Drive or Fly?

[JillRB85]

My husband and I are going to Disney in February! EEEK!!!!! We are trying to decide whether to drive or fly. Personally I want to fly. Simply because I just want to get there and be done with it. I love flying and hate car trips He wants to save all the money he can, on the other hand. It's a 12 hour drive for us from North Carolina. The car gets about 25 MPG highway and for some reason the hubs insists on midgrade gas instead of the cheapest. We could potentially make the drive in one day without having to stop over, but we would want to extend our Disney resort reservation ( and because we dont have a choice our Dining Plan as well) by one night. That way our first "there" day ( Super Bowl Sunday, aren't I the worst wife ever to have planned it that way? ) can be free for Downtown Disney and Super Bowl watching and relaxing before hitting the parks. A flight right now is running about $508 for a non-stop from Raleigh to Orlando on South West which is the cheapest I can find at the moment. However, we are not prepared to book a flight financially quite yet. Any advice?

 

[sam_gordon]

My husband and I are going to Disney in February! EEEK!!!!! We are trying to decide whether to drive or fly. Personally I want to fly. Simply because I just want to get there and be done with it. I love flying and hate car trips He wants to save all the money he can, on the other hand. It's a 12 hour drive for us from North Carolina. The car gets about 25 MPG highway and for some reason the hubs insists on midgrade gas instead of the cheapest. We could potentially make the drive in one day without having to stop over, but we would want to extend our Disney resort reservation ( and because we dont have a choice our Dining Plan as well) by one night. That way our first "there" day ( Super Bowl Sunday, aren't I the worst wife ever to have planned it that way? ) can be free for Downtown Disney and Super Bowl watching and relaxing before hitting the parks. A flight right now is running about $508 for a non-stop from Raleigh to Orlando on South West which is the cheapest I can find at the moment. However, we are not prepared to book a flight financially quite yet. Any advice?

It's a decision that comes down to a family by family basis. There is no "right" answer. Here's a nice long thread that discusses a lot of the pros & cons of each side...

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3140785

Is the $508 per person? What if you connect? Do you save money that way? Are you travelling with kids? How do they handle trips? Would you need a car on site if you flew?

Weather in February could affect flights as well as driving for us. I would not elect to drive in Feb.

Personally, assuming just a 12 hour trip, I would be VERY tempted to drive (and I'll usually pick 'fly'). ESPECIALLY if tickets were $500pp.

 

[JillRB85]

It would be $508 total, it works out to something like 254 for each of us. It would be a non-stop flight. Straight from NC to Orlando. Surprisingly, flights with connections are higher than the non-stop flight. We are not traveling with kids, just my husband and I. From NC to FL in February there isn't much change of winter weather. We wouldn't need a car. With the Magic Express and shuttles to the park, that would take care of all of our needs.

 

[sam_gordon]

It would be $508 total, it works out to something like 254 for each of us. It would be a non-stop flight. Straight from NC to Orlando. Surprisingly, flights with connections are higher than the non-stop flight. We are not traveling with kids, just my husband and I. From NC to FL in February there isn't much change of winter weather. We wouldn't need a car. With the Magic Express and shuttles to the park, that would take care of all of our needs.

OK. It looks like ~2 hour flight. I assume you'd get to the airport two hours before your flight, then you have ~90 minutes from when you land to get to your resort (maybe a little shorter). I also assume a 30 minute drive from home to the airport to round everything up. So door to door, you're looking at ~6 hours one way to fly vs. 12 hours to drive.

Right in the grey area for me. It would depend on how much savings. Google maps has driving from Raleigh to Disney as 8 1/2 hours. This is pushing me toward "drive" unless my time at Disney would be really limited.

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

We have done both from Richmond, Va. To figure out which way to go I always ask myself these questions:

- Is it a short or long trip? I can afford 1.5 travel days each way on a 10 day to week long trip. I can't use up 1.5 travel days each way on a long weekend trip.

- How many of us are traveling? When DD and I went for a long weekend we flew. It costs us about $400 to drive (food, gas 4 times, 2 nights in an I95 hotel b/c I can't drive 12 hours straight) so flying was cheaper (and quicker) at $160 per person. Last month, flights were about $230 per person, there were 3 of us and we could spend 10 days away so we drove.

- How much stuff do we need to bring? Our first family WDW trip we were in Florida for 2 weeks. The first week was for DD's Southeast Regional softball tournament. We had to transport all my daughter's sports gear plus our family of 4. It was much cheaper to drive that time.

