Driving from Chicago...

[toywaltz]

Not crazy at all. We drive just about everywhere because the price to fly with a family of 6 is INSANE...as a matter of fact I *just* priced United and for our family it would be over $5,000 to fly.

I don't care what the cost of gas is, even taking that into consideration, hotel costs & food it is not anywhere NEAR $5,000....it is a trade-off with time though.

Well if we're playing "who can find the most expensive flight" I have the number for a good charter service here. Figure about $12,000 for a modest Citation Bravo to take you there quite comfy.

Southwest says they'll do six RT tickets non-stop MDW to MCO for $1,764 any day in July 2011. 2.5 hours start to finish. Still more expensive than driving...but not unreasonable in my book. Prices might even come down between now and then.

 

[Disneyforus]

Same as another poster, if I can get airfare for around $150 pp, then we fly.
Didn't enjoy driving. I am a get there kind of person when we have a destination we are going to, and it was not fun to be stuck in a car for 4
days of our vacation.

We made lots of stops for the kids to run around, bet always felt that urgency to "push" on.

I am sure you will have a great trip regardless of how you get there.

 

[Camno's Mama]

If we could come in under 1000.00 with taxes and fees, then I would book it. So far, not happening. I do check the websites every morning with my fingers crossed. And to be honest, 1700 is pretty pricey for this route. MDW to MCO has always been such a reasonable route pricewise (at least if you fly SW or AT). We've gotten incredibly lucky the past few years...we knew that the year we might actually have to bite the bullet and drive would come.

 

[toywaltz]

The other option is to just wait out the ticket prices. If you decide to drive...and the tix come down then go for it. I've noticed SW tends to get cheaper a month or so out compared to buying 4-5 months ahead. Risk involved obviously if you HAVE (or want) to fly.....but you can take that risk in this situation.

 

[quirty30]

OP, we have 2 trips planned this year and we are flying Airtran out of Milwaukee (but live about 2 miles from O'Hare.) One trip is for spring break and the other over the 4th of July. I paid about $230 per person RT for each trip. A huge savings over the major carriers at O'hare - the drive to MKE is a little over an hour for us AND economy parking is only $5 a day. I don't know if you tried pricing fares out of MKE, but you might want to consider it.

My vacation days are so limited that I couldn't possibly drive to WDW. I'm also a single mom and would be the only driver. More power to you if you can swing it : )

 

[jillned]

We haven't made a decision yet...still watching the plane fares and hoping for a sale. Now that we have three kids (five seats to buy), driving is seeming like a better option financially. I think it's possible that we would save as much as 500.00 (and that's if there is a decent sale on plane fare).

So, are we crazy? How much time should we allow? I know that some people like to drive straight through, and others stop somewhere and stay for the night. Our kids range in age from 1 to 7. I am thinking we would leave at 3 or 4 in the morning and drive until dinner time. We would stay somewhere in Georgia, and then get to Disney about noon the next day. How much recovery time would we need?

I am hoping for feedback from those who have done it. Would you do it again?

We are doing the drive next week. We have done it twice before and it works out well for us. We have the dvd player in the car and I went to the dollar store and loaded up on new paper and stickers and crayons etc. (my kids are 4, 5 and 6) I've put new batteries in the TAG reader and their little "computers" and purchased some new movies that they have not seen. I am going to pack lunch (we will leave after breakfast) and then we just need to stop for dinner. We do several stops for leg streching and last year found a rest stop with a playground! We usually stop in Chattanooga but this year I want to make it into Georgia. Car travel is not for everyone, but I'm trying to show my kids that "getting there is half the fun"!

 

[4forMe]

I haven't done the drive yet but researching as we may drive this summer.

Here is a link to a prior thread that may help as well:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2511721&highlight=driving+from+chicago

 

[DSLRuser]

from st. louis, its 16 hours. Ad 4 to drive to chicago, and you have an easy 20 hour drive. 1,300 mile each way.

we leave at 6:00pm after dinner at home and have the kids in the jammies, and drive all night. the kids (now 9 and 3, but have done it at 7 and 1) sleep all night. the kids are excited as we leave, and take care of themselves till they fall asleep around 9 or 10. They dont wake up untill 7am the next morning, usually as we are entering florida. From there we stop for breakfast around ocala. then refreshed it a short 2 hour drive to the world.

I drive from 6-9 my wife drives from 9-12, then i drive from 12-7 while they all sleep. finally, my wife will finish the drive after breakfast from 8-11.

we repeat the same process driving home.

So for you the chicago driver, i would leave at like 2:00pm, stop for dinner around paducha KY. Put the kids in comfy clths, and drive all night.

 

[mjmartin01]

We are driving from a south suburb of Chicago. There are 7 of us going. Myself, dh, dd-7, ds-3, dd friend-10, fil and mil.

