Driving 24hrs straight from Toronto to Orlando

[wdwgoofydaddy]

Hello all,

We are often asked how we do our 24 hours straight drive from Toronto to WDW. so we decided to write a blog post on the subject. This is what has worked for us over 10 round trips so we hope it will help others plan.

http://www.memoriesofdisney.com/post/2014/06/30/how-we-do-the-24-hour-dive-from-toronto-to-orlando

Let us know if you share similar experiences and memories. Driving has now become part of the vacation and fun of Disney for us.

 

[SFailla]

Wow, I loved reading your blog. We live just north of Toronto & have always considered driving but felt that with 3 kids DS (6) & DD's (5) it would be impossible. Maybe we will try it after all one year!

 

[wdwgoofydaddy]

Wow, I loved reading your blog. We live just north of Toronto & have always considered driving but felt that with 3 kids DS (6) & DD's (5) it would be impossible. Maybe we will try it after all one year!

@Sfailla Thanks for visiting the site and taking the time to post this comment. We were scared at first too but after looking at the over cost for flying vs. driving we had to give the drive a try. The first time we did it, we stayed over night in Atlanta but found we still had energy to continue so fir that point forward it was straight through.

Good luck and let us know if you need any support.

 

[SFailla]

@Sfailla Thanks for visiting the site and taking the time to post this comment. We were scared at first too but after looking at the over cost for flying vs. driving we had to give the drive a try. The first time we did it, we stayed over night in Atlanta but found we still had energy to continue so fir that point forward it was straight through. Good luck and let us know if you need any support.

We are flying down in December with southwest but maybe next summer my DH & I will have the courage to do this!!! I really want to try & I think it will be some awesome family time where we will create some amazing memories!!!

 

[wdwgoofydaddy]

We are flying down in December with southwest but maybe next summer my DH & I will have the courage to do this!!! I really want to try & I think it will be some awesome family time where we will create some amazing memories!!!

We are going for a short trip this Dec too. We are flying this time via Southwest out of BUF. Because we will only be there from Dec 24-28 we decided to fly opposed to drive. Just not enough time to drive. Maybe we will cross paths at WDW.

Tell your DH to find another family to drive with. Being in a group of cars is fun and can help over come some fears of driving. We have done this with other friends in the past and now they are hooked on driving.

 

[Beer Me]

Enjoyed your blog. Odyssey's are fantastic road trip vehicles.
I used to do marathon drives. The drive itself was never bad but I hated the way I felt afterwards. I was drained for an entire day. The time gained wasnt worth it.
I break long drives up into 2 or more days. I try to stop early enough in the day to have a nice dinner, swim in the hotel pool and maybe watch a movie in the room. It's still much cheaper than flying and I feel a lot better mentally and physically.

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

Great blog. We love driving with our kids as well. We started driving when our kids were infants. My DHs family is 1,100 miles away and we used to fly but our first DD would get sick on every flight when she was little. We started driving when our second DD was born and didn't go back. We only fly when we are going to the west coast or when we don't have the time.

The drive is as much fun as where we are going. Now that are kids are older we started making music videos in the car. So much fun. Our oldest DD is in her first year of college and she still can't wait for our car ride to DW. We have taken their friends over the years and they all love the drive. I also pack great food. We pack all types of fruit, cheeses, crackers, quinoa salads, meatball heros, all types of grilled cheeses, humus and chips, etc. We do stop for a sit down dinner though.

We too have a Honda Odyssey - but we are a family of 6 and couldn't go with another car.

Thanks for the blog - great detail. It got me excited for our trip and I can't wait for our drive to DW this summer.

Thanks!

 

[wdwgoofydaddy]

Enjoyed your blog. Odyssey's are fantastic road trip vehicles.
I used to do marathon drives. The drive itself was never bad but I hated the way I felt afterwards. I was drained for an entire day. The time gained wasnt worth it.
I break long drives up into 2 or more days. I try to stop early enough in the day to have a nice dinner, swim in the hotel pool and maybe watch a movie in the room. It's still much cheaper than flying and I feel a lot better mentally and physically.

