Best Driving plan from MD??

[HoltDisney07]

So which of the following would you do? We are leaving from just north of Baltimore on a Friday and would like to avoid DC rush hour (thus the plans below). Obviously doing I-95 to I-4. We have 3 kids ages 3,5,8. DH and I are not concerned with the long drive on us really. I am more worried about the kids in the car for a long time and if we do drive straight through the night how we are going to handle 3 excited kids on that Saturday afternoon with little to no sleep. No plans for the parks until Sunday. Any feedback from other parents in our situation would be great!

Option 1
Thursday - fully pack our van

Friday - 3-4am leave
8am stop for breakfast
Do Drive thru for lunch and have a few stretches & bio breaks
5-6pm stop for dinner & stay overnight

Saturday 8am drive the rest of the way to Disney
12-1pm arrive in Disney


Option 2
Thursday - fully pack the van

Friday -9am leave
Do Drive thru for lunch and have a few stretches & bio breaks
5-6pm stop for dinner
10pm stop for the night


Saturday
8am drive the rest of the way to Disney
12-1pm arrive in Disney

Option 3
Friday - 6pm leave drive straight through

Saturday
8am stop for breakfast and get drive thru for lunch
2-3pm arrive in Disney


EDIT: my 5-6pm dinner time is just about the time we would stop, not saying we would only stop an hour for dinner.

 

[LadyBeBop]

This is just me, but assuming you have no problem getting up at 3-4 in the morning, I'd do option 1. That way, your kids will sleep for a few hours before breakfast. And once you arrive at your motel Friday night, you'll have a few hours to swim. Excited children always love a few hours of swimming. I'd probably have a pizza delivered to poolside and have dinner by the pool.

However, will that scenerio allow you to escape Richmond rush hour traffic?

 

[ssawka]

Absolutely Option 1 !

Option 2 would put you at the DC beltway @ 9:30 AM. Though not the peak of rush hour, you may still hit considerable traffic!

Option 3, similar to Option 2, would put you in the midst of DC evening traffic. Also, I-95 on Friday evenings in the Summer can get bad with everyone heading to the Beach!

 

[crzy4dsny]

I would leave at 2:00am. This will give you 5 or 6 hours of sleep time for the kids. You should be ok around Richmond, but take the bypass. Stop for the night in kingsland GA if you don't want to drive straight thru. Kingsland is right on the GA FL border, I'm guessing 10 to 13 hours of driving. The next day all you have is a 2.5 hour drive to Disney.

 

[HoltDisney07]

This is just me, but assuming you have no problem getting up at 3-4 in the morning, I'd do option 1. That way, your kids will sleep for a few hours before breakfast. And once you arrive at your motel Friday night, you'll have a few hours to swim. Excited children always love a few hours of swimming. I'd probably have a pizza delivered to poolside and have dinner by the pool.

However, will that scenerio allow you to escape Richmond rush hour traffic?

I like the idea of stopping somewhere that has a pool. This will give the kids a somewhat short term thing to look forward to. DH is going to take the first shift of driving and is planning on going to bed super early. He has no problem sleeping just about anywhere and at anytime. He participates in naps all the time in our comfy chair. Getting up shouldn't be a problem.

Absolutely Option 1 !

Option 2 would put you at the DC beltway @ 9:30 AM. Though not the peak of rush hour, you may still hit considerable traffic!

Option 3, similar to Option 2, would put you in the midst of DC evening traffic. Also, I-95 on Friday evenings in the Summer can get bad with everyone heading to the Beach!

What times are DC rush hours? I was basing this on 7am-10am and like 3-7/7:30. We are like 45mins to an hour north of DC in no traffic. We don't drive to DC a lot, I do know we could head west on the beltway, which is longer but less crowded or maybe just leave slightly later Friday night, but who wants to leave later for DW!

I would leave at 2:00am. This will give you 5 or 6 hours of sleep time for the kids. You should be ok around Richmond, but take the bypass. Stop for the night in kingsland GA if you don't want to drive straight thru. Kingsland is right on the GA FL border, I'm guessing 10 to 13 hours of driving. The next day all you have is a 2.5 hour drive to Disney.

I really like the 2.5 hours to DW when we wake up idea. We asked the kids what they thought we should do (stressing how long of a trip this will be and the benefits And negatives to both) and even with their 5 & 8 year old reasoning skills they picked option 1 too).




Option 1 seems the most likely, just adds $100-$150 onto our budget. We are definitely doing option 3 on the way back though. :0) No one wants to drag their heels coming home and we'd rather spend as much time in Disney as we can.

Thanks everyone!

 

[vicki_c]

Friday night driving south is a nightmare - we've done that a lot - don't do it if you can avoid it (unfortunately, due to work & school schedules, we're kind of locked in to leaving Friday afternoons now or early Saturday morning).

We take 301 S from around Annapolis to avoid the beltway - you might consider that.

Option #1 is really the only reasonable choice to avoid most of the traffic. When you arrive, your room should be ready within a few hours at the most - you can check out the resort, hit the pool, have a nice dinner and get to bed early for the next day.

