Anyone else drive straight through what do you do??

[Hockeychic]

We ahve done this before but the I75 route and it was also after working all day....wow where we tired.

Anyways we are thinking of being out the door at 2 or 3AM and driving straight through. We will be going in late Oct so weather should not be a issue. We figure we will arrive around mid night. We are taking the 77/79/95 route from about 40 min north of Toronto. What do you think???

Has anyone ever done it? What is your route???

Thanks

 

[Nagle]

We have done it 6 or 7 times over the last few years. We live in eastern Ontario so we take I81 to I77 to I26 to I95. Sounds like a roundabout way but it was actually our fastest time last year. We figure 21 or so hours, so leaving at 2 or 3 in the morning doesn't work out for me as we would arrive at about midnight. We prefer to leave about 10 AM and get to Daytona/Orlando about 7 or 8 the next morning. I also work shifts so it actually helps if I am coming off nights when we leave. I can sleep in the car during the day and can do more of the driving through the night. We usually stay 1 night off site so we don't feel we have to head right to the parks after the long drive.

John

 

[jtdl]

Weather permitting, we plan to leave about 10 or 11 pm. DH will sleep after work for a few hours. We figure if we stop at about 5 or 6 pm the following day we should be able to get a good night's sleep and have a 4 or 5 hour drive the next day. We're from 3 hours west of Toronto and have a 3 year old and 13 year old. The 3 year old is our reason for wanting to drive through the night.

 

[DisneySpence]

We to have done it but we leave after dinner and drive straight through using I 75 we have 2 drivers so I sleep for a couple hours after driving the night time leg then the wife takes over for a daytime stint she doesn't like to drive at night.

 

[PoohBWV]

We've done this twice. The first time we left at noon - when the kids got out of school. This was bad though because we got to Orlando at 10:00 a.m. and weren't able to get into room until 3:00, then because the kids had slept all night we ended up going to the MK for the evening. We were exhausted!

The second time we had our kids stay up (they were 14 & 15) until 1:00 a.m.They got us up then and we were on the road by 1:30. We drove until Ocala the next night and stopped. I think it was about 9:30 when we got there. This seemed to work much better as we made better time through the night and I drove from about 8:00 a.m. to noon which gave dh a break.

 

[Disneyof3]

We live west of Toronto and take the I75 route down the whole way. We leave Friday 6pm at night just after supper and we drive all the way through. We get to Kissimee about 6:00 pm Saturday the next night and then we eat supper and crash for the night. We wake up and are only a 5 minute drive to the resort. We have 2 drivers and we do a 8 hr shift change then 4 hrs rotating after that. The kids sleep all night and it helps with the distance and the time in the van. Were doing the same this time again and can't wait. Doing that we miss the rush hour traffic in Cincinnati and we get lighter traffic in Atlanta in the downtown core. We hit no heavy traffic last year at all. We stopped last year about 7 times including gas, breakfast and lunch and pee breaks. We stopped at a McD restaurant on the way down and it had a playland in it to let the kids run off some steam. MOST EXCELLENT IDEA I HAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[cottontail]

Hi:

We drove straight thru a couple of years ago, but not going down coming home.

This was one driver my husband who seems to not mind doing all the driving.

We had left disney and stayed one night at ormond beach so we could have the afternoon/evening and do the beach thing. We decided to leave between 4.30 and 5.00 a.m. the next morning. It ended up at 4.50 a.m. that we left.

We had planned to stop in pennsylvania somewhere, but by the time we arrived in penn. hubby felt okay we figured we were about 5 or 6 hrs from home (hamilton) so we kept going.

We arrived home at ll.50 p.m. so it took us 19 hours from ormond beach, doing the 95/26/77/79 route home thru buffalo. It rained most of the way home.

I knew at midnight that we could get into our own beds, but I think if we were to arrive in florida after midnight or early a.m., I would wonder if we could get a nice motel or not. So how does that work, cause most places we stay at say after 3 p.m.

Going down we always schedule stopping one night, so that we are not starting our holiday exhausted. We try to do the longest drive the first day.

Deb.

 

[striker3636]

In the past we have driven 2 12 hour days with a stopover at Sweetwater, Tn. This trip we have kids now, so we are planning on leaving at 8:00pm (bedtime) so that in theory the kids will sleep all night and we will get to our planned stop in Byron, Ga the next day early afternoon (17 1/2 hrs). We plan to stop for the day, take it easy at the pool etc, and then head out with only 6 hours to go on day 2. We are setting up a camper at Fort Wilderness, so we want to arrive early to set up and check out the campground. We don't know yet how we will manage the trip back, since we obviously can't pack up in the dark! Maybe we will tough out driving straight through!

 

[bgula]

When we do the straight-thru drive, we do the 79-77-95 route as it's the fastest. Did it this past Christmas. My advice is leave about 1am to minimize the amount of night driving. This is the time when the eyes just want to close. DW and I switch every 3 - 6 hours depending on how we feel. Only problem we had was we left a little later than we wanted and hit the traffic at the 77-95 juncture in the afternoon which slowed us down appreciably. I think we took the average 20 hours or maybe a little more to go down, but on the way back, no traffic and did it in 18 1/2 hours!

 

[Hockeychic]

Thanks, where did you hit the traffic. We were thinking of leaving at 2AM from the Newmarket area, just north of Toronto crossing at Fort Erie and heading 77/79/95 from there to Ormond Beach for the night. We were hoping to be in before midnight??? What do you think???

 

[cottontail]

Hi Hockeychic:

We took 19 hours from Ormond Beach to Hamilton. We left around 5 a.m. to go home arrived around midnight.

Deb.

 

[DisneySpence]

Our best drive from home to Disney is 18 hours flat.

 

[Hockeychic]

Disneyspence.

Where is that from and to???

 

[bgula]

Hockeychic,

By the looks of it, Ormond beach is about 1 1/2 hours away from Disney, so an average drive should be around 20 hours - shorter if you push it. So, you should make it by your schedule.

As I said, we hit major traffic where the 77 & 95 meet. This could have been a one-day problem, but it seemed like it was rush-hour traffic. Can't remember exactly what time it was, but I think it was later in the afternoon.

 

[Hockeychic]

Thank you, I must have missed the 77/95 when I first read your post....
thanks for your help.

 

[nepean]

We just arrived home at 10:45 this morning after driving straight home. We left the Comfort Suites Maingate East yesterday morning at 8:50 and hit major traffic snarls on 4 across Orlando. We actually started moving well at about 9:40. My husband drove to Exit 29 in Georgia by 12:30. I then drove from 1:15 to 6:00 p.m. and arrived at Selma N.C. (Where the North Carolina Mall is and JR's Tobacco). Husband then drove to 9:40 and arrived at Fredericksburg VA on I95. I then drove until 5:40 a.m. this morning and arrived in Cortland NY. Husband drove to US border and I drove through Customs and the last 45 minutes to Ottawa. I am wiped but glad that we missed the snow that started here about 15 minutes after we arrived home. We have done both ways non stop and both ways with one stop. It all depends on our energy level and desire. Last night I followed three transports with Tennessee plates and made really good time. When they slowed down so did I. I usually seen a cop shortly after. I stopped at 3:00a.m. and had a snack out of the cooler.

Tonight I sleep well.

Nepean