IGN: "horse ride from one side of Hyrule to the next is rumored to take 45 real min."

[A Black Falcon]

Wind Waker's ocean did have a lot more to it than OOT's field, but LESS to it than, for example, LTTP's open field. What I mean by that is diversity. Just climbing every little watch tower or dropping a claw in every shining spot gets boring quickly. On the other hand, if the various things I can do are all vastly different, for example digging up treasure one moment and running from thiefs in a forest the next, then you have something epic.

If you count things like cutting down the grass and digging holes yes, but otherwise I'm not as sure... LttP did have a bunch of stuff in the overworld, even if it is just a "central area with a ring of separate zones around it" design, but WW's overworld was pretty well done, wtih dozens of islands each with their own puzzle... maybe LttP did have more diversity in the overworld though, I'm not sure. There was a huge contrast between LttP/LA and OoT (in how OoT had far less to do in the overworlds while boosting what you do in the towns), but MM and WW tried to add stuff to it and make the overworlds more interesting, so the gap closed some... still though, it is true that in WW you do spend most of your time in the overworld doing the same things, particularly searching for sunken treasures... it's mostly fun though, so oh well.