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog post and share with us what works for you. We are generally tired after the drive too but find that after a nice shower and dinner we are good to go again. The magic of disney just gets us so excited that it injects us with so much energy.

 

[wdwgoofydaddy]

Great blog. We love driving with our kids as well. We started driving when our kids were infants. My DHs family is 1,100 miles away and we used to fly but our first DD would get sick on every flight when she was little. We started driving when our second DD was born and didn't go back. We only fly when we are going to the west coast or when we don't have the time.

The drive is as much fun as where we are going. Now that are kids are older we started making music videos in the car. So much fun. Our oldest DD is in her first year of college and she still can't wait for our car ride to DW. We have taken their friends over the years and they all love the drive. I also pack great food. We pack all types of fruit, cheeses, crackers, quinoa salads, meatball heros, all types of grilled cheeses, humus and chips, etc. We do stop for a sit down dinner though.

We too have a Honda Odyssey - but we are a family of 6 and couldn't go with another car.

Thanks for the blog - great detail. It got me excited for our trip and I can't wait for our drive to DW this summer.

Thanks!

@DisneyFansInNYC Thanks so much for visiting our blog and for taking the time to write this detailed response. We are so glad that you shared with us your memories of the drive. We agree that the drive is so much fun. We have taken our kids friends in the past and even other families in a caravan of cars driving down I75. We are also tend to fly for short trips too but still really like the drive.

Do you post your videos online? Can you share? We would love to share in the fun. Our next drive will be in 52 days and we are planning to post our adventures via twitter this trip.

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

@DisneyFansInNYC Thanks so much for visiting our blog and for taking the time to write this detailed response. We are so glad that you shared with us your memories of the drive. We agree that the drive is so much fun. We have taken our kids friends in the past and even other families in a caravan of cars driving down I75. We are also tend to fly for short trips too but still really like the drive.

Do you post your videos online? Can you share? We would love to share in the fun. Our next drive will be in 52 days and we are planning to post our adventures via twitter this trip.

The only video we have posted is in my signature - that was done at Disney with much editing. Our other videos are usually silly, usually late at night and dark and we never posted them. The best songs we have done are Love Story and The Lion King-Hakuna Matata - that is our favorite. We love to do Disney songs.

We have done a caravan too - so much fun. The kids keep switching cars. Doing a caravan this summer too.

Let me know what your twitter name is - we will follow.

 

[wdwgoofydaddy]

The only video we have posted is in my signature - that was done at Disney with much editing. Our other videos are usually silly, usually late at night and dark and we never posted them. The best songs we have done are Love Story and The Lion King-Hakuna Matata - that is our favorite. We love to do Disney songs.

We have done a caravan too - so much fun. The kids keep switching cars. Doing a caravan this summer too.

Let me know what your twitter name is - we will follow.

OMG! I know your video! I watched it several times in the past looking for some ideas to make more Disney Magic. This is so AWESOME! Thanks you for making the video. It brings a smile to my face face each time we watch it. I'm going to have to tweet it out for all to see how your family enjoys Disney..... It is so great!

All our social media links are in our signature and listed below for you:
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest

Thanks for following.

 

[wdwgoofydaddy]

The only video we have posted is in my signature - that was done at Disney with much editing. Our other videos are usually silly, usually late at night and dark and we never posted them. The best songs we have done are Love Story and The Lion King-Hakuna Matata - that is our favorite. We love to do Disney songs.

We have done a caravan too - so much fun. The kids keep switching cars. Doing a caravan this summer too.

Let me know what your twitter name is - we will follow.

OMG! I know your video! I watched it several times in the past looking for some ideas to make more Disney Magic. This is so AWESOME! Thanks you for making the video. It brings a smile to my face face each time we watch it. I'm going to have to tweet it out for all to see how your family enjoys Disney..... It is so great!

All our social media links are in our signature and listed below for you:
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest

Thanks for following.

 

[Nwall81]

This will be our first time driving to Disney, but not to the Orlando area as we did the Sea World parks a few years ago.

As newbies we thought that breaking the drive into two days was a good idea. Boy were we wrong. That was a big mistake IMHO.

We are a family of 8, 2 adults and 6 children. The second day was brutal as most of the kids were restless.

