Drive to Disney

[cjhentschel]

Has anyone driven to Disney from around the PA area. How much was the car rental and gas?? We are thinking of driving due to the high airfare rates for May 2006. Please let me know. Thanks

Disney .......

 

[disneysteve]

Has anyone driven to Disney from around the PA area. How much was the car rental and gas??

We've driven from Philly/Cherry Hill, NJ area many times and will again in 7 weeks. I can't help with the car rental as we take our own vehicle. The trip is 1035 miles door to door for us. Double that for the return trip and add in about 200-300 miles of driving while there and you've got a total of about 2300 miles. Figure about 23 mpg since it is almost all highway and you'll need 100 gallons. At $3/gallon, that's $300 for gas. If you plan to stop overnite on the road, don't forget to budget your hotel costs. You can easily get a room for $50-75 tops, so another $100-150 brings the total travel cost to about $450 (plus food). Definitely cheaper than flying and renting a car in Florida.

 

[It's A Happy Day]

I am driving from MA in October and found the fuel calculator on : http://www.fuelcostcalculator.com/
very helpful - it has given me an estimate of cost for 1 way and round trip - you punch in make, year, and model car and calculates cost of fuel for your trip. I also added $50.00 to be on the safe side and cover some extra driving - in case of high traffic, getting lost, extra trips to stores, etc.

 

[CherCrazy]

But don't forget...you can't put a value on your TIME!!!

It's a long drive, we've done it several times. To the point where I think we won't do it again. You may save $$, but you are losing two days each way driving. The fastest we ever did the trip was 16 hours non-stop from Orlando.

You seem to be just a party of two going....you can probably find two air tickets for around $450 total, and you really don't need a car rental if you stay at Disney.

If you have a week off from work, you will spend 5 nights in Disney if you drive....7 nights if you fly. I'd rather be in WDW!!

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Check out fares from BWI. I don't know where in PA you are coming from, or howmany are in your group....but check out Southwest's fares. They release their dates fairly late, so fares for MAy won't be out for a while yet. Truly, I think it is too early to get good airfare from anyone for May yet. Even if you have to drive a few hours to get to BWI, it may be well worth it, especially with the way gas prices are these days.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

Check out the AutoTrain. Leave Philly about 9am. Drive to Lorton VA, about 30 miles South of Washington and just off I-95. Must arrive before 3:00. Spend the night on the train and get off in Sanford at aabout 9:00am and one hour drive to WDW. You have your car and a pretty good night sleep on the way.

Return is the same way, leave WDW about 1:00, arrive in Lorton about 9:00am and drive home.

If you will do it one way only I would suggest use the train on the way home as you will probaly be pretty exhausted after driving down and then a week at WDW.

 

[jmminarik]

But don't forget...you can't put a value on your TIME!!!

Exactly why we drive...a full uninterrupted day together...no phones ringing, no TV, no Internet, nothing but books on tape, idjit drivers in the DC metropolitan area and each other. We find when we fly we're still in Big City mode and instead of the natural decompression we get from driving we take a few days to start to unwind.

The Autotrain has it's own thread in the transportation forum. We found it to be 'ok'...the family bedroom beds aren't exactly comfortable for us but it was a nice experience overall. Booking early gives the best prices, but unless you're planning on being there for a long time, the cost vs. flying and renting (or not renting if you like public transportation) is harder to justify.

Good luck,
Joe

 

[HayGan]

... so another $100-150 brings the total travel cost to about $450 (plus food). Definitely cheaper than flying and renting a car in Florida.

We are heading down to Disney from the other end of the state (Pittsburgh) and we were originally going to drive (with our own vehicle.) However, we were able to get $121 rt airfare on USAirways (non-stop) and rent a mid-size SUV for a week for $128 (total!) thru Alamo. We figure that flying will cost us about ~$50 more than driving! If you are planning on renting a car to drive down it could likely be more expensive to drive than fly!

You still have plenty of time so I would continue to keep your eyes open for great airfare rates. Sign up for Southwest's Ding and sign up at the different travel sites (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz) for their low fare finders. There are definately deals to be found for PHL to MCO. Also, if you stay on Disney property you wouldn't have to rent a car at all or you could just rent for a day or 2 thru Alamo and return right on Disney property.

Best advice I can give is just keep your eyes open for those deals! Airfares will likely be much better the closer you get to your trip. You can always drive if you don't find a deal!

 

[JobeeC]

we drive from each trip from NY. it's not that bad for me...hubby drives the most & i sleep! (he's a faster driver. i guess i'm too slow!) the last trip the gas cost around $350. it really does depend on how much extra time you want to allow yourself. the auto train sounds nice, but it is REALLY expensive.
weigh all your options but remember......you'll always have interesting stories about road trips!!!!!!!!!!

 

[HayGan]

BTW, since it is likely just 2 of you, you should definately be able to fly cheaper than driving!

 

[2tinkersmom]

I would definitely check out Southwest fares. We live in Lancaster, PA and go down to the BWI airport to get a non-stop flight to Orlando. When we went last January, we originally thought we would have to drive to keep our costs down. But I happened to be checking the Southwest site one day and got us $39 each way fares so for our family of four we were able to fly for less than $400! They run those specials quite often from what I have noticed.
We would have taken two days basically to drive each way....but spending two hours on the plane was so much better and gave us a full week in Disney!
We may end up driving someday but not if I can find airfares that will get us there that quickly and cheaply!
Hope you have a great trip no matter which way you get there!

