Driving from Maryland- Questions

[Poohbear77]

Hi all,

Anyone who has driven from Maryland? We are looking for an estimate on how long it will take. Best route through the dreaded DC? Travel tips for driving with kids- especially toddlers? Good places to stop to let them run around? Lastly, we are driving a minivan- costs us approximatly $60 to fill the tank now at $3 a gallon-anyone who could give me an estimation on how much they spent on gas would be great!!

Thanks so much!

 

[disneyfan219]

We've made the trip (driving) from Montgomery County, Maryland many, many times with our 3 DDs (now ages 10, 8 & 5). We have usually left around 4am to try and get past Richmond by 6am. We have always taken I-270 to I-495 to I-95. Bring or install a DVD player, Gameboys, coloring books, word find books, CD players, etc. and Dramamine.

I personally don't like to stop unless the car/truck needs gas and we pick-up food then. For us, stops are 15-20 minutes max and we usually make two: one in NC or SC and one in GA or just into FL. That makes the trip about 14 hours total, getting to WDW just in time for dinner . To us, lengthening the stops seems to make it harder to settle the kids back in to the drive. Of course, if you have one or more in diapers you end up stopping alot more (I think we hit every other exit in GA once ).

We have driven overnight a few times, leaving at 7pm and that usually makes the trip about 13 1/2 hours or less, but we encountered too many potentially dangerous situations at dark gas stations in the middle of the night and puts you in Jacksonville at rush hour. My DW said no more overnight trips because she also doesn't sleep well . Our return trips usually begin at 9am and we're home by midnight, 15 hours due to additional traffic and the lack of desire to rush home from WDW.

For those driving in to WDW from I-95/Jacksonville, I decided to take I-295 around Jax to SR17, SR19, US441, SR429(toll), SR535 to WDW. It was no longer time-wise than I-4 (I-4 stinks at 5-6pm), but much more scenic and enjoyable due to decreased traffic congestion. One warning though, it is mostly two-lane road (SR19) with not many places to stop for gas/food and there was a little construction on 441. I plan to use this route in the future.

I hope this helps... Good luck.

Jeff

 

[Stewy]

We have driven from Cecil County (near Delaware) for the past 6 years - about 15 times, with an 8 year old and a 1 year old (3 trips for him). We average 15 hours. We take 301S to rt. 50 to I-95. In Florida we usually take the toll road instead of I-4 due to rush hour traffic. We like to leave at 3:00 AM and will usually make 2 food stops - 1 after Richmond for breakfast/gas and 1 for a late lunch/early dinner/gas and a couple of rest room stops if needed. We are usually in Disney between 6:00-7:00 pm. We try to avoid weekends going down even though we are usually there during a holiday period. We try to leave here on Friday and come home on Sunday

I agree with Jeff about the overnight drive. We left a couple of times after DS was done with school - around 4:00 pm. The rest stops and gas stations can sometimes seem unsafe. The last time we did this we checked into Coronado Springs at 6:00 am but spent most of the day sleeping.

We also have portable DVD, Game boy, books, sometimes school work and it does not seem to be a problem for our 8 yr old. Our 1 year old is a little harder but he generally does pretty good.

We do our returns the same as Jeff, except we leave around 7- 8 am and are home around 11:00 pm. We have stopped early in the evening at a rest stop and taken a 2 hour nap when we needed to. We don't do this most trips but every once in a while, we need to.

We used to make the trip in 2 days when we first started going but we seemed to have the worst luck finding a hotel that was decent/reasonably priced and decided it was not worth it to stop. If you do decide to stop, do some research before you leave or look for new hotels, a lot of the older ones are pretty nasty.

As far as gas, I know for us it is 1000 miles to get there and our car gets about 20 miles to the gallon so we would use 50 gallons one way.

Hope this helps.
Cheryl

 

[Carole]

What part of Maryland? We've driven many times from Southern Maryland.

 

[PortieOwner]

It has been 9 years since I drove it but I used to drive that route pretty often. Flying is a lot more attractive now--fares are not bad and driving is too tiring, especially the drive back when I am exhausted from 5-6 days of park death marches.

From north of DC I'd either choose the eastern side of the Beltway and the Wilson bridge (but check carefully beforehand because they are doing massive construction there now). An alternative including the Wilson Bridge is to take the BW Parkway which becomes 295 to the Wilson Bridge. This is faster than the Beltway and you can get from the I-95 split to Alexandria in 30 minutes if there is no heavy traffic.

After that stick to I-95 except for the 295 bypass of Richmond. Hit JAX at a non-rush hour time (although I didn't find we lost more than 30 minutes crawling past JAX in rush hour).

Gas will be cheaper in rural VA/NC/SC/GA. Check gasbuddy.com for prices but I think SC is the cheapest in the country and you may find $2.65 gas. If security is an issue at gas stations is it not that difficult for a nonresident to get a carry permit in vA/NC/SC/GA/FL.

My average trip time was 13.5 hours.

Portie

 

[stacy6552]

Visit usastar.com. Its a fantastic site for driving the I95.

Consider stopping overnight on the way down. The drive was so easy our first time that we pushed right through, but then really felt jetlagged the second day in the parks.

 

[Poohbear77]

Thanks so much for all the great info.

We will be leaving from the eastern shore of MD in Denton. Those of you drive down Rt.404 to Ocean City go right though this small town.

We are most likely going to leave in the night so the children can sleep. Probably around midnight, and expect to get there around 2-3pm in time for check-in. I think that first day we will just rest, swim, and maybe do Chef Mickeys for dinner. We will be there for 8 days so 1day off from parks should be fine.


Thanks again, and any other suggestions would be great!