Drive or Fly from central NC?

[Mommy of Two]

I would rather fly, with fares about $150 RT. But, my husband wants to drive. We have a minivan and the following are going in additiona to myself, my dh, dd's ages 9 and4 and grandma. Afraid it will be crowded.... I understand it's about 650 miles...

IF we drive, I'm considering stopping somewhere 2-4 hours from Orlando, just so we don't arrive exhausted......

Any suggestions from folks in Raleigh area?

 

[RweTHEREyet]

Hi there Mommy, we are in Raleigh also. We have both driven and flown. We have a trip scheduled for March 1, and we are driving. The distance from our house, Strickland/Six Forks Road area to Mickey's front door is right at 620 miles. We can usually make it in about 9 hours, have made it in less and have taken longer on holiday weekends with lots of traffic on I-95. We usually make 1 stop for gas in the southern Georgia area, just before Florida border and 1 other stop for lunch, unless we have packed lots of snacks in the car.

It is a boring drive, not much to look at, but you at least have the flexibility of packing just what you want. We enjoy having our transportation with us at WDW and not being dependent on Disney's transportation all the time.

By the time you deal with the security at the airport, chaning planes if not a direct flight, arriving in MCO and getting rental car, etc. on that end, the time to drive is not that much longer, especially considering the cost of airfare.

Now if you have frequent flyer miles, etc. and it isn't going to cost much to fly, I would go for that over the drive.

God luck on your decision.

 

[thegales]

We are from upstate SC (Greenville), and always drive. For the ride down, we stop and spend the night in St. Augustine. Without rushing in the morning, we are always at the Disney hotel by 10:00 am.

 

[Kermit]

We're in Greenville, SC, and we also drive. Flying just doesn't make much sense since there aren't any direct flights from our airport. It takes just as long to fly, and we never lose our own luggage when we drive.

We usually just drive straight, but once we stopped because we hit bad traffic in Jacksonville and just got too tired. We had left after work, and it was 2:00 am by the time we stopped. We just pulled over at one of the exits of off I-95 before we got to Daytona. I think the town was called Gold Coast or something. The drive is about 8 hours, and I don't think it's too bad, but I guess it depends on how you feel about long drives.

 

[SamR]

We also live in the Raleigh area, and we usually drive as well. As a matter of fact, we'll be loading up the minivan in just over three weeks and making the drive once again. In our case it will be my wife and myself, along with our 10 and 6 year-old sons, and our three-year old daughter. I consider it to be about a 10-hour drive with average traffic. With three fairly young children, we do tend to make a number of stops for meals, rest areas, etc., and that does slow things down somewhat (turning that 10 hours into about 12). Our last two drives down have been the last two spring breaks, both of which were adjacent to Easter weekends, and the traffic on I-95 was just horrible. At other times of the year it hasn't seemed so bad.

We have driven it straight through on some trips, and on at least a couple we have elected to break it up by spending the night somewhere along the way. For the upcoming trip, we are staying in Jacksonville on the way, which will leave us with a fairly short drive (about 2-and-a-half hours) the next day.

We have also flown, and with Delta having low-fare, direct-flights from RDU, it is tempting to avoid all that time in a car. But as you know, even with low fares, a bunch of tickets add up quickly, and then you have ground transportation costs in Orlando (shuttle, town car, or rental car). So there is a substantial cost savings in the drive (even at current gas prices ), plus you get the flexibility of having a car on site, and a little more freedom from a packing perspective.

In re-reading your post, I'm not sure if you were looking for suggestions on making the fly vs. drive decision, or on where to stay to split up the trip. Most of the above commentary concerned the former. For the latter: Unless you are leaving much past noon, I would think you would probably want to drive at least as far as Brunswick, GA, to get the majority of the drive behind you. If you are leaving in the morning hours, then I would recommend going to the Jacksonville area which should put you less than three hours from WDW. There are a number of hotel choices in the southern part of Jacksonville just off I-95 (for example, in the area of Bay Meadows Rd. or Butler Drive). I have stayed at several hotels in that area...This has the advantage of allowing you to be quickly out of Jacksonville the next morning.

 

[Mommy of Two]

Thanks to all who responded. I was able to book tix via Southwest' s website for $90 rt (plus taxes). So for that price, I was willing to fly..........