Drive 17 hours straight or stop over night?

[Aliceacc]

I'm not sure I would want to be another driver in your vicinity after you've been driving 15 or 16 hours straight. Your reflexes can't possibly be sharp at that point.

I KNOW people do it. But, emergencies aside, I simply don't think it's a good idea.

 

[ireland_nicole]

I think a lot of us who drive through share the driving with another adult. So we are not actually driving 16+ hours straight. Some may, but most posters were clear on that.

 

[PEANUT1]

I'm not sure I would want to be another driver in your vicinity after you've been driving 15 or 16 hours straight. Your reflexes can't possibly be sharp at that point.

I KNOW people do it. But, emergencies aside, I simply don't think it's a good idea.

 

[Chelley00]

I think a lot of us who drive through share the driving with another adult. So we are not actually driving 16+ hours straight. Some may, but most posters were clear on that.

This is why we leave early in the morning instead of driving all night long. I go to bed early the night before we leave so I'm rested and take the first shift driving. The kids go to bed late, and sleep the first few hours of the trip. I usually duck in the back of the van after lunch and nap and DH drives until at least dinner, if not later, depending on how I feel. I like driving more than he, but I don't drive if I'm tired.

 

[taximomfor4]

We're in NE Ohio too (as far north as you can go, ON the lake, hehe). So Hi, neighbor!!

Anyway, we drove straight through. Once, we left in the midmorning and drove straight through. I thought we'd stop more than we did, and we ended up arriving (OOPS!) at 2:30am!! We'd aimed to arrive as the kids woke up, around 7-8am. The kids were 2,5,6,11

The next time, we loaded up the car the day before we left. I went to bed a bit early, and set the alarm for 5am. I woke up at 3 or 3:30am, and couldn't go back to sleep, so we loaded up the kids, in their pj's, grabbed some coffee for the road, and started driving. We were well into West Virginia before they woke up for breakfast! The kids were 3,6,7,12

The 2nd drive seemed safer. The overnight time, as I got into Florida, I was resting my tired, dried-out eyes by stopping to catnap at every SINGLE rest area. Even then, my eyes were killing. So if you do overnight, consider eye drops. Night driving is very tiring on the eyes.

The 1st drive definitely was easier on DH and the kids. They slept for most of it. *(DH falls asleep very easily, and sometimes while driving at night it's happened, so I do ALL the night driving).

For some reason, the drive home seems to go MUCH quicker. Maybe just because we're not anticipating the vacation anymore?

 

[kydisneyfans]

We have driven from Canton, OH 6 times and Lexington, KY 5 times with a child. It is 1,000 miles from Ohio, 865 from here, 15 and 13 hours respectively. We have never stopped overnight heading to the world. We leave in the early morning hours and arrive in Orlando around 4-6 PM. We unpack, grab a Giordano's Pizza, and chill at the pool for the evening. We are refreshed and ready to go the next morning.

We have stopped twice heading back north, once on the way to Canton, and once heading back to Lexington. Both times we said that we felt worse by stopping and wished we had just driven the remaining 6-8 hours to get in our own bed. I drove the entire way home this past October, 13 hours with 4 stops. It is not unusual for me to be in the car that long for work on any given day, so 13 hours is nothing really.

 

[taximomfor4]

We have driven from Canton, OH 6 times and Lexington, KY 5 times with a child. It is 1,000 miles from Ohio, 865 from here, 15 and 13 hours respectively.

From up here in Lake County, it's 17 hours. I think about 1040 miles.

 

[meghanlea]

we live in louisville ky, last year we left about 9pm and drove through the night. DD who was 4 at the time fell asleep in etown and woke up in nashville. She woke up and saw the city and said, 'yay we're here!" uh not quite . She stayed up the rest of the trip. We stopped for breakfast in GA about 6 am and then she went to sleep till we got right outside of orlando. We arrived at about 11:30am give or take. We did stop a lot at night b/c the dark roads make it a longer drive. This year we are taking out DS2, and he will NOT sleep in a car for anything. I mean he stayed awake on a 4 hr drive. So we are going to head down and get a hotel in GA sleep and get up the next day and finsih. I don't do well driving at night, so DH had to do all but 1 hr of the driving and it made it hard on him. We feel this would be best for us, this time.

