Driving from New Brunswick

[east_coaster]

We're planning a trip for the end of October into the November long weekend, and prices for flights are high! Because of the high price, we're considering driving. Google maps puts it at 27 hours from where we live in New Brunswick . We're a family of three, with a 7 year old. We've driven from here to just north of Toronto several times, so we have a good idea of how long we can all sit in a car for. What worries me the most would be the traffic from New York down.

Has anyone done this drive before? Any tips on where to stop or how long it actually takes? Any idea of how much the actual cost would be for 6 days of driving and 4 hotels? I've guestimated it to be about $1,000. I'm still holding out hope that flight prices might come down!

 

[bankr63]

For costs, I would look at gasbuddy.com and use the plan my trip to get an estimate of your gas costs. It gives a pretty accurate estimate in my experience, as it uses your exact make of car and current gas prices. I plan about US$100 per hotel night. We tend to pack a fair bit of our food as my DS has food allergies making restaurants a bigger risk than we like on the road.

I haven't driven from NB, but have driven the I-95 corridor between New York and Washington, and I like to avoid it. I ran the route from Edmundston to Orlando on google maps, and it suggests our preferred route from Eastern Ontario as an alternate. It is about 90km longer than the direct route, and gives one hour extra travel time, but I expect you will make up that hour as it is easy to avoid most major population centres. On our preferred route, the largest city we pass through is Charlotte NC. If you do this option, I would also stay south of Montreal on the 30 as there is ton of construction across the island on the 20 and 40.

 

[archrd]

I would check for flights out of Bangor Maine or even New Hampshire, often they are way less expensive than flying from Moncton or Halifax. Often there are hotels that will also allow you to leave your car on their property for free if you stay with them. When you fly out of Bangor though you fly into Sanford which is a smaller airport that does not have Disney Magical Express so you will have to arrange your own transportation from there.

 

[Zmack]

I'm from N.B. and have done the drive in 2017, in about 27 hrs to Universal Studios. Started from Fredericton area. That was with three drivers non stop, just for gas, fast food and bathroom breaks. No little ones along. So if you are stopping for longer breaks it will add 1 or 2 hrs, a day. We used I 95 s and I 81 s.
We left N.B. around 1 pm on a Saturday, so we would be passing most of the big cities in the middle of the night and early Sunday morning traffic is fairly light.
We spent around $ 350 US on gas and $140 US on food and Coffee for the round trip. If you stay 4 nights in hotels at $100 Us =400 that totals up to around $900 to $1000 US convert that to CAD. At todays exchange it would be around $ 1300 Cad. We flew in 2015, adults and 1 child. On Air Canada for $1600 Cad.
We are returning in Jan/19 as of today the flights from Freddy would cost $2012 Cad. hoping for a seat sale .I'm using Google Fights to watch for a sale.
Hope this helps and enjoy the trip.

PS .....If your 7yr old enjoys Halloween I highly recommend MNSSHP, we did it in 2015 and our Dd (5 1/2yrs) loved it

 

[east_coaster]

For costs, I would look at gasbuddy.com and use the plan my trip to get an estimate of your gas costs. It gives a pretty accurate estimate in my experience, as it uses your exact make of car and current gas prices. I plan about US$100 per hotel night. We tend to pack a fair bit of our food as my DS has food allergies making restaurants a bigger risk than we like on the road.

I haven't driven from NB, but have driven the I-95 corridor between New York and Washington, and I like to avoid it. I ran the route from Edmundston to Orlando on google maps, and it suggests our preferred route from Eastern Ontario as an alternate. It is about 90km longer than the direct route, and gives one hour extra travel time, but I expect you will make up that hour as it is easy to avoid most major population centres. On our preferred route, the largest city we pass through is Charlotte NC. If you do this option, I would also stay south of Montreal on the 30 as there is ton of construction across the island on the 20 and 40.

Thank you! I'll check out gas buddy. We're farther south east in NB, but I can see how we would connect just before New York to the route in land.