I am trying to find a hotel in Chattanooga, TN. but not finding anything! Not sure what is going on that Friday night but most hotels are booked. I was also looking in Dalton, GA (which is about 40 min. from Chattanooga, just not sure if that's a good idea since we'll be in the car for about 10 hours by then).

Where is this rest stop with a playground? The kids would enjoy that.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Where is this rest stop with a playground? The kids would enjoy that.

All the rest stops I've encountered in IL have playgrounds. No idea on Indiana. Only one we stop at in KY is Paducah, which isn't on your route. No playground there, not sure about the rest of KY. Nice view from the one at Monteagle, TN. We often pull into McDonalds to use the restroom & let the kids play there as well.

 

[preschoolmom]

We haven't made a decision yet...still watching the plane fares and hoping for a sale. Now that we have three kids (five seats to buy), driving is seeming like a better option financially. I think it's possible that we would save as much as 500.00 (and that's if there is a decent sale on plane fare).

So, are we crazy? How much time should we allow? I know that some people like to drive straight through, and others stop somewhere and stay for the night. Our kids range in age from 1 to 7. I am thinking we would leave at 3 or 4 in the morning and drive until dinner time. We would stay somewhere in Georgia, and then get to Disney about noon the next day. How much recovery time would we need?

I am hoping for feedback from those who have done it. Would you do it again?

We've done it and we are about to do it again. Our kids were 4, 4, & 5 the first time. They were sick on the way down, so we only made it to Chattanooga, which is about the half way point.

We like to leave at 3:00am, too. Our goal stop for the first night is south of Atlanta (that may be too ambitious, we'll see). Then we are in WDW by about 3:00pm on arrival day (we made it by 1:30 last trip).

Recovery time depends on a couple of factors. How stressed you are in the days leading up to your trip and how well you sleep in the nights leading up to your trip. I would have very low expectations for your arrival night. We have done Downtown Disney on our arrival night and we did the Magic Kingdom on our arrival night the next trip. We have decided that we will do NOTHING on our arrival this upcoming trip. My DH will probably take a nap, and I will take the kids to swim at the pool. We'll veg, eat, relax, and be ready for our first full day the next morning.

We leave in a couple of weeks, and I can't wait!

 

[cruisingkat]

We drive from Chicago area to Disney about 4 times a year. We usually leave around 9:30-10am after making a stop at our local Starbucks and Subway. At Subway, we pick up a breakfast sandwich and a foot long lunch sandwich, put the lunch sandwich in the cooler - half for lunch on the road and the other half for dinner. We usually end up stopping for the night in Forsyth GA about an hour past Atlanta. We usually make it to Forsyth before 9 or 10pm (GA time). We get a good nights rest, have breakfast in the morning and are back on the road between 10 and 11 am. We arrive at Disney round 3-4pm. We have a very low key evening - maybe go play mini golf or hit downtown Disney. If it is a Wed - Sat, we will drive over to POFQ to go hear Elliot Dyson at the Scat Club.
On the way home, we usually end up leaving Disney at around 11am. We make it to Manchester, TN, northwest of Chattanooga around 8pm.(Central time) Get dinner and use the hot tub. Next morning we leave around 11am after breakfast. We usually make it home around 7pm.

 

[MolonLabe]

It's about 19 hours for us.

I leave after I wrap up with work, most times I get out early and get home just before the kdis get home from school.

Leave at around 4pm and start driving.

Depending on how I feel we either get a room around 11pm-midnight or I just keep driving an pull over in a rest stop and crash for a few hours around 2:30 or 3am.

I wake up either at 7-8am if we got a room or I wake up after a 2-3 hour nap in the SUV. We have breakfast and off we go again.

Arrival time in Orlando is around noon if I napped in the car or 5 or 6ish if we got a room. We unwind offsite for the night, get a full 8+ hour night of sleep and arrive at the WDW resort around 8am to check in and head off for a full day at the parks.

Our last night we spend off site as well. The morning of the day I pack up the SUV (most stuff I carry out in teh middle of the night) and clear out the room before we head to the parks for the day. Depending on the park, I drive, for example DHS I drive instead of taking the resort bus.

After our day at the park we leave property an stay off site again. Usually we sleep in this day and don't check out until 10am and head north.

Same deal driving back, I keep driving if I'm making good time and not too sleepy with a cat nap between 2am and 5am or we get a room.

As I get older, the cat napping will probably give way to more hotel stays. I do like getting in to Orlando at noon and having the afternoon to swim or unwind and then turn in around 9pm so I'm completely recovered for the week at WDW.

We also try make a stop at the beach for 1-2 days after WDW before heading back from Florida.

 

[siskaren]

This thread is from over a year ago. I think the OP has already made her trip.

 

[mjmartin01]

well it's still good to hear how other people do the long drive to Disney from the Chicago area