Driving from NJ-any advice???

[ten822]

We will be driving from NJ to Disney in May. We've been to Disney several times but never drove. We will be making the trip with DD who is almost 5 and DS 2yrs old. Any advice on what state to stop, attraction to stretch legs, general tips, etc... Anything from a seasoned driver would be appreciated.

 

[Artist]

We drive from PA (near Philly) 2x per year to FLA, with our 2 kids. Our best tip is to leave in the afternoon or evening, drive as far as you can at night (8-10 hours or so...), and stop in NC or SC to sleep in a hotel late at night. The kids sleep most of the way, and the next morning the drive isn't so long.
Our other tip- DVD player!
It takes about 18 hours from where we are. My husband is a maniac and will drive until 3 am.

 

[jel0511]

We drive from PA (near Philly) 2x per year to FLA, with our 2 kids. Our best tip is to leave in the afternoon or evening, drive as far as you can at night (8-10 hours or so...), and stop in NC or SC to sleep in a hotel late at night. The kids sleep most of the way, and the next morning the drive isn't so long.
Our other tip- DVD player!
It takes about 18 hours from where we are. My husband is a maniac and will drive until 3 am.

We live near Princeton and usually leave around mid-morning to miss rush hour around Philly, Batimore and DC. We drive until around 9PM and that usually gets us into Florence, SC. If there is traffic, we'll keep driving until we get there. Then the next day go to WDW. I agree on the DVD player, it's SOO worth it!!!! With kids, you'll be stopping every couple of hours anyway for potty breaks, so use that time to stretch your legs and fill up again.

 

[d1sneyf4n]

Although I am not one who will ever drive to Florida..........I am not a car person at all, do not like long drives, a friend of my DD5 parents drive every time they go on a vacation. They have a DD6 and a DS3 and what they do is look up all the chick-fil-a's along the way and stop at them and let the kids play and bring their lunch, dinner in the car when they are ready to leave.

 

[MyDizneyBoyz]

We drive every year and LOVE this book - I-95 Exit by Exit. It's great for planning stops as it lists every single thing at every rest stop so you can plan ahead for the McD's that have play areas, parks, you name it. Well worth the <$20 as it's a wonderful reference. Includes lots of history and some info on things that are near the exits (museums, etc.) which you otherwise probably wouldn't know existed.

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-I-95-Ex...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238091824&sr=1-1

 

[shelly3girls]

We also stopped in Florence on the way down. It made for an easy trip the second day. On the way home I would leave early in the morning. We found the traffic to be horrible through Georgia most of the day. If we had left early we could have avoided it and cut 1-2 hours off the trip.

 

[luckymom3]

We drive from PA (near Philly) 2x per year to FLA, with our 2 kids. Our best tip is to leave in the afternoon or evening, drive as far as you can at night (8-10 hours or so...), and stop in NC or SC to sleep in a hotel late at night. The kids sleep most of the way, and the next morning the drive isn't so long.
Our other tip- DVD player!
It takes about 18 hours from where we are. My husband is a maniac and will drive until 3 am.

We come from PA as well (NEWTOWN-close to you ARTIST)! We have had complete success as well leaving at night. we stopped in SC, then continued the next morning. our DVD player was key! it really was not that bad at all. We are doing it again in Dec. ON our way home last visit we dry straight through only to stop for food and bathroom breaks!!!! That was nuts.

 

[mlynn]

We drive every year and LOVE this book - I-95 Exit by Exit. It's great for planning stops as it lists every single thing at every rest stop so you can plan ahead for the McD's that have play areas, parks, you name it. Well worth the <$20 as it's a wonderful reference. Includes lots of history and some info on things that are near the exits (museums, etc.) which you otherwise probably wouldn't know existed.

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-I-95-Ex...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238091824&sr=1-1

Just going to post the same book. It was great when we drove down in Sept. We knew were every bathroom was. Where there was a place to let the kids run while we ate a quick bite.http://www.drivei95.com/

 

[mmaikisch]

We drove quite a few times from the poconos in pa. Last year with a 7 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old. We left about noon after we all ate lunch, stopped at all the welcome stations when you cross the border to a different state (they all have free activity books for the about that state...the kids loved them), let the kids run around a bit and go to the bathroom, stopped for dinner at mcdonalds when we hit rush hour traffic, let the kids play, and by that time they were ready to sleep for the night. They slept the rest of the way, and we drove straight through with my husband and I switching off and we got to disney about 7 am, just in time for breakfast. We brought lots of snacks and drinks with us for the drive, and I made "activity packs" for each of the kids with some fun stuff in there to keep them occupied (coloring books, color wonder stuff, word searchs etc.) We also brought a dvd player with some disney dvd's for the kids, and some disney cd's to listen to on the way down to get us in the mood =)

 

[FidlMom]

We use the same I-95 book and love it.

Another thing we discovered this last trip (February) was RedBox. You rent a movie in 1 town and return it at another. Very convenient for travel. I wrote to the I-95 book people and asked them to put the RedBox locations in their next edition!

 

[simba20]

We found the traffic to be horrible through Georgia most of the day. If we had left early we could have avoided it and cut 1-2 hours off the trip.

I live in GA, and I agree that every single time we have come back from FL (usually on Sundays), that I-95 N from just south of Brunswick to just south fo Savannah is at a slow down or a crawl. And there is usually nothing occuring to cause this. Yes they are doing road construction in this area (expanding lanes), but they work at night, and going south on I-95 is like driving with a race car driver. But coming back.....OMG! Over NOTHING!

 

[FlightlessDuck]

We drive from PA and avoid I-95 until south of DC by taking I-81 to I-64. Sure, it adds about 1 1/2 hours to what Google Maps says would be our trip time, but it avoids the beltway.