I love the 30 to bypass Montreal. We accidentally went through Montreal once, but once we found the 30, it cut so much time off that drive!

 

[east_coaster]

I would check for flights out of Bangor Maine or even New Hampshire, often they are way less expensive than flying from Moncton or Halifax. Often there are hotels that will also allow you to leave your car on their property for free if you stay with them. When you fly out of Bangor though you fly into Sanford which is a smaller airport that does not have Disney Magical Express so you will have to arrange your own transportation from there.

I've been checking flights from Bangor, Portland, Halifax, Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton. So far, everything seems high. With the exception of new flights out of Portland on Frontier. My husband doesn't like flying and trying to convince him to use a discount airline isn't working very well so far.

 

[east_coaster]

I'm from N.B. and have done the drive in 2017, in about 27 hrs to Universal Studios. Started from Fredericton area. That was with three drivers non stop, just for gas, fast food and bathroom breaks. No little ones along. So if you are stopping for longer breaks it will add 1 or 2 hrs, a day. We used I 95 s and I 81 s.
We left N.B. around 1 pm on a Saturday, so we would be passing most of the big cities in the middle of the night and early Sunday morning traffic is fairly light.
We spent around $ 350 US on gas and $140 US on food and Coffee for the round trip. If you stay 4 nights in hotels at $100 Us =400 that totals up to around $900 to $1000 US convert that to CAD. At todays exchange it would be around $ 1300 Cad. We flew in 2015, adults and 1 child. On Air Canada for $1600 Cad.
We are returning in Jan/19 as of today the flights from Freddy would cost $2012 Cad. hoping for a seat sale .I'm using Google Fights to watch for a sale.
Hope this helps and enjoy the trip.

PS .....If your 7yr old enjoys Halloween I highly recommend MNSSHP, we did it in 2015 and our Dd (5 1/2yrs) loved it

We're just down the river from you We've flown twice before, one year paid about $1,300 out of Saint John for a trip in Jan and once out of Bangor for a little more. I might have unrealistic expectations for the price of flights! The price you calculated to drive really doesn't save much from what we'd pay for a flight. Except we wouldn't need a rental car.

I'm torn between MNSSHP and MVMCP. Right now I'm leaning towards MVMCP, just because I prefer Christmas, but I keep hearing such great things about the Halloween party.

 

[TFC_UNTIL_I_DIE]

Maybe if you cut over towards Scranton then you are on I81 which puts you to I66, 17, then the I95 at Fredericksberg. This is the popular route from Ottawa on I81 (with my favourite but only one of several workarounds of DC). If you google map Saint John to Orlando they give you an option 'via 81 and 95' which is very similar and est 27 hrs.

Its a long drive you have - you could pair it with the autotrain part of the way.....but you need to book ahead to get a good price.

I've driven Ottawa to Miami a few times....no problem but always thought I was glad not to be driving all the way back to my former Nova Scotia home

 

[east_coaster]

Maybe if you cut over towards Scranton then you are on I81 which puts you to I66, 17, then the I95 at Fredericksberg. This is the popular route from Ottawa on I81 (with my favourite but only one of several workarounds of DC). If you google map Saint John to Orlando they give you an option 'via 81 and 95' which is very similar and est 27 hrs.

Its a long drive you have - you could pair it with the autotrain part of the way.....but you need to book ahead to get a good price.

I've driven Ottawa to Miami a few times....no problem but always thought I was glad not to be driving all the way back to my former Nova Scotia home

Thanks for that tip! I'm still hoping the prices for flights come down. fingers crossed!

 

[Scar1199]

We've flown out of Portland and Boston before, both with Jetblue. I priced a direct flight out of Boston back in February for a possible March Break trip and it was only $900 return for 2 adults and 2 kids. So even last minute I was able to find good prices. Someone told me they always find good flights and prices out of Manchester NH.

 

[bfamily5]

Helloooo from Moncton! We've flown from Manchester in the past. Might be worth checking out. The rates were really good a few years back. With the current cdn exchange we are biting the bullet and flying down from Halifax. It all works out to equal the same - pricey!

