Driving from Milwaukee

[Zachsmom4]

We will be headed down to Disney the first week in March. Has anyone driven from Milwaukee to Disney lately? If so, how was the drive, where did you stop for the night, and how long did it actually take you?

 

[fbarker]

We will be headed down to Disney the first week in March. Has anyone driven from Milwaukee to Disney lately? If so, how was the drive, where did you stop for the night, and how long did it actually take you?

Hi,
We are from the Chicago area and going down the last week in March. We will leave Friday night and get down to Lousiville. On Saturday we will drive to southern GA, the Valdosta area. On Sunday we leave about 8am and get to WDW at about 12ish.

We will check in and then hit the MK.

We have done this the last three times and it seems to work just fine for us.

 

[Minniedap]

We have driven down from Racine 10 times. We are 3 adults and 4 children. We usually drive straignt through on the way down ( it's the kids that ask us to keep going). We plan for 19 hours. Last time we left at 3AM which put us at all the major cities at very good times. We drove as far as Ocala, FL. We arrived at 10 PM. Drove to disney the next day about 1.25 hours. We have also stayed a couple of times just south of Atlanta, GA. That's about 13hours of driving.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

If your family likes aquariums, I would HIGHLY recommend the one in Chattanooga. You're also going right through Atlanta (haven't tried that one, but hope to this year). Nashville & Louisville don't have much in the way of traffic compared to really BIG cities as long as you can avoid the worst of rush hour. Atlanta OTOH can be a bear almost any time of day - definitely avoid rush hour there!

 

[MarthaJr.]

If your family likes aquariums, I would HIGHLY recommend the one in Chattanooga. You're also going right through Atlanta (haven't tried that one, but hope to this year). Nashville & Louisville don't have much in the way of traffic compared to really BIG cities as long as you can avoid the worst of rush hour. Atlanta OTOH can be a bear almost any time of day - definitely avoid rush hour there!

Agree about Atlanta. We once spent 4 hours stuck in Atlanta traffic in the middle of the day! We will never drive through Atlanta during the day again!

We've driven down 4 times and it took us about 20 hours of driving. We usually stop in Chattanooga as well. Three years ago we tried to drive straight through and that was a huge mistake. We had left at about 7pm and gave up about 5am to get about 4 hours of sleep and then hit the road again only to end up stuck in the above commented on Atlanta traffic jam.

The other 3 trips we left at about 10:30 or 11pm and drove through Chicago and Indiana at night. That was definitely the way to go.

Good luck and have a safe trip!

 

[hearts8701]

just got back from a road trip and take the drive a few times a year we live in chicago and on the way down we stop anywhere passed atlanta you don't want to get stuck in atlanta rush hour day or night we continue the next day on to disney getting there in the afternoon
on the way back we drive straight thru we leave early getting home arrive 11 pm

 

[Gumbo4x4]

One other Atlanta trip - Braves' games. We zipped through there one time during a Braves' game. The game let out juuuuuuuuuust as we got past the stadium. If we'd have been a hair later, we'd have been right in the middle of that mess. Be sure to watch their schedule to see if they're going to be playing when you come through.

 

[SteveS]

We have driven down many times. The trip down isn't the problem. From my experience the biggest problem in driving is the return trip home. I say that because driving north out of Florida through Georgia on the weekend is a real congested mess. This will be especially true as the snowbirds start to migrate back up north.

There is realy no way to avoid this traffice problem. Have a good GPS and try some alternate routes if it gets to bad.

Good Luck

 

[grahamfam3]

Didn't drive from Milwaukee, but we did from Madison. Roughly 22 hours on the road, we stayed the night at one of the McDonough, GA exits.

Monteagle, TN is roughly your half-way point. As others have stated, if you can get past Atlanta the first day of driving, you are in good shape for the rest of the drive.

 

[KSTC2012]

Thanks for this thread....we are planning a drive later in 2012 and haven't decided the best way to drive down. this will help us a lot!

 

[Zachsmom4]

Yes, thank you everyone for your replies. We are planning on leaving our house at approximately 3am and are hoping to get past Atlanta that first day. I hope traffic will cooperate.