Give me the truth about driving from Ontario ;)

vacation_junkie · Feb 23, 2015

TLPL said:
I don't like wasting time on the road, plus you have to concentrate and pay attention the whole trip, you will be exhausted by the time you get there. Unless you are staying there for more than a few weeks, I don't think it worth it.

Thats my thought as well. DH wants to drive once because he hates flying. But we fly out of Buffalo and only usually pay about $500-$600 for the 3 of us. To pay $400 in gas. Worry about an oil change when we are down there. Wear and tear on our vehicle..ugh doesn't seem worth it to me!

DVCanadian · Feb 23, 2015

vacation_junkie said:
Thats my thought as well. DH wants to drive once because he hates flying. But we fly out of Buffalo and only usually pay about $500-$600 for the 3 of us. To pay $400 in gas. Worry about an oil change when we are down there. Wear and tear on our vehicle..ugh doesn't seem worth it to me!

Wow that is a great flight price. I'm not seeing much out of Syracuse for less than $500 per person for August.
Flight prices seem very high at the moment.

lizzyb · Feb 23, 2015

vacation_junkie said:
This is my dilemma .. Dh says he wants to drive once. We always fly.
We just had a crazy weather experience with flying .delays..cancellations etc. So were thinking of changing our January vacation to April next year.
He thinks the scenery will be nice. I am impatient and just wanna get there...lol

I am wondering if it is really...that bad as well. LOL

Honestly, I was pleasantly surprise how good the drive was, so much so that we are doing it again in April.

vacation_junkie · Feb 24, 2015

We'd be doing the drive in April as well. I gotta give it much thought lol

Teresa Pitman · Feb 24, 2015

My son and his wife have five kids, so we usually drive because it's so much cheaper with that big a family than flying. We are in Guelph, and go through Detroit to take the I-75 (we love the Along the I-75 book!). With that many kids, we have to stop frequently! It generally takes us 2.5 days. Sometimes we start mid-afternoon, drive until late, get a hotel, drive the next day, get a hotel room again, then arrive at WDW by late afternoon or evening. Or, we'll leave as early in the morning as we can, drive all day, get a hotel room, drive another day, get a hotel room and then get to WDW in the morning. Both work. We have tried driving through the night but found it just didn't work well. The little kids would sleep okay in the car, but the adults didn't, so you'd have high-energy kids and cranky tired parents.

slusher · Feb 24, 2015

vacation_junkie said:
Thats my thought as well. DH wants to drive once because he hates flying. But we fly out of Buffalo and only usually pay about $500-$600 for the 3 of us. To pay $400 in gas. Worry about an oil change when we are down there. Wear and tear on our vehicle..ugh doesn't seem worth it to me!

Those flight prices don't exist anymore. Three years ago I got $220/pp on JetBlue at their Christmas sale for the one person who wasn't driving, with the dollar around par. Maybe that's what you're thinking of. When looking this year thinking I'd fly for once, prices were never ever under $350 pp and a rising exchange rate. For four people it didn't make sense. I have always driven, from Midwestern Ontario. My gas cost estimated per Gas Buddy today is $172.00. I drive a Civic.

migel · Feb 25, 2015

Yes, especially if you're using a Canadian credit card to book with Southwest, JetBlue, even Allegiant, the $200 flights per person are gone (Allegiant is still possible, sans luggage, and with very limited departure dates for Sanford). I just booked a solo flight, BUF to MCO, off season (mid October), for $233 USD, and that's booking a day after those flight dates were released. VISA converted that to $297 Cnd. I will only use my USD Visa in future.

mshanson3121 · Feb 27, 2015

migel said:
Yes, especially if you're using a Canadian credit card to book with Southwest, JetBlue, even Allegiant, the $200 flights per person are gone (Allegiant is still possible, sans luggage, and with very limited departure dates for Sanford). I just booked a solo flight, BUF to MCO, off season (mid October), for $233 USD, and that's booking a day after those flight dates were released. VISA converted that to $297 Cnd. I will only use my USD Visa in future.

Yes, everyone was shocked we were driving, thinking flying would be so much cheaper - "But Allegiant is so cheap!". Yeah, for one person, but for a family? The cheapest flight on Allegiant at the closest airport (3 hours) was $275 pp, and that was before luggage fees (probably $150 round trip), the $100 to park at the airport, the $300 we'd have to pay for a rental car... With four people, it adds up to a cost of $1650 USD - or a cool $2100 CDN.