 

[CyndiLooWho]

We have driven from Canton, OH 6 times and Lexington, KY 5 times with a child. It is 1,000 miles from Ohio, 865 from here, 15 and 13 hours respectively. We have never stopped overnight heading to the world. We leave in the early morning hours and arrive in Orlando around 4-6 PM. We unpack, grab a Giordano's Pizza, and chill at the pool for the evening. We are refreshed and ready to go the next morning.

We have stopped twice heading back north, once on the way to Canton, and once heading back to Lexington. Both times we said that we felt worse by stopping and wished we had just driven the remaining 6-8 hours to get in our own bed. I drove the entire way home this past October, 13 hours with 4 stops. It is not unusual for me to be in the car that long for work on any given day, so 13 hours is nothing really.

That is really good to know. We will be driving in from Richmond, 1/2 hr closer down I-75 in June. I was thinking dh would need to take a half day off so we could leave Fri aft and stop overnight (we can check into our condo at lunchtime). I am ok for doing all the driving in one day to save the expense of a hotel Fri night.


As for driving overnight, we've done it when the kids were really small, and it's ok, but not really ideal. Dh likes to leave for the beach (14 hrs from here) mid-afternoon and drive until 1-2am, stop and sleep until 9am, then be able to arrive at lunchtime. As long as the kids have dvds in the car and we stop every 3 hrs, this works pretty well and we all are fairly well rested the day we arrive.

 

[mookie]

I think a lot of us who drive through share the driving with another adult. So we are not actually driving 16+ hours straight. Some may, but most posters were clear on that.

The way I look at it is this...most times when we fly, we take the earliest flight out. This means usually a 6-7am flight, so we are up at 3:30 or so to get to the airport anyway. Many times, that, coupled with the flight, coupled with getting out of ORD, then getting to your hotel can often take 9 hours just from the time you get up at home to leave til you get to the final destination. We have done this many times and never been tired....so driving the same amount of time, plus a little more, shouldn't take it's toll that much. We are not overnight drivers for this reason....I don't want to get too tired. But driving most of the route during the day seems like a "more awake" option...and then you should be able to drive for longer.

 

[christymarie]

We're going this weekend. We live in the Chicago suburbs so we're planning on everyone going to bed at 7pm and sleeping until midnight. We're going to have the car completely loaded and just get in and go. We're attempting to drive to just south of Atlanta and stop for the day (around 2-3pm). We can get the kids some swimming time in the pool and have a nice dinner and then an early bed. We get up the next morning and have only a 5-6 hour drive the next day, much easier.

We know the kids travel better at night and the traffic is soooo much better. We would drive all night straight through but then we are totally tired and the kids are ready to go all day. This way we get some sleep too.


Christy

 

[mookie]

We're going this weekend. We live in the Chicago suburbs so we're planning on everyone going to bed at 7pm and sleeping until midnight. We're going to have the car completely loaded and just get in and go. We're attempting to drive to just south of Atlanta and stop for the day (around 2-3pm). We can get the kids some swimming time in the pool and have a nice dinner and then an early bed. We get up the next morning and have only a 5-6 hour drive the next day, much easier.

We know the kids travel better at night and the traffic is soooo much better. We would drive all night straight through but then we are totally tired and the kids are ready to go all day. This way we get some sleep too.


Christy

hey Christy, where are you stopping south of Atlanta? We are shooting for Macon...the courtyard. not sure when you are getting back, but if you are home before May 1st when we leave, let us know how it goes! Good luck!

 

[3boymthr]

PLAN TO STOP STOP STOP.

