Driving 15 hours to WDW!

mammastwins06

Earning My Ears
Joined
Oct 7, 2006
Messages
17
Ok, so we decided to drive to Walt Disney World instead of flying! We have 5 small children, one being 3 months old. Any tips for the road trip? Has anyone done this before with a baby so small. Things I might not of thought about to keep kids entertained during our drive their. Things I can't forget LOL! Any tips would be great. This will be our first driving trip to WDW!!
Thanks!
 
We are driving with a 3 month old in Dec. too! I know that we will have the DVD player for my daughter. I also am going to toys r us. Someone told me they have like a pacifier/ bottle thing that you can feed a baby without taking them out of the carseat. We will be going halfway and stopping. Good Luck I hope we both survive this!
 
I don't know if this is a possibility or not but my husband and I always drive thru the night (take turns driving/sleeping) while my 3 yr. old is asleep. We have done this since he was 16 mos. old and it works (wake up and you're there).

Another option is get some of those pipe cleaners for a dollar at Wal-mart in the craft section and make all sorts of cool stuff!
 

Our drive is 10-12 hours, but we drove from Louisiana to Utah and back this summer with our 2.5-year-old. I have three words for anybody going on a road trip with kids:

PORTABLE DVD PLAYER.​

Seriously, it was wonderful to have. I wouldn't use it unless we were going to be in the car for four hours or more, but for extra-long trips it's a lifesaver.

Other things that helped were Color Wonder markers and coloring books. Those are great.
 
Mapquest says it 12 1/2 hrs. We just moved to Williamsburg VA so we havent driven it before. We used to always fly this is our first road trip with my 2 children a 3yo and a 3 month old in Dec. (he was born 9/15). It is a lot of stress to plan for these two ages. Im sure it will be fun though. We will be eating at a lot of buffets no waiting for either child! :sunny:
 
Fintastic said:
Our drive is 10-12 hours, but we drove from Louisiana to Utah and back this summer with our 2.5-year-old. I have three words for anybody going on a road trip with kids:

PORTABLE DVD PLAYER.​

Seriously, it was wonderful to have. I wouldn't use it unless we were going to be in the car for four hours or more, but for extra-long trips it's a lifesaver.

Other things that helped were Color Wonder markers and coloring books. Those are great.


Yep, we have a DVD player in our van already! Also stocking up on bunches of color books and crayons. My kids are 8, 6, 4, 2, and 3 months :)
 
dvcnewgirl said:
We are driving with a 3 month old in Dec. too! I know that we will have the DVD player for my daughter. I also am going to toys r us. Someone told me they have like a pacifier/ bottle thing that you can feed a baby without taking them out of the carseat. We will be going halfway and stopping. Good Luck I hope we both survive this!


Please let me know if you find this pacifier/bottle thing, we could use it too. What is the name of it. I looked online but couldn't find it...
 
We drove the first time when DD (now 10) was about 10 weeks old. It was the best trip ever. We had a Honda Civic Hatchback (can you say small???), but I sat in back with her and we had an incredible bonding experience. Right after she was born, I had visitors and housework to distract me, but on that trip there were no distractions. It was wonderful!!! We've since made the drive several times and had two more DDs along the way. It's definitely doable and a portable DVD player makes things much easier. Good luck and have a safe trip.
 
For your little ones who can hold a fat pen, try the magic ink books. They sell them at AAA and it's like color wonder, but Disney themed.
 
Make up some games. My sister and I drove from Michigan to WDW in 2005 and to keep ourselves entertained we made up games because it made us use our brains and stay alert.

One game that we play is kind of a 20 questions. We usually do a movie theme. One of the rules is that I have to have seen it since my sister is a movie nut and has seen tons of movies I've never heard of. So she will think of a movie title and I can ask 20 yes or no quesions. Then we switch. You could easily do a Disney theme version.

We also sometimes do chain games where we pick something we see along the road then the next person has to find something that starts with the last letter of the previous object/thing. This can be quite challenging if you are in an area where there aren't a lot of billboards/signs and you need something that starts with a Y. ;)

On other trips we've taken Mad Libs to do, using again things we see along the way. Of course some of ours aren't appropriate for children, but they are fun nonetheless.

There is always the liscense plate game. Have one of your children keep track of all the states you see.

Of course there is always my parents favorite game: the quiet game! :lmao: We used to play that one in the car when we were on our way to Florida.

Something that you could do for the older kids is maybe look up on line information about the states you are going to travel in so that as you drive through them you can give them a little of the history of that state or area. Maybe even ask them if they know what the capital, etc is. Though they may not know that. Just a way to make it a bit more educational.

Make up your own games to play though, that is my suggestion. Find ways to tie in what you see around you with the game will make it more fun.

Have fun and safe driving! :)
 
mammastwins06 said:
Yep, we have a DVD player in our van already! Also stocking up on bunches of color books and crayons. My kids are 8, 6, 4, 2, and 3 months :)

Having a van was our key to taking kids on long trips. My ex DW could get up and take care of the kids while I just drove. We also had a small port-o-potty from our pop-up camper in the very back. When kids have to go to the bathroom, they have to go NOW!!!! This at least made it a little easier.
 
My boys when that young (under one year) slept really well in their car seat. I took many road trips with them when they were young and traveling was great!!

Now as toddler's and older that's when it got more difficult, but they still slept in the car quite a bit.

We never took them on road trips more than 3 or 4 hours at that age though and always left at like 4 in the morning. Dropped them in the car still sleeping and when we arrived they woke up!
 





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