Thinking of driving to WDW. What are your thoughts?

[christa112]

My thought ARE YOU NUTS??????

Just kidding. I drove across country with my dad when I was 11 or 12 and it was really awesome. It was just him and I and I was out of the "are we there yet?" stage. We took our time and stopped at the Grand Caynon and Meteor Crator (spelling?), The painted desert and petrified forest, we traveled through Texas and hit Six Flags over Texas, we went Tennesee and saw Graceland and Dollywood, and DC and did the zoo & the Smithsoean (spelling). I remember bits and pieces but they are pretty fuzzy, but I do remember it was a lot of fun.

 

[Tink888]

We drive to WDW from Pittsburgh, PA and personally I really love the drive. It's about 16 hours. We usually leave around four in the morning so the kids can sleep part of the way and drive straight through to Daytona Beach. We spend the night there and then onto WDW the next day. Going home we drive 12 hours and then spend the night and finish the next day. It's nice to be able to travel on your own time schedule.

I've got two boys and they've always done really good with road trips. We have a mini van so there is lots of space for them in the back, they bring books, games, video games and they can also watch movies. We do a quick bathroom stop/gas fill-up every few hours. It may sound corny but it really is a great way to see the country. One year we woke the boys up in WV to see the sunrise over the mountains. Pretty cool.

The last trip we spent about 340.00 on gas, 130.00 for hotel rooms and about 100.00 on food so it was cheaper than flying. Even with the gas prices now I think we would still save a little.

I also really like having our own vehicle at WDW. Parking is free if you stay on property for both the resorts and parks. If we didn't want to take the buses, we could drive to the parks or other resorts so it was a timesaver in that sense. We could run to the grocery store for drinks, etc. and the nicest thing was being able to pack whatever we wanted or needed.

We did fly down once and DH & I are going down alone in Sept and are flying again. I haven't gotten my airline tickets yet because there is a part of me that's dreading the flight even though it's a huge time saver.

My friends think I'm crazy but I do love our WDW road trips. That's how we did it when I was little and to me there's just something special about a road trip, wherever you end up going.

 

[Russian-in-Kansas]

Hi, we in KS too and are driving this year. The way we have figured that it would be cheaper for all 4 of us to do that instead of flying and renting a car there, since we will be off-site. This way we are planning our routes and booking cheap motels on the way and bringing a cooler with snacks with us.

 

[Nik's Mom]

We are also driving from Michigan in November. We will be a group with 2 or 3 vehicals. We use walkie talkies among the cars and it makes the trip a lot more fun as we can get seriously goofy. We are leaving Halloween night(5pm) and will be driving back on November 14th. I will have Dson who is in a wheelchair so we will leave thursday and arrive on saturday. We like to give ourselves extra travling time with Dson. He usually travels well but not always.
If we are travling without dson we will leave at 3am and stop in or around Tifton Ga on the way down. We have also stopped at Perry and Dalton Ga.
To the OP. When my kids were young(all adults now) we would make fun stops along the way. It took a little longer but made for a more relaxing trip. Susan

Hi Susan,
My sons are both special needs (autistic), so it is nice to hear from a parent with a special needs child. We definitely would plan for some time out of the car. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Nik's Mom]

Russian-in-Kansas,

I just read the bottom of your countdown. A big THANK YOU to your DH for the great sacrifice he has made to serve our country. You all deserve a great trip to WDW.

 

[Russian-in-Kansas]

No, honestly thank you I hope you have a great trip!

 

[MichelleinMaine]

We did a ME to WDW drive last month with 7YO DD and 12YO DS. Mapquest and our GPS both put it as a 23h drive. We thought that was reasonable 2 day drive. BAH. Didnt' figure in it taking significantly longer. We didn't even make any significantly long rest stops, but even stopping for food/gas could take us a half hour. (NJ turnpike in spring break=the most horrific lines I have ever seen!) It took us closer to 30hours with traffic and stops. I wish we'd have had the liberty to split it into a 3 day drive. We liked the travelling, we liked seeing the states (would have liked to have seen more than McDonalds and the gas stations ) Three days I think would have been ideal.