DH and I have done a LOT of long distance driving (over 100 days of trips at 400 miles plus). Most with our kids. 17 hours in 1 day is doable, but you will be exhausted and while the kids might sleep they will be cranky. Also, despite what Mapquest may say for time we always allow 8 hours for every 400 miles of non-city highway driving with potty and gas breaks. Road Construction, accidents, Cities with Rush Hour and Moutains can add hours to your time. Can I tell you about time we got stuck behind an RV in the appalachians in PA for 35 miles with highway down to one lane that whole way due to road construction - can you say double planned the time?

Also unless you plan to stop by 5 PM your first day I'd also recommend you book the hotel before you leave - you never know when you're going to run into a convention or whatever. We didn't do this one time and really regretted it (NASCAR event). We started looking for a hotel at about 8PM and we'd been on the road for 14 hours already. There were no hotels available for over 100 miles. Boy, were we exhausted when we finally stopped at about 11PM.

 

[taximomfor4]

PLAN TO STOP STOP STOP.

DH and I have done a LOT of long distance driving (over 100 days of trips at 400 miles plus). Most with our kids. 17 hours in 1 day is doable, but you will be exhausted and while the kids might sleep they will be cranky. Also, despite what Mapquest may say for time we always allow 8 hours for every 400 miles of non-city highway driving with potty and gas breaks. Road Construction, accidents, Cities with Rush Hour and Moutains can add hours to your time. Can I tell you about time we got stuck behind an RV in the appalachians in PA for 35 miles with highway down to one lane that whole way due to road construction - can you say double planned the time?

Also unless you plan to stop by 5 PM your first day I'd also recommend you book the hotel before you leave - you never know when you're going to run into a convention or whatever. We didn't do this one time and really regretted it (NASCAR event). We started looking for a hotel at about 8PM and we'd been on the road for 14 hours already. There were no hotels available for over 100 miles. Boy, were we exhausted when we finally stopped at about 11PM.

Hehe, our first time driving was the opposite. We beat the mapquest time by a little bit, but only stopped 2x. We'd planned on stopping a few more! As in my pp, we accidentally arrived at 2 30 am. THAT was a pain. We had a lot of time to kill, but ended up having a wonderful day at EPCOT. I do think stopping for the night somewhere is safer, but we prefer not to get into the car for hours 2 days in a row.

 

[wide receiver]

Hehe, our first time driving was the opposite. We beat the mapquest time by a little bit, but only stopped 2x. We'd planned on stopping a few more! As in my pp, we accidentally arrived at 2 30 am.

I agree with Taxi mom we live in SE Michigan and our time was a bit less than what map quest stated. Last time we arrived in Orlando right around 18 hours, with a stop for the night in Southern GA. Getting in the car the next day isn't a problem with our children, but they are pretty easy going kiddos. DD was 5, and DS was 11 last time we drove.

 

[Debbie7452]

I think there's a big differance between 12 hours in the car and 17, at least for me! Those last hours are just HARD. We drove twice to Disney from Houston and our drive is about 17 hours. Once we drove straight through(over night). We survived but it was painful. Yes, the kids slept a lot, but it wasn't really "comfortable" good sleep. Our whole vacation that time was not great. I think we started out on the wrong footing as a family.

The second trip we planned a fun stop in Destin, FL and enjoyed the beach there that evening (during a tropical storm, LOL!). We stayed in a roomy suite type place with a free cocktail evening reception and a great hot breakfast buffet. The next day we left refreshed, full, and happy and continued on our way to Disney. That entire trip was FANTASTIC!

If you can sacrifice the extra time to split up your traveling, I really believe it makes ALL the difference. We still talk about that visit to the beach during the storm...we were the only idiots out there trying to swim. I have a terrific picture of everybody posing on the beach with the sky in the background, purple and black looking(don't flame me, we were crazy, I know). Remember to try to enjoy the journey as well as the Disney part of your vacation.

 

[wide receiver]

Remember to try to enjoy the journey as well as the Disney part of your vacation.[/QUOTE]

Yes Yes Yes I agree Debbie! We like to drive and on the way home stop and see places we haven't been (and might not have unless we were driving to/from WDW). Last trip we stopped in Atlanta and took the children to the aquarium, and also stopped at the Biltmore in NC.

