Drive or fly with kids?

[PHXscuba]

I don't know how much cost vs. comfort plays into your decision (I know there have been non-DL trips when we have paid extra to fly rather than drive 12 hours with 4 kids!) but there are some really cheap flights right now. Unfortunately, rental cars are very pricy these days.

Depending on how long you have before you leave, I'd price out rental cars, flights, and baggage fees for a bit, then set yourself a total price limit and see if you can meet that. If not, then drive.

If it were me (I'm a 7-hour drive from DLR including bathroom, gas, and food stops), I'd prefer to drive. Fighting all that stuff on a plane to save a couple hours would stress me out. I think you'd save enough money driving that you could use some of it make more of the time you do have at Disneyland.

PHXscuba

 

[NVDisMom]

I vote drive too! We live about the same distance away. We flew once and found it saved us relatively little time b/c of the early arrival at the airort for security and cost us a TON more. We tend to leave in the middle of the night and let the kids sleep most of the way. DH drives until dawn and I take the stop and go from Valencia south to Anaheim. We both catch a little shut eye that way and we both get to drive when we are at our best. I don't like driving at night and he has zero patience for stop and go on very little sleep. LOL. We pack the portable DVD player for the last leg of the trip in the morning, change in Mimi's parking lot, get breakfast there and hit the parks! The drive is soon a forgotten ordeal and you haven't lost a full day to driving. For the trip home, we leave the parks at about two in the afternoon (just as it starts to get really busy), have dinner in Valencia and head back. Because we're home around 1 am, we get a pretty full nights sleep. And the kids usually sleep most of the way home; they're still warn out from our go, go, go trip at DL!

 

[joeysmommy]

We're planning a trip to DL next spring with our two kids, who will be 4.5 and 18 months. We live 8 hours away and haven't decided if we're going to fly or drive.

Flying has the advantage of being faster, of course, but with kids, there is a lot of stuff to bring along - stroller, two carseats, and obviously luggage. Wrangling the kids and the stuff makes it not so appealing a process!

Driving would cut two days off of our vacation, one in each direction, and our car doesn't have a huge trunk so we'd still need to pack light. It would be cheaper than flying, though, and we'd have our own car for site seeing in the area.

What would you suggest?

Hi
I also live in the Bay Area and we usually fly to DL but this year we are driving as we're trying to cut costs.
My friend and her kids (DS9,DD13)are going with us (DS5, DS7).
I have a Honda Odyssey with a DVD player so the drive shouldn't be too bad.
She and I will share the driving time.

As the date approaches I am looking forward to driving versus flying so much more. When flying I have to really plan more regarding packing and being limited as to what I can bring. Also, you can't buy souvenirs that cannot be packed in a suitcase so this time I can buy a big figurine if I want too.Yay!
With flying I always hate shlepping all the stuff and going thru security with little ones who need help putting shoes back on etc. Last year on our way home the flight was cancelled so we had to sit at the airport for 2 hours waiting for the next one with 2 tired kids, grumbling that it would have been faster to drive home.

As someone else mentioned the RT cab rides from the airport add on $100 to your flying expense. I was going to book $49 fares on Southwest but for 3 of us and all the taxes etc it becomes $350. I figure if we drive I'll spend about $125 in gas and the airfare will pay for our hotel room.

My kids are having fun gathering up activities to do in the car, so to them it's going to be an adventure.

Happy driving!