it now, as Tink said it does help to know roughly where you are going, as we know some areas quite well now, we do find the sat nav takes us the long way round. I think this is because it tries to make sure you are on the correct side of the road - but don't quote me on that

What I love about having our own is that everywhere we go, we add it as a favourite, so if we want to go back it is already stored on the memory, I do make sure I save a back up when we come home from holiday, just in case something should go wrong.

The other thing with Garmin is that you can buy "Lifetime Updates" which means that for a one off payment which I think is about £100, you can update your maps every time there is a new map available, so you have current information. You don't have to buy it, but we did our sums and we have saved a fortune

We also liked the graphics on the Garmin more, it was clear and the comments and directions were good, there is also lane assist and other better tools on the new Garmins, we don't have that on ours and sometimes it would be very handy.

I think you have to look at them and compare them, Chris wanted a larger screen and North American Maps as well as Europe so the Garmin was exactly what he wanted.

I hope this helps

**Britchick** · 28-01-2012, 02:45 PM

we downloaded a free app and used that, it worked really well, it's called Nav free.

**Kate** · 28-01-2012, 06:15 PM

we dont hire a car, but i know a couple of people who have said about the garmin one

**Keith** · 28-01-2012, 06:21 PM

I have a garmin one which did ok the first time and a little LESS well this last time. Last time it was recommending some strange routes and even telling us things were on the wrong side of the road :/

I did do a map update on it so perhaps that's why!

As to the unit itself, I've had sat nav built into my last few cars so haven't used many portable units but I used to prefer tomtom to garmin.

The best thing about it though has been Wendy's pre-programmed favourites. I can't think of very many places that aren't in there and it saves a lot of time when programming destination.

**chief** · 29-01-2012, 09:58 AM

yes we hired a garmin last time, it is expensive so we have brought a garmin with uk and us maps for this trip, it worked out cheaper than hiring one. we went for garmin ecause its what we used before and i found it easy to navigate,
although im sure they are all simpe to use