I like an earlier post that said they play hide and seek and jump rope at their stops along the way. My children almost fell over when I read that to them. I think they would like to hitch a ride with that family next time!

 

[3boymthr]

Hehe, our first time driving was the opposite. We beat the mapquest time by a little bit, but only stopped 2x. We'd planned on stopping a few more! As in my pp, we accidentally arrived at 2 30 am. THAT was a pain. We had a lot of time to kill, but ended up having a wonderful day at EPCOT. I do think stopping for the night somewhere is safer, but we prefer not to get into the car for hours 2 days in a row.

We have beaten the Mapquest time, but usually when we're traveling at night so we don't take too many breaks. That's why I said with gas and potty breaks. During the day we have to stop every couple hours just because we have a child who needs frequent potty breaks or we have accidents. Let's face it every stop adds a minimum 1/2 hour to the trip.

We also allow the extra because just about every time we have to drive long distance we have to go thru multiple cities in particular the NYC Metro Area which always adds oodles of time due to traffic and toll slowdowns, even though we always time our trips to avoid rush hour. On our trip to WDW we'll pass thru a minimum of 10 Major Metropolitan areas. Definitely time killers.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I've done it both ways and I drive from right outside Philadelphia (I'm in NJ). We've driven straight through at night and driven straight through during the day. We've also stopped overnight. We stopped overnight for the first time this previous trip and will always stop overnight.

You actually save time on the trip IMO. When we stopped we actually only spent 15 hours driving. That included stops. Driving straight through it was over 17 hours because we had to do way more stops.

This past trip we started at 6:30 pm, drove to Dunn NC and that was about 1 am. Stopped to sleep and back in the car at 8:30 am. Got to WDW at 4:30 pm.

On the way home we had to drive straight through on a Sunday because we had a wedding Saturday night. We got up at 8:30 and got home at 1 am. That was a long, never ending, vicious drive home! We've done the straight through drive before but only with ONE kid and it took about 15 hours but I guess with two it's different. IDK but it was LONG and exhausting!

 

[ellenmiele]

We just did our 6th round trip drive to WDW last week. All our trips up til now we left NJ at 6/7 pm and drove straight thru. Got to resort around 12 noon (except for the year we rented the RV - didn't get to resort until4pm).
Now on this recent trip we decided to split the drive. Left NJ 10 am Fri. (MISTAKE #1 - should have left at least an hour earlier) Sailed thru NJ, DE, MD and DC but hit tons of traffic in northern VA. Wasn't sure how far we'd get so I hadn't made a reservation for the night (MISTAKE #2- but luckily I found a room in a Hampton Inn in Florence SC at around 10 pm and it was their last room). One good thing was that on that night there were bad thunderstorms thru GA and the Carolinas so by stopping we avoided driving thru that!! Next morning left hotel at 8:30 am (MISTAKE #3 - should have left at 6:30). Got to SSR at about 3pm. It was nice to be well-rested when we arrived but I also felt quite exasperated and I'm not sure which is worse - but either way 2 hours sitting around the pool followed by dinner at Planet Hollywood fixed everything. Nonetheless, DH and I swore we'd never do the split drive again. On the way home we left resort at 7:30 pm on Sat nite and drove straight thru w/very reasonable speed and very little traffic and pulled in our driveway at 12:30 on Sunday afternoon. But... we (esp DH who does most of the driving) were tired.

So both ways have their pros and cons. Our kids/preteens are real good in the car - sleep alot and don't complain nor do they need that many potty breaks anymore. And I don't mind being tired when I get home since all that I have to look forward too is piles of laundry anyway but if you arrive in WDW tired I think it takes away from that first day - we usually don't do much the first night when we've driven stright thru but this time it was nice to get out and about that first night and right into the "magic". So next time we might do the split drive down again (even though we swore we would never again) but I'd learn from my mistakes and do it better next time!! Probably will still do striaght thru on the way home.