We are driving down to Disney early NEXT summer and we are going to drive straight through from the NE Ohio area. We looked at your tips and we are planning on using them. Thank you for your blog.

 

[amomma23]

I think it's really cool how you made driving "work" for your family, and great ideas to share with others!
We have talked about driving our family of 5 from PA, but just can't seem to justify a 20 hour car ride over 2 hours on a plane. We fly SW and use their credit card exclusively. Our last 2 trips to DW have cost nothing more than the $99 annual fee. We can't get gas for less than that, so right now it works for us.

 

[asmit4]

OT...sorta but.....

I saw the picture of the disney sign and my heart and head sorta floated and swooned that sign just gets to me every time!

 

[wdwgoofydaddy]

I think it's really cool how you made driving "work" for your family, and great ideas to share with others!
We have talked about driving our family of 5 from PA, but just can't seem to justify a 20 hour car ride over 2 hours on a plane. We fly SW and use their credit card exclusively. Our last 2 trips to DW have cost nothing more than the $99 annual fee. We can't get gas for less than that, so right now it works for us.

@amomma23 thank for taking the time to visit our blog and comment on the post. We we were able to fly for the cost of $99 annual credit card fee we would do that too however we are not so lucky. The cheapest airfare we have found from YYZ-MCO was about $300 round trip per person and we are a family of 4.

Glad you have a system that works for you.

 

[wdwgoofydaddy]

OT...sorta but.....

I saw the picture of the disney sign and my heart and head sorta floated and swooned that sign just gets to me every time!

@asmit4 not to worry.. it happens to all of us.... I got all excited just writing this post. Who am I kidding, I get excited every time I work on the blog.

 

[asmit4]

I am driving from Buffalo, NY....when I plunk in Buffalo, it says to go through Pittsburg.....so I typed in Hamilton, Ontario and once again it says to head through buffalo, and onto pittsburg- for a total drive time of 19 hours, 5 minutes- a full 1.5 hours shorter than going through Detroit.....


SOOO......why do you drive your route? I'm intrigued!

 

[wdwgoofydaddy]

I am driving from Buffalo, NY....when I plunk in Buffalo, it says to go through Pittsburg.....so I typed in Hamilton, Ontario and once again it says to head through buffalo, and onto pittsburg- for a total drive time of 19 hours, 5 minutes- a full 1.5 hours shorter than going through Detroit.....


SOOO......why do you drive your route? I'm intrigued!

@asmit4 thanks for the question, we get asked this very often. I am going to assume that you are plotting these route using google. The options google is giving you is based on driving distance. It is not taking into consideration the easy of the route and services along the way.
If I am correct, google is giving you 3 option
1. 90 to 77 to 95
2. 90 to 79 to 95
3. 80 to 70 to 95

Yes these options are shorter in distance however the potential downside is that you will have pay more attention to the road sign or you GPS when driving because if you miss a turn off you will have to circle back once you noticed you have taken the wrong road. We have done the 90 to 79 to 95 before and did not like having to drive through a number of small towns, whereby we had to slow down and navigate through. We also found that taking any of the options above, there were fewer services stations along the drive. They were smaller and spread out too far from each other. This is a major thing for us because driving through the night you want to know that you can reach a service station nearby.

We like I75 because it is simple, cross over at the Detroit boarder and the on ramp to I75 south is right there. he rest of the trip is just I75 south until the turnpike in Orlando. There are no small towns to drive through, lots of larger 24 hour service stations and less chance of bad lake effect snow storm that you may encounter travelling down I95.

It may appear longer via google but in actual practice is it really not too far apart. I would say it is about an hour difference when all said and done. This is just been our experience. We know others that will only drive down using I95. It really depends on where your starting point is. If you are already more east, there is no point spending a few hours going west just to head south. Because we are on the other side of the Great Lakes, we have options.

If you like to drive down on I75 from Buffalo, I would recommend going through Ohio and connecting with I75 in Dayton.

Hope this helps.

 

[asmit4]

You have given me A TON to think about! I am HORRID with directions and will be driving ALONE. With that said- I really don't want to have to drive through small towns in the middle of nowhere.....

I'm going to research both 77 and 75 and try and figure things out.