Compare that to our estimated trip cost of $350 gas round trip (gas buddy says $250), $350 for four nights in a hotel, $300 for meals on the way there/back, the difference works out to $650 USD ($800ish CDN). To us, that is a big savings. And that's before you even look at the fact of limited flights with Allegiant - were we to fly, we would either have to cut our trip 2 days shorter, or tack on 2 days (at a cost of roughly $300).

scrt69 · Mar 6, 2015

we drove last year for march break. We are in York Region, and i did the drive in 2 days. 18 the first day, and 13 the next. i would NEVER do that again! We have 3 kids (12,8,4) and i was surprised at how well they were during the drive. it took me 2 days to re-cooperate, but we had fun. we found that if you can get the supplies to make sandwiches, etc once you cross the border, this will help ALOT!! cuts down on fast food, and allows you to utilize the rest stops to let everyone stretch, and have some "kinda" healthy food

we flew in Feb, and cost us 3400.00 for the 5 of us (YYZ to MCO) via Rouge... 3 hour flight was nice, but no car.. and having to rely on transport services... NEVER again!! going to surprise the kids with a cruise next year, and are going to drive, and allow for the extra days.. 2 nights down, 2 nights back.

bankr63 · Mar 8, 2015

scrt69 said:
we drove last year for march break. We are in York Region, and i did the drive in 2 days. 18 the first day, and 13 the next. i would NEVER do that again! We have 3 kids (12,8,4) and i was surprised at how well they were during the drive. it took me 2 days to re-cooperate, but we had fun. we found that if you can get the supplies to make sandwiches, etc once you cross the border, this will help ALOT!! cuts down on fast food, and allows you to utilize the rest stops to let everyone stretch, and have some "kinda" healthy food
we flew in Feb, and cost us 3400.00 for the 5 of us (YYZ to MCO) via Rouge... 3 hour flight was nice, but no car.. and having to rely on transport services... NEVER again!! going to surprise the kids with a cruise next year, and are going to drive, and allow for the extra days.. 2 nights down, 2 nights back.

Thirty-one hours from Toronto? You must have hit some wicked traffic or weather! Bet there's a story there!

MystikaFaith · Mar 9, 2015

bankr63 said:
Thirty-one hours from Toronto? You must have hit some wicked traffic or weather! Bet there's a story there!

Yeah, that does seem extra long?

alps0623 · Mar 9, 2015

I found this great blog on driving from Toronto http://memoriesofdisney.com/2014/06...r-drive-from-toronto-to-orlando/#.VP3GkPmNbHI.

We're going to do our first drive this August from Mississauga. Our plan is to leave right after dinner. DH and I will take turns at the wheel. I will take the first round to the border while DH sleeps, then he will take the next 6hrs, then I drive until lunch, then he will drive all the way to WDW. We are actually excited to be doing our first drive. We have 2 girls and we have an in-car dvd system, so this should help greatly. Plus they will (hopefully) be sleeping half the time.

dsneygirl · Mar 9, 2015

vacation_junkie said:
Thats my thought as well. DH wants to drive once because he hates flying. But we fly out of Buffalo and only usually pay about $500-$600 for the 3 of us. To pay $400 in gas. Worry about an oil change when we are down there. Wear and tear on our vehicle..ugh doesn't seem worth it to me!

Last year we drove as it was completely spur of the moment. We figured even if we could do awesome and get $200 flights (which seem harder to come by) x4 plus either parking or a hotel we were looking at minimum $1200.

Driving cost us less than $500. It was way less painful than I thought it would be but we had the time to do it. Why would you need an oil change when you are there? My car goes 8000km before needing one.

Aytons4him · Mar 13, 2015

Hello, newbie here! A question for you experienced drivers!

Our family has driven down straight through 3 times in the past (1st one 11 yrs ago) and it worked for us. However the last time, 5 years ago, we found it much more difficult ( maybe we were just getting older and wimpy lol)

We are planning another trip and we were thinking driving straight through on way down but then taking our time on way back. The coming home is killer.

Where would one suggest stopping for a night to sleep and the timeline to use and such? Would like to leave Orlando just after supper and drive through night and part of morning or next day then stopping somewhere fun for kids and spending part of day and sleep that night then leave the next morning to continue trek to Ontario. ( we live Sarnia Ontario area and would be crossing at port Huron Detroit)

I think this could work well for us and not so hard on hubby and I with the driving.