We'd do it again, I think, on a longer trip. We were only doing a week in WDW and had 4 days for travel... that was a bit insane.

As others have said, it depends alot on how your kids travel. Ours are used to it. This was our longest car trip, but they've done some marathon plane journeys before. (This was a whole lot easier than flying to HI, lol!)

~Michelle (another Nik's mom )

 

[pbharris4]

Drive! See the country. Make it a game of sorts. Collect a postcard or something from each state. My Dad, Dh and I drove to CA from VA and back...saw a lot of neat things along the way...Grand Canyon, Vegas, Hoover Dam, etc. See what's along the route and they can learn something on the way. Take movies too.

 

[lcboysfan]

We are also driving to Disney in July from Katy, Texas (A little west of Houston). I wanted to Fly but the wife insisted that we drive which is around 14.5 hrs which isn't bad but the way the Airlines prices are nowadays further justified Driving. We estimate it to cost us (Worst case scenario) 500$ in Gas (We drive a 2003 Acura MDX) and 200 in snacks etc. Which is still alot cheaper than 1100-1400$ in Airfare it would cost us to fly.

 

[melanie18]

DH & I used to ONLY drive to WDW for years. We started to fly once DD7 was born. After our last 2 trips, we've decided to drive for our next one.

In Nov., DD7 got strep throat on the day we were supposed to fly home. I got our extended family to the airport for the flight, but DD7 was vomiting scared1: ) and miserable. Southwest couldn't get us on another flight for 4 days. After a trip to the hospital and a night in concierge level (thanks to those wonderful folks at the Wilderness Lodge), we chose to drive our rental car home the following day since DD7 was much better. DH & I agreed that it was probably the best drive we've ever done.

Just last week we were trying to fly out of MCO and our flight was delayed 5 hrs. We chose to fly into Baltimore (instead of Philly) and rented a car to get us back to Philly airport to get our car. Let me just say that the rental from Baltimore to Philly was a 2-hr rental and it cost us more the rental car we had in Orlando for a week.

Needless to say, I'm willing to give driving another shot if we go back again this November. I kind of look forward to the down-time in the car.

You will have a great time-- just go into it with a good attitude.

 

[Plantlady]

We always drive on our vacations. This year it's from Kansas to California, to go to Disneyland. For a family of five, it's just cheaper.

Now, I'm not figuring in hotels, because we make sure to stop at wonderful, glorious places. We'll be visiting between 7-10 national parks on the way to and from. Priceless.

Last summer, we put 4000 miles on our car, vacationing. The kids just know that's part of it. Not a single complaint. They love it.

 

[mom2girlsn1boy]

we are driving this year, we live in kansas my dh has figured for our van, (mercury villiager) that it would take about 650 dollars round trip for gas. We have three kids 2 of which would have to have tickets for the plane, so for us it's cheaper even with 2 night of rooms to drive. We are looking forward to it. My dh and I drove when I was 4 months pg with our first and we had a great time, and sure we will this time too.

 

[souda]

Our first trip to WDW was in June 07 and we decided at the last minute to fly. That was the best decision that we made. My DD was almost 2 for the trip and she does not like to ride in the car. We live 60 miles south of New Orleans and I think it is a 12 hour drive. Instead of 12 hours in the car, we rode for 2 1/2 hours in a plane, we had a layover in Atlanta. My husband said he will never drive on a trip longer than 6 hours again. I think the drive going would not have been so bad, but the drive back after only having 5 days and it being our very first time in the world would have been torture, we were exhausted.

 

[micki7337]

Flying would be cheaper with the price of gas at $4 per gallon and the need for hotel rooms coming and going. also if you run late you could miss your reservation at WDW if you fly it is easier all around especially if you use magical express to and from WDW.