 

[ArmyVet80]

We always fly. We are from Indianapolis, IN though and one way is 981 miles from our driveway to the front gate at POFQ. We drove down one time and my wife made me stop 25 times for bathroom breaks. She has a small bladder. Ever since we have flown. It's a 2 hour 12 minute flight on average compared to a 16+ hour drive. We actually save 2 full days by flying down.

Our typical trip is: A) 1 hour 15 minutes before our flight we arrive at the airport. We always get the earliest flight out of Indy so the airport is rarely crowded and security is a breeze. We have a friend drop us off at the airport which is 20 minutes away.
B) We only take what fits in carry on bags so we don't have to hassle with checked luggage. It's cheaper to wash clothes once while you are at the resort ($6 to wash and dry everything) than to pay the $25-$50 checked baggage fee. That means the Magical Express only takes about an hour from the time we get off the plane to the time we are on the bus headed to the resort.
C) A flight from Indianapolis to MCO is between 2 hour and 2 hours and 12 minutes from gate departure to gate arrival. Not too bad compared to the drive.

Our door to door time is: 1:35 + 1:00 = 2:35 + 2:12 = 4:47. So if you add everything up for our trip it's 4 hours and 47 minutes to fly. Round trip this comes out to 9 hours 44 minutes. Just over half of a one way drive for us.

 

[bc133]

We always fly. We are from Indianapolis, IN though and one way is 981 miles from our driveway to the front gate at POFQ. We drove down one time and my wife made me stop 25 times for bathroom breaks. She has a small bladder. Ever since we have flown. It's a 2 hour 12 minute flight on average compared to a 16+ hour drive. We actually save 2 full days by flying down.

Our typical trip is: A) 1 hour 15 minutes before our flight we arrive at the airport. We always get the earliest flight out of Indy so the airport is rarely crowded and security is a breeze. We have a friend drop us off at the airport which is 20 minutes away.
B) We only take what fits in carry on bags so we don't have to hassle with checked luggage. It's cheaper to wash clothes once while you are at the resort ($6 to wash and dry everything) than to pay the $25-$50 checked baggage fee. That means the Magical Express only takes about an hour from the time we get off the plane to the time we are on the bus headed to the resort.
C) A flight from Indianapolis to MCO is between 2 hour and 2 hours and 12 minutes from gate departure to gate arrival. Not too bad compared to the drive.

Our door to door time is: 1:35 + 1:00 = 2:35 + 2:12 = 4:47. So if you add everything up for our trip it's 4 hours and 47 minutes to fly. Round trip this comes out to 9 hours 44 minutes. Just over half of a one way drive for us.

I'm from evansville and was just wondering who you normally fly through. I am not a fan of the drive and would love to fly on our next trip. TIA

 

[ktate82]

I'm from evansville and was just wondering who you normally fly through. I am not a fan of the drive and would love to fly on our next trip. TIA

We always fly. We are from Indianapolis, IN though and one way is 981 miles from our driveway to the front gate at POFQ. We drove down one time and my wife made me stop 25 times for bathroom breaks. She has a small bladder. Ever since we have flown. It's a 2 hour 12 minute flight on average compared to a 16+ hour drive. We actually save 2 full days by flying down.

Our typical trip is: A) 1 hour 15 minutes before our flight we arrive at the airport. We always get the earliest flight out of Indy so the airport is rarely crowded and security is a breeze. We have a friend drop us off at the airport which is 20 minutes away.
B) We only take what fits in carry on bags so we don't have to hassle with checked luggage. It's cheaper to wash clothes once while you are at the resort ($6 to wash and dry everything) than to pay the $25-$50 checked baggage fee. That means the Magical Express only takes about an hour from the time we get off the plane to the time we are on the bus headed to the resort.
C) A flight from Indianapolis to MCO is between 2 hour and 2 hours and 12 minutes from gate departure to gate arrival. Not too bad compared to the drive.

Our door to door time is: 1:35 + 1:00 = 2:35 + 2:12 = 4:47. So if you add everything up for our trip it's 4 hours and 47 minutes to fly. Round trip this comes out to 9 hours 44 minutes. Just over half of a one way drive for us.

We are between both of you! We are in Washington, IN. Just moved over from IL. We used to fly out of STL or IND (depending on price), but will be flying out of IND mostly. We use Southwest. Every other time we have used someone else (United, U.S. airways, etc), they have changed our flight times so much we had to change flights and plans.