Disney to Tampa

[Helen Holgate]

Hi all

We are going to Disney next summer, yeeey! We fly back out of Tampa on labour day, I had planned to allow 2 hours for the drive, but worried how bad the labour day traffic will be? Coming from the UK I have no idea if roads turn to a standstill or just slow down We will be aiming to get to the airport for about 3pm.

Thanks in advance
Helen

 

[NotUrsula]

Well, with I-4 you never know; it's vastly over-used for the capacity it was built for, and a wreck will always bring it to a crawl. However ...

Labor Day itself is the final day of the holiday weekend, and for most Floridians that is a holiday that they like to spend on the water, as it's the unofficial end of summer. It is likely that eastbound traffic will be much worse than westbound unless there is a complicating factor such as an accident. Also, most of the regional returning traffic is likely to move a bit later in the day, closer to 4 pm or so, as people pack up their beach gear and head back home.

The gotcha part of that particular trip is the first few miles of I-275; the road there curves and was not built to handle the traffic that it gets, so it pretty much always backs up a bit heading into Tampa except in the wee hours. (Though there is a way to bypass it if there is a more-serious-than-normal slowdown, search here for posts about the TPA airport) If your 2 hours is door to door to the car hire dropoff you are probably fine, but if that is your time to the gate, add an hour.

I would recommend that you use the Waze app to monitor I-4/I-275 traffic in real time, and leave a bit earlier if your route is showing patches of red.

 

[Helen Holgate]

Thanks so much, really helpful reply

 

[Disneyhappy]

We flew out of Tampa on the Saturday after July 4th and it took us 1 hour 15 minutes which is about par for the many times we make the trip to Tampa to head south to our condo.