 

[ssawka]

What times are DC rush hours? I was basing this on 7am-10am and like 3-7/7:30. We are like 45mins to an hour north of DC in no traffic. We don't drive to DC a lot, I do know we could head west on the beltway, which is longer but less crowded or maybe just leave slightly later Friday night, but who wants to leave later for DW!

Your times are probably pretty accurate, I was estimating that you were in Baltimore and that it would take about 30-45 minutes to reach the DC Beltway. Friday afternoon traffic, especially in the Summer, can be quite heavy as people leave town.

No matter what direction you go in, you are bound to hit traffic on the Beltway (unless it is before 6 am). My advice would be to go East if you are passing through DC Friday morning and West if you are passing through Friday afternoon. The reason is that there is quite a bit of construction going on around Tyson's Corner, but on Friday afternoon you will hit traffic around U.S. 50 with people heading to Ocean City. IMO, the earlier you can leave Friday morning the better!

 

[HoltDisney07]

Friday night driving south is a nightmare - we've done that a lot - don't do it if you can avoid it (unfortunately, due to work & school schedules, we're kind of locked in to leaving Friday afternoons now or early Saturday morning).

We take 301 S from around Annapolis to avoid the beltway - you might consider that.

Option #1 is really the only reasonable choice to avoid most of the traffic. When you arrive, your room should be ready within a few hours at the most - you can check out the resort, hit the pool, have a nice dinner and get to bed early for the next day.

Thanks! Yeah I think we should try to avoid Friday night if at all possible. I will take a look at driving 301 just in case we do leave later in the day/evening on Friday.

Your times are probably pretty accurate, I was estimating that you were in Baltimore and that it would take about 30-45 minutes to reach the DC Beltway. Friday afternoon traffic, especially in the Summer, can be quite heavy as people leave town.

No matter what direction you go in, you are bound to hit traffic on the Beltway (unless it is before 6 am). My advice would be to go East if you are passing through DC Friday morning and West if you are passing through Friday afternoon. The reason is that there is quite a bit of construction going on around Tyson's Corner, but on Friday afternoon you will hit traffic around U.S. 50 with people heading to Ocean City. IMO, the earlier you can leave Friday morning the better!

Thank you! This info helps a lot with figuring out DC traffic.

 

[GrnMtnMan]

Any particular reason why you are not pushing all the way through to WDW? If you are actually on the road at 4 AM, you probably could make it there by 7 or 8 PM.

 

[HoltDisney07]

Any particular reason why you are not pushing all the way through to WDW? If you are actually on the road at 4 AM, you probably could make it there by 7 or 8 PM.

I was thinking about this option too. I guess we could just get a hotel near Disney for Friday night. May bring this up to my DH, but he isn't so much of a Disney fanatic as me and our kids our. He would probably just say, then lets just leave Saturday morning really early.

 

[GrnMtnMan]

He would probably just say, then lets just leave Saturday morning really early.

I have the come back for that: beach rentals. Outer-Banks NC and coastal Georgia/South Carolina beach rentals are almost exclusively Saturday to Saturday rentals. So traffic can be pretty heavy on Saturdays as one crew of renters arrives and the other leaves.

My in-laws live on Hilton Head....the exit for which is basically at the Georgia-South Carolina border off I-95. Leaving Saturday at 4 AM you'd be hitting traffic related to Hilton Head and Tybee rentals during prime changeover time.

I do the drive from DC to Hilton Head at least once a year (with wife and 2 kids, both of whom are under 5), and we do our trips on Fridays (southbound) and Monday (northbound) to avoid this traffic....Sunday traffic is crazy from Richmond to DC with folks returning from the VA Beach area.

I've actually done the drive from WDW to DC before...took around 14 hours. Left Orlando around 6 and arrived DC around 8. The nice thing was that even though were were on the road for quite a bit, it was summer so it was all daytime driving.

 

[vicki_c]

Last year, we left MD at about 5:30 AM on a Saturday and hit SO much traffic before we even got to the VA border - it was crazy. But that was the week before Easter, so I'm sure that was a factor. We thought it would be better than leaving Friday night and spending the night in SC, but at least last year, it was not.

I swear there seems to be no good time to leave heading south if you have to do it Friday after lunch or Saturday!

 

[mrsltg]

I would go with option one and just hold off on making a hotel reservation. We live in NoVa (about 90 minutes south of Baltimore) and have driven to WDW twice. Our actual drive time was 12 hours both times. If you figure on being on the road at 3AM, you could easily be on Disney property (or close enough) by 5-6 that evening. Last time, we drove on Thanksgiving day, and when we were about 30 minutes outside of WDW I told my DH I was sad not to be staying on WDW property that night. We paid holiday rack rate for the Pop, but I DID NOT CARE! I was so happy to be on Disney property that it was worth every single penny!!! Oh, and our kids were about the same ages as yours on that trip. It really was no big deal.

Good luck on your drive!

 

[Betty Rohrer]

i would do the stop and sleep the night but if summer be prepared to miss swimming because of storms. had some upset boys when storms came thru and we could not swim as planned.