My big concern is hitting the major cities in day time and having all that traffic and white knuckle driving. we always avoided that by driving straight through and hitting those cities during the night.

Any help and thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks!

MystikaFaith · Mar 13, 2015

Aytons4him said:
Where would one suggest stopping for a night to sleep and the timeline to use and such? Would like to leave Orlando just after supper and drive through night and part of morning or next day then stopping somewhere fun for kids and spending part of day and sleep that night then leave the next morning to continue trek to Ontario. ( we live Sarnia Ontario area and would be crossing at port Huron Detroit)

We're contemplating a stop at a Great Wolf Lodge along the way to add some "fun" to the drive home.

3pletprincesses · Mar 13, 2015

DVCanadian said:
Wow that is a great flight price. I'm not seeing much out of Syracuse for less than $500 per person for August.
Flight prices seem very high at the moment.

Out of Syracuse has been brutal since last fall. Once you convert that to cdn dollars it's the price of our airfare and not worth driving there for a flight.

We use to fly out of Syracuse all the time. the earliest flight I can find receipt for was Oct 2010 and it was $139 return trip including taxes. in august 2013 we paid $320 PP and this year it's up in the 500 so we decided to go back to driving straight through. We are 2 drivers and normally leave right before dinner, pick up something on the run at McD and Dh drives until about midnight, then I drive until the morning. We stop for breakfast and Dh gets back in the driver seat until afternoon. Then I drive all the way there most times. I can sleep no problem in the car while Dh drives so I usually do most of the driving as I get twice 6 hours nap LOL from Ottawa it usually takes us about 27 hours as we stop several time for pee break with 4 kids

mort1331 · Mar 14, 2015

We are now, drove down last Friday left at 7pm arrived 8pm sunday. Drive was great, approx 150 for gas and food. Leave tomorrow and driving straight again, hope weather holds.

Aytons4him · Mar 14, 2015

mort1331 said:
We are now, drove down last Friday left at 7pm arrived 8pm sunday. Drive was great, approx 150 for gas and food. Leave tomorrow and driving straight again, hope weather holds.

Wow! Amazing on gas! Since we drive a 12 passenger van we won't be so lucky. Curious what would be the best place to stayover and sleep a night about 5/6 hours down the road leaving from Orlando heading back towards Ontario?

minnie mum · Mar 14, 2015

Aytons4him said:
Wow! Amazing on gas! Since we drive a 12 passenger van we won't be so lucky. Curious what would be the best place to stayover and sleep a night about 5/6 hours down the road leaving from Orlando heading back towards Ontario?

That's an easy one, since we usually do that on our trips. Orangeburg SC is just under 6 hours away, on the I 26. Columbia is about 30 min.further away, at the junction with the I77. Both have lots of accommodations just off the interstate.(if that's the route you are taking).

If your going thru Atlanta, then it would be Macon or Atlanta.

Aytons4him · Mar 14, 2015

minnie mum said:
That's an easy one, since we usually do that on our trips. Orangeburg SC is just under 6 hours away, on the I 26. Columbia is about 30 min.further away, at the junction with the I77. Both have lots of accommodations just off the interstate.(if that's the route you are taking).

If your going thru Atlanta, then it would be Macon or Atlanta.

Ok thanks! Hubby said that we would be going thru Atlanta. Any recommendations of where to stay? We once stopped to sleep somewhere for a few hours on one trip and it was a dive even though we have stayed in that brand before in Canada and never had a problem. Don't want to make that mistake again! I was sure we were all gonna catch some serious cooties! Lol would love to stop somewhere with an indoor pool so the kids can get out some energy, and sleep well and then we would leave again early morning.

Give me the truth about driving from Ontario ;)

Have Suitcase...will Travel :)

Mouseketeer

DIS Veteran

Have Suitcase...will Travel :)

Disney Grandma

Earning My Ears

People Mover is my speed.

DIS Veteran

Earning My Ears

DIS Veteran

Mouseketeer

Earning My Ears

<font color=blue>My little pirate is here<br><font

~Blessed mama of many~

Mouseketeer

DIS Veteran

DIS Veteran

~Blessed mama of many~

Unapologetic Disney Fan(atic)

~Blessed mama of many~

Share this page