ATTN: Road Trippers!

[Stitch76]

I agree with the last two posters!!!!
The best thing to keep kids happy during a long trip is sleep. It keeps you happy too. No fussing and fighting, and she touched me, or she's looking from me, coming from the back seat.
We took our 2 DD's to Disney last year. They were 6 and 8. We left at about 7:00 pm, after dinner and baths, and let them watch a DVD. By the time the DVD ended, they had settled down a bit. They fell asleep, and my husband and I took turns driving (12 1/2 hours from KY to Orlando). The oldest one woke up a few times, and asked if we were there yet, and then went right back to sleep. confused3If she was even really awake in the first place, big problem with sleep walking/talking, but that's a whole other thread). We woke them up at the FL state line rest stop, and I had them change from their pjs, to their regular clothes. We stopped for breakfast, and the last hour or so on the road they were so excited with seeing Florida for the first time, they kept themselves occupied by looking for Alligators by the side of the road, and Disney signs.
We plan on going again next year. We will have DD (10), DD (8), and DS (3), we are definitely going with the night driving plan again!!!

 

[DznyDreamz]

For movies, I use DVD Shrink to burn them to .iso. After that, I copy them to the hard drive of the laptop. I use VLC Media Player, http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ to play the .iso. This protects your movies from being ruined.

To extend battery life I do the following:

• Reduce the screen brightness
• Disable/turn off wireless
• Stop all services that do not need to be run.
  • net stop TermService
• Stop process in task manager that do not need to be run
  • taskkill /F /IM iTunesHelper.exe

I put this all into a .bat script for when I travel. Simply run the bat, and it stops all of the services/processes for you. You'd be surprised how much longer your battery will last. The two big ones are the reduction of screen brightness and disabling the wireless connection.

Thanks, battery life isn't an issue because we have a power adapter so I just plug it into a converter and wala, power with no battery drain! I can also charge the DS, iphone, Blackberry, etc.

I just have 1 DD so no one to argue with in the backseat.

We plan to leave at 1am on Saturday and drive to SC, spend the night there, wake up and make the last leg into FL.

A week from today I'll be in the World. Yippee!!!

 

[mousebymarriage]

My kids love the game 20Q (20 questions). It's a small hand held electronic game (smaller than a tennis ball) and you can buy it in target, walmart, Walgreens, Toys R us and Five Below,plus a bunch of other stores. I just saw it yesterday in Five Below and it was $3. We always bring it along on long car rides and my kids crack up when it guesses some of the crazy things they think of. Sometimes my kids play it alone and sometimes I read the questions and everyone takes turns.

 

[DznyDreamz]

My kids love the game 20Q (20 questions). It's a small hand held electronic game (smaller than a tennis ball) and you can buy it in target, walmart, Walgreens, Toys R us and Five Below,plus a bunch of other stores. I just saw it yesterday in Five Below and it was $3. We always bring it along on long car rides and my kids crack up when it guesses some of the crazy things they think of. Sometimes my kids play it alone and sometimes I read the questions and everyone takes turns.

Good call, we have one of those and I'll be sure to pack it!

We have a fun car game called Rubber Neckers. Its basically a scavenger hunt for the car. You all draw 5 cards that have random stuff for different points (bird on a wire, toll booth, the word "explosive") as well as action cards (get someone in the car next to you to make the peace sign). Its about $12.00 and we play that ALL the time. Sometimes we play just to see how many things we can find, sometimes we play by the rules; first person to 100 points wins. I definately recommend it to have for any car ride

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Wow, everyone has some great suggestions. We're driving to Disney World in August and Cannot wait. I've already been thinking of what to do for the ride down. We will have the DVD players, we had those before on a 6 hour trip and they were wonderful. We made another 6 hr trip before without them and what a difference. I definitely suggest DVD players.
There is a lot of cute road games on the Transportation thread, I think it's on top. There is I spy games, bingo, the license plate game. I'm going to be making my kids a little book of all of these car games i'm finding.

I like the idea of the glowsticks for driving at night, all kids love those. I also loved the pipe cleaners idea, my kids will love that.

 

[OrlandoHelp]

We recently drove from NJ to FL with 2 boys (ages 5+6). These were the 2 items that gave us some sanity. I had other items like coloring books, Travel board games, books, etc. But the DVD and Nintendo were the 2 items that gave me some time to sit back and relax.

 

[areno79]

We drove from NH to Disney with my 9 and 11 year old cousins a few years ago. We brought the portable dvd player, but the thing they loved the most was doing Mad Libs. Even DH was able to get in on it while he drove. That kept them occupied for HOURS.

 

[DznyDreamz]

We drove from NH to Disney with my 9 and 11 year old cousins a few years ago. We brought the portable dvd player, but the thing they loved the most was doing Mad Libs. Even DH was able to get in on it while he drove. That kept them occupied for HOURS.

LOL! I love Mad Libs too! I have a few books packed and ready to go!!