Charlotte NC - WDW!!

[jkjjhuddle]

I think it is about a 10 hour drive.

We will be leaving around 4 in the afternoon. We would like a good stoping point around 10 or 11 that night. Can someone recomend a good place to stop or at least a location. I have no clue where we will be we just want to have an idea of where we should or might be so we can plan.

TIA

 

[downsouth]

I'm about 45 minutes north of you and we're heading down in Feb. Leaving around noon and planning on stopping in Kingsland, GA (Exit 3) off I-95. Per all the online mapping software its right at 6 hours for us. Another 3 1/2 the next day should put us in the world.

It really shouldn't take 10 full hours from charlotte. I've driven straight thru in 9 1/2 from my house.

 

[jkjjhuddle]

wonderful... That is great to know! Thanks for a good point of ref. I will plug that in and see what happens then.

 

[plutolovr]

It shouldn't take you 10 hours. We live in Rock Hill, SC, just south of Charlotte and it takes us 7 hours. If we stop for gas or a bite to eat it takes a little longer.

 

[Robert P]

From the NC/SC line on I-77, it is 532 miles to WDW. From there, it usually takes us less than 8 hours, with one stop (near Savannah, GA) for gas/food/restroom (well, maybe add a second stop for restroom).

 

[duffy]

Google Maps shows it to be about an 8.5 hour drive. If it were me, I'd drive all the way and stay at a cheap place just outside the parks, even if it means arriving after midnight. Then you could get up early, check out and hit the parks right away without having to drive any more!

But that's me.

 

[dis-happy]

I live in South Charlotte and it usually takes us only 7-8 hours when we drive straight through. To make great time you have to leave very early in the morning (less traffic) and/or drive on Sunday (no road construction delays, GA is really bad). Otherwise, a good stopping point for your itenerary would be around Jacksonville. From there it's only 2.5 hours to WDW.

 

[dis-happy]

PS. If you are leaving at 4 pm during the work week, I'd take the 485 around and skip going through Uptown on the 77 (miss the traffic). Once you make it past that point and start heading south the freeways open up (all those wonderful extra lnes in Rock Hill) and you're good to go. Just don't speed too much through the Rock Hill area, there are police writing tickets in that area every day it seems.

 

[iluveeyore]

I just wanted to chime in and say I thought your post was funny in our case - Charlotte, NC is always our 'half-way' stopping point when we drive from just north of Buffalo (live in Ontario 5 min. from border).
So we drive the twelve hours to Charlotte, NC, stay overnight, then drive the nine or less hours it takes us from there. On the way back, we also stop in Charlotte, but mainly to visit our favourite Nascar drivers' garages at Hendricks in Concord, then make the twelve hour drive home.
So, if we actually were lucky enough to live in Charlotte, we would obviously drive straight through to WDW - but that's just us!

 

[jkjjhuddle]

Thanks for all the input.

We are now thinking of taking the boys out of school just a tad early that day. Maybe 1. I have looked at their school schedule and they would not be missing much, plus for them it is "fun Friday" and what could be more fun than driving to WDW. We think we might drive all the way as is suggested. That would be easy enough.If we were able to leave closer to 1 we could do it. ahhh I can't wait!!!!

Funny that your midway point is Charlotte. I was more concerned with our late start but we have driven straight the last time we drove and we plan to drive straight back.

 

[liznboys]

Yay, a Charlotte driving thread! We live southeast of Charlotte, in Union County.

We've lived here almost 2 years and have taken 5 trips to WDW in that time. The longest it's taken us is about 9 hours and the shortest is 7 hrs 55 min to be exact. We were so proud we did it in under 8! That drive was late on a Sunday this past August, we left Disney at 5pm and got home at 12:55am. We only stopped once.

jkjjhuddle, on our trip in Dec. 2008 we pulled our boys out of school a bit early and left here at 1pm. We arrived to our Disney resort at 9:30pm. That worked well. The next day we got up and were at MK for the opening show at 8:45am.

 

[holcomb-mania]

You could even stay in Daytona at the I-4 intersection. We did that 2 yrs ago and the next morning we were walking thru the turnstiles at MGM at 9:05am.

 

[DarthKTrava]

I'm about 45 minutes north of you and we're heading down in Feb. Leaving around noon and planning on stopping in Kingsland, GA (Exit 3) off I-95. Per all the online mapping software its right at 6 hours for us. Another 3 1/2 the next day should put us in the world.

It really shouldn't take 10 full hours from charlotte. I've driven straight thru in 9 1/2 from my house.

And I'm abt an hour north of Charlotte... depending on WHERE in Charlotte I'm headed..... Concord Mills Mall is abt 45 mins away and downtown abt an hour or a tad bit more, depending on traffic.

Can't recall how long it took from near Concord Mills to the World as we'd stopped somewhere in GA late after zombie-ing for awhile down I-95. From the house, it's around 10-10.5 hours there.