Driving from NJ???

[zippy doo dah]

Hello - my apologies if this is in the wrong thread - I'm sure it will find it's correct home soon -

I just booked a very quick trip to WDW for MVMCP...my hope is that it will be one of those spontaneous trips that the kids will be totally surprised by and will never forget.

We are from NJ...Toms River, which is very near the coast, to be exact...and my question is for drivers who have made this trip before from NJ (NY & PA would also be helpful!)

The estimated distance is almost 1100 miles and I will be driving my Nissan Quest MiniVan...
1. How many fill ups round trip?
2. What time would you leave? (I'm thinking leave on Sun to check in on Mon)
3. What other advice do you have for me? (It will most likely be only me driving and I want to go straight through)

TIA

 

[zippy001]

I am from Southern Delaware and drove down in May. We left about 4 am (my husband likes to get an early start). This got us through DC before the morning rush. We left with a full tank and I think we filled up 2 x’s (Honda Odyssey). We did hit Orlando at 4:00 rush hour. It was horrible. It took an hour to get to Animal Kingdom Lodge from Orlando. If you can time it so you don’t hit Orlando around rush hour that would be good. It took us about 15 hours.

 

[pamouselover]

We drove last aug. from Pa. right over the bridge in Delaware county.
We filled up before leaving in Delaware, then again in Va. and not again till we were leaving Ga. We got through DC no problem. We drove straight through to Lake Mary Fla. We left at 4am and made it to Fla. around 8pm. We stopped numerous times to eat though. We packed food but want to rest stops to get out of the SUV a bit. We also wasted too much time at south of the border. That was 45 mins. we will never get back in our lives. I don't reccomend stoppng there. We left on a sat. and spent the night a hotel before checking into our WDW resort on Sunday. I would drive again, I might even have too now.

 

[Kathi OD]

It will be about 19 hours, maybe a little more, driving time from where you are, even if you hit some traffic around D.C. Your biggest problem is that there isn't a major highway that runs on the diagonal from Toms River to Pennsville where the Delaware Memorial Bridge is. You pretty much have to go the back roads or the GSP to either to 195 or the ACE, and then over to 295. Any way you look at it, that eats up time.

It's hard to time the traffic around D.C. We've been in bumper-to-bumper traffic at midnight and 2AM (different trips) on weeknights. Even on weekends we've been in traffic at what you would think would be odd hours.

Our general pattern was to leave after dinner, drive until we got somewhere in NC. There we'd pull into a rest area, get about 4 hours sleep and then hit the road again. Including our nap-time, it usually takes us right around 22 hours to get to WDW.

Can't help you on the gas, as we drive either a truck or SUV. I'm sure you get better gas mileage than we do.

Have fun on your trip!

 

[sticker231]

It took us 16 1/2 hours each way last October. It should take you about 17 hours. We took a few bathroom breaks along the way and I think we got gas twice each way. We left around 7:30 pm, this way we were way past DC before anyone way even thinking of getting up. We hit no traffic. On the way home, we left at 5 am. We got home around 9:30.

If Spirit isn't offering great deals out of AC airport, I would drive again.

 

[onelugnut]

leave in P.M. go thru Balt-DC area in middle of the night if you can
(thats the only time there is no traffic there.)

trip is actually 1080, so averaging 60mph should make trip 18 hrs with out
meal stops.

2 fill ups (that should cover potty breaks)
If you go thru the night there are less potty breaks.

check out the thread titled "2000 mile plus club"

plenty of excellent info there for your questions.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=28264751&posted=1#post28264751