 

[isabellea]

We live in Montreal and we always drive to WDW! We did I-89/I-95 once and we weren't a fan of the traffic in NYC/NJ and the toll costs. We prefer taking I-81 either from the Thousand Islands or from Scranton. We drive straight thru so we are usually in the Washington area around midnight so we prefer taking highway 15 and then I-95 vs going thru Charlotte (we hit pretty bad traffic there on a few occasions).

 

[east_coaster]

I’ve now added Manchester and Boston to my daily flight checks it seems cheaper then the other options. Flying in to Tampa or Miami is even cheaper, but then we’re adding extra driving and hotels to the mix, so would probably be a wash in savings. Frontier flies out of Portland and has great prices, but my husband (the bad flyer) is leery of discount airlines.

 

[isabellea]

I’ve now added Manchester and Boston to my daily flight checks it seems cheaper then the other options. Flying in to Tampa or Miami is even cheaper, but then we’re adding extra driving and hotels to the mix, so would probably be a wash in savings. Frontier flies out of Portland and has great prices, but my husband (the bad flyer) is leery of discount airlines.

Check the Southwest website, I think they fly out of Manchester.

 

[Scar1199]

Allegiant has good prices out of Bangor, but they fly into Sanford. So you need to factor that into your pricing. The bonus of flying out of the US is that you get customs out of the way when you drive across the boarder. You can also use the airline check-in at the resort on your departure day as well.

 

[bankr63]

Allegiant has good prices out of Bangor, but they fly into Sanford. So you need to factor that into your pricing. The bonus of flying out of the US is that you get customs out of the way when you drive across the boarder. You can also use the airline check-in at the resort on your departure day as well.

Although I would watch the 60 Minutes piece on Allegiant from a couple of weeks ago, and probably think long and hard about booking one of their flights. At least make sure that route is usually serviced by one of their newer aircraft.

 

[east_coaster]

I've heard about the 60 minute piece. Given my husbands reluctance to fly I haven't watched it because I don't want to add any fuel to the fire. I've found a decent price out of Boston with JetBlue into Tampa (I've been trying to figure out how we could add Legoland). We still might end up driving down. I need to figure out the cost of flying with the addition of a rental car for the two weeks.

 

[bankr63]

I've heard about the 60 minute piece. Given my husbands reluctance to fly I haven't watched it because I don't want to add any fuel to the fire. I've found a decent price out of Boston with JetBlue into Tampa (I've been trying to figure out how we could add Legoland). We still might end up driving down. I need to figure out the cost of flying with the addition of a rental car for the two weeks.

JetBlue has a much better record than Allegiant.

Didn't realize you were going for two weeks. That does make the drive that much easier. We usually drive for only a week stay and it can make the week seem a little compressed. You mentioned 2 overnights each way; if taking this approach you would have time to "stop and smell the roses". Consider driving the Skyline Drive (Shenandoah National Park) or stopping in at Hershey PA, or Luray Caverns along the way. There are lots of fun things to do that time of year, and you should have some beautiful colours.

 

[east_coaster]

It was supposed to be a week- week and a half at most for me to run the Wine and Dine 5km, but if we’re going that far...

We stay off site in an RCI condo, which we have by the week (never bothered converting my parents old timeshare into starigh points), so that’s looked after. The big cost is always park passes and flights. So, I’m not really firm on dates to fly/drive down, but need to be there for Nov 1st for the run, and the 7 year old would be upset to miss Halloween all together....and it’s so close to the first Christmas party.... I’ve managed to stretch this trip out.

Long story even longer, we have flexibility and some extra time, so I’m Not as worried right now about how we get there!

Thanks for the tips for both driving and potential cheap flights

 

[caisland]

We drove from PEI in 93 and 2006. We drove to Manchester and flew with Southwest 3 times after that. Great airline. Direct flights.

If you are driving down considering taking 84 over from Boston and go down 81 to avoid New York, Philly and Washington. In laws take that route every year.