 

[Plantlady]

Flying would be cheaper with the price of gas at $4 per gallon and the need for hotel rooms coming and going. also if you run late you could miss your reservation at WDW if you fly it is easier all around especially if you use magical express to and from WDW.

Flight prices will also rise, with gas prices... something to keep in mind.

I personally like having my own control.. and only when we fly, do we run late, because of planes taking too long to take off. When we drive, we're in charge of our own time.

When you add several children.. it really is a much better deal to drive. Economically flying does not make sense, unless you get a last minute great deal.. but even that, would have to be fabulous.

Just my two cents.

 

[Karibeth19]

We leave next Friday for our 8th trip in 5 years, and we always drive. We love it! DH and I get almost as excited about the drive as we do about being at WDW. What we do that saves us quite a bit of money is use our American Express card for a lot of our purchases throughout the year, and then we transfer our Rewards points over to Hilton Honors points. (The transfer rate is about 1500 HH points for every 1000 AmEx points.) We use the HH points for free hotel rooms at Hampton Inn on the way down and back. That saves about $200-$250, especially if you figure in the fact that we don't have to buy breakfast since it is free at the hotel. So, our only expenses on the road are lunch both days, dinner the first day, snacks and drinks (but we also pack a cooler with that stuff so we don't have to buy much), and of course, gas. But even at $4.00 a gallon, we've estimated that filling up our 2007 Jeep Commander will only cost $500 round trip. All together, we spend about $600-$700 driving; we certainly couldn't find air fare for the three of us that cheap!!!!!

 

[sherreis]

In Nov. 2006, we drove from MD - Baltimore area to WDW and the drive was very tolerable. We left here around 1:30 PM on a Friday afternoon and stopped around 11 PM for the night. The next morning, we left the hotel around 8 or so and arrived at CSR around 12:30- 1 PM. My boys were 6 and 11 and were super. It was their first trip to WDW and they knew that if they wanted to go to WDW that was the only way we could afford it. It was a holiday week and would've been about $1500 to fly for the 4 of us.

This October, we're flying. Found great airfare at $54 each way from BWI so at that price, we're flying. I'll miss having our car while we're there. I liked driving to the parks instead of using the busses.

 

[Nik's Mom]

I haven't really found cheap airfares from Kansas to MCO. It would be over $1000 for our family to fly, not including rental car. I think we could drive to WDW for cheaper than that.

I like the idea of being in WDW in just a few hours, but I also like the idea of giving the kids an opportunity to see some of our great Country.

 

[DVC Sadie]

Flight prices will also rise, with gas prices... something to keep in mind.

I personally like having my own control.. and only when we fly, do we run late, because of planes taking too long to take off. When we drive, we're in charge of our own time.

When you add several children.. it really is a much better deal to drive. Economically flying does not make sense, unless you get a last minute great deal.. but even that, would have to be fabulous.

Just my two cents.

I agree!

Not only will the base fare increase but the airlines are starting to charge for each piece of luggage (not only the 2nd checked bag, but also the 1st checked bag), so I do think that a few people will re-think the whole drive vs fly aspect.

 

[DiznEeyore]

Flying would be cheaper with the price of gas at $4 per gallon and the need for hotel rooms coming and going. also if you run late you could miss your reservation at WDW if you fly it is easier all around especially if you use magical express to and from WDW.

I just checked flight prices for our family's November trip. There are 3 of us. ANY airline would cost over $1K right now out of Detroit. We can drive, stay in hotels, and eat for waaaaay less than that ($400-$500 less), even if gas hits $4.50/gal.

I'm not crazy about a 19-hour drive, but to save that kind of money (and we always rent a car at WDW -- we tried Disney transportation once ... NEVER AGAIN ... so that's another $150-$200) and have our own vehicle, I'll deal with it.