We used to take three days with a stop over in VA and GA, but this year we are going to go in 2 days with a stop in either NC or SC.

We plan where to stay in advance. We also don't bother with a detour to some roadside attraction. We just blaze on through, and maybe find a movie theatre or a mall after we get to our predetermined rest point.

 

[donac]

I am different than most people. I like to drive very early in the morning. I can't seem to drive at night.

ON the last trip I wanted to leave at 5 in them morning but we didn't get out until 5:30. I was making great time until there was an accident on 95 and we hardly moved for hours. We were outside of Washington DC by 10 AM but never left Virginia until 3 in the afternoon. We did get to the Fl/Ga border by 10 that night but we wanted to get there earlier. It just didn't happen. But we were up early the next morning and at DW and in the park by noon.

 

[Marty Moose]

OP - I hope you don't mind me "hi-jacking" your thread to ask a few questions? I was actually just about to start a thread on the same subject as we are driving from NJ in late April! BTW - I just picked up a copy of Drive I-95 and I think it will definitely come in handy! I also like the idea of the Red Box movies and think it would be awesome if included in the book!!

So, here are my questions:

For those of you who leave the NJ/PA area in the afternoon/evening...how late do you check in to a hotel/motel (especially if you are making it all the way to the NC/SC border)? What time do you usually hit Baltimore & DC?
Any good recommendations for motels? Any to avoid?

TIA!
Jen

 

[serene56]

Airtran has a rate of a round trip from PHL to MCO for a total of 139pp.
(the 2 year old would fly free) wouldnt it be cheaper to fly then drive?

we tok the train once with a 4 year old and a 6 year old. wow was that long

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Airtran has a rate of a round trip from PHL to MCO for a total of 139pp.
(the 2 year old would fly free) wouldnt it be cheaper to fly then drive?

we tok the train once with a 4 year old and a 6 year old. wow was that long

Well, that depends. Does the time work? Would you need a rental?

 

[jel0511]

OP - I hope you don't mind me "hi-jacking" your thread to ask a few questions? I was actually just about to start a thread on the same subject as we are driving from NJ in late April! BTW - I just picked up a copy of Drive I-95 and I think it will definitely come in handy! I also like the idea of the Red Box movies and think it would be awesome if included in the book!!

So, here are my questions:

For those of you who leave the NJ/PA area in the afternoon/evening...how late do you check in to a hotel/motel (especially if you are making it all the way to the NC/SC border)? We've left our home near Princeton at 12:30PM and both time we've stopped in Florence, SC we've got there around 11PM. This year we're leaving a little earlier, probably 9-10AM. To get to Florence a bit earlier. What time do you usually hit Baltimore & DC?Usually around 3:30PM, traffic isn't too bad yet.
Any good recommendations for motels?We personally like Holiday Inn Express, our favs are the one in Florence(heading south), and Wilson NC(heading north) Any to avoid?The Hampton Inn infBrunswick GA was a DUMP!!! Really dirty and disgusting. I'll never stay there again!!!!

TIA!
Jen

Answers in red above.

 

[Marty Moose]

Thanks jel0511!

 

[2disneyboys]

"cheaper to fly then drive"

It always cracks me up when I see these responses... It amazes me that people could not consider that you actually PERFER to drive rather then to fly. and that it may have nothing to do with the cost (this may or may not be OP"s reasoning - but for lots of people out there ~ that is the case).

We perfer to drive... various reasons, not imporant to everyone. But it has been an adventure for sure. The key is to time your stops.. everytime we have to stop (bathroom, gas, etc) we make it a point to do everything in that stop...top off the tank, stretch our legs, potty break, etc. This way, you dont have to stop for gas, if the kiddo's are content to keep going or sleeping or something. The I95 book is a great resource, and they also have a kids version that I picked up @ barnes & nobles for $15.00... each state has trivia, games, and their own map to follow along on. DVD player is a plus for us as our kids don't get to watch much tv at home so they enjoy the extra screen time. we usually try to follow a map and plan out stops every 4 hours or so (During the day) then we'll research the areas we may approx be at during that time period so we can see what to do. We like to drive longer periods with fewer longer breaks, but some familys (my sister is one) perfers to drive shorter periods with shorter more frequent stops.

You need to make sure you don't set a schedule so ridge you can't stop and smell the roses if something looks interesting. In addition, you can't control what traffic you may hit so don't get stressed if your not on schedule. I look to book nights @ Holiday Inns for several reasons. #1 - they are consistent.. clean and comfty. not as nice as some hotels and nicer then others. The reason? most have the cancellation policy of having until 5 or 6pm of the DAY of check in to cancel your reservation w/o getting charged. I"ll make several Holiday Inn reservations a distance apart, and by 3 or 4 we know approx where we'll be and will call and cancel the others. verify the cancellation schedule though before you do this. Once we didn't we had just 1 reservation. Traffic was so awesome, we got there by 2:00pm.. and felt a little frustrated that we were stuck (did not want to keep gonig when we didn't have another hotel reservation further up the road.

Sorry so long.. I just love a good road trip. We consider it PART of the Vacation, not just transporation TO the vacation. ENJOY!!!

 

[serene56]

"cheaper to fly then drive"

It always cracks me up when I see these responses... It amazes me that people could not consider that you actually PERFER to drive rather then to fly. and that it may have nothing to do with the cost (this may or may not be OP"s reasoning - but for lots of people out there ~ that is the case).!!

the OP stated it was their first time driving. So they really dont have the experience for the knowledge. They also have very young kids. Many people think it costs too much to fly so they dont even look at the price.
For AirTran sale of 139 round trip-- driving would be the expensive route to go.