 

[blanq]

You are likely to find low-cost fares from your state much closer to your travel dates. Most airfare this far out is going to be very costly. There are always exceptions, so watch fares regularily. I can't imagine that it would be cheaper to rent a car (including hotel, food and gas costs) than getting airfare for two and forgoing a rental all together. You can take the ME to/from a WDW resort for free and can take advantage of free transportation while staying at WDW. I can't tell you the number of times I have read on this Board (and the transportation Board) about people from PA getting really good airfare to MCO; it seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

 

[Chris]

Has anyone driven to Disney from around the PA area. How much was the car rental and gas?? We are thinking of driving due to the high airfare rates for May 2006. Please let me know. Thanks

Disney .......

We spent roughly 600.00 on gas. We took our own van, which is a 12 passanger so harder on the gas mileage.

I just found airfare for June 06 on Delta Song for 1227.00 round trip for the 7 of us.
OF course, then my husband told me 4 minutes ago that they filed bankruptcy.

 

[disneysteve]

But don't forget...you can't put a value on your TIME!!!

Actually, I put a lot of value on my time. Flying is not as quick as people tend to think and the hassle factor is much greater than with driving. We have to get to the airport, park the car, check the bags, go through security, waste nearly 2 hours sitting in the terminal, wait for baggage, stand in line for a rental car, etc.

With driving, we load the car at home and don't touch our bags again until we pull up in Florida. We pack one small overnite bag for the stopover on the road. No hassles. No wasted time.

We also consider the drive part of the vacation. We stop for a meal at a Waffle House (we don't have them up here). We get pecan logs in Georgia, free OJ in Florida and some other regional things. We like seeing the cotton fields in the Carolinas and just generally getting to see parts of the country different from our own.

When we fly, we usually leave Saturday morning and arrive early afternoon. When we drive, we leave Friday after school and arrive early Saturday evening, so we don't lose much time going. Coming home, we would fly out on Saturday and arrive home later that day. Driving we leave Saturday morning and arrive home mid-day Sunday, so again, not much time lost at Disney. Driving definitely isn't for everyone, but we enjoy it much more than flying. We also like that we can pack a lot of stuff that we wouldn't have room for if we flew.

 

[always quiet]

We always enjoy the drive down. It builds the anticipation of your arrival. We always watch for when we pass the "Welcome to___________________" signs, go into the welcome centers (anyone else remember when things like the weather channel were ONLY seen in the welcome centers? ), have a contest to see who spots the first South of the Border sign....lots of things that we always do. It would be fun to fly once I think, but with 5 of us, there is no way it would be cheaper!

To help cut down the cost of the drive, I collect points from mypoints.com and redeem them for prepaid gas cards. My bank also does the points with their visa check card and I have cards from there as well. I check out the I 95 website before we leave to see which states have the best deal on gas and which ones to avoid.

 

[PA DISNEYLOVER]

We drive down from Bensalem ( just North of Philly). We love to drive down. We take our time and stop where ever we want. The kids wanted to stop at South of the Border last time. We ended up spending 2 hours there. HUGE tourist trap but the kids loved it and it made it that much easier the rest of the way. I also like being able to pack what I want and not worry about how I am going to fit everything on the plane. We bring plenty of movies and books, the kids study and usually we end up having some great conversations with them.
My husband is leaving for Iraq next week and Jan will be my first trip down with just the kids and myself. I talked about flying and the kids looked at me like I had 3 heads so I guess the Mini Van is going to be making yet another trip to Disney!

 

[cjhentschel]

Thank you to all!!! Your suggestions and input have really helped us look at this from different points of view (my point of view - fly; his point of view-drive). We will keep an eye on the airfares and may drive if we don't see anything cheaper. Thank you again to all for your help!!!

 

[geniegirl]

We drove down 2 times. 16-17 hours straight only stopped to go to the bath room. gas is easy to figure out once you can estimate what your car gets. first time we drove our own car down but the second we rented a car since our new car was a lease and we use every mile without taking it on a long trip. if you are going to rent a car i would use priceline.com and try to get a good deal. ours was really cheap and was better than paying for the extra miles our lease would have charged. in either case we really did not use the car once we got down there. they pretty much stayed in the same spot the whole week. we will be driving again with our new car next year it will be rough on gas but we are taking our camper and staying at FW so we are making up for the added costs with a great "room" rate.

 

[tinaluis]

Your trip isn't until May 2006 so I'd expect that you'll see airfares come way down as others have said. What we do is this -- we plan our trip for a certain timeframe (say May 2006) and we plan to drive down unless we find decent airfare for the 5 of us and car rental. We usually find $115 RT airfare each (thanks to Southwest) and have been lucky in the past with car rental so, even though flying costs us about $125-$200 more, it's worth it for us to not have to drive. That said, however, we have driven down several times in the past and would do it again if airfare and/or car rental were too high. Good luck with your planning!

 

[luv2nascar]

we drove last June for first time from PA. We didn't mind it at all. I would not drive 18 hrs to anywhere straight through but disney. We left early evening 8PM and arrived in Orlando 2PM next day. Kids slept and we took turns driving. 3am-6am was the worst for us. We were not that tired once we got there. Found a nice 1st night motel by seaworld - checked in and were in downtown disney by 5pm for the evening. Next morning we checked into Pop century. Drive home we left at 12:30pm and arrived at 6:30am next day. 3 tanks of gas each way at $40 bucks a tank for us $120 plus a meal each way and snacks for the car. We are planning on driving next June again. At $3 bucks a gallon it will add another $60 bucks each way for us
($360 at $3 bucks a gallon or $240 at $2 bucks a gallon). Can't wait to see Mickey again.