Driving from NYC to the world

[Jeanine3kids]

We will be driving this June from NYC to the world with 3 kids ages 8,6,4 any suggestions we have never drove before a little nervous but we just hate flying with the kids plus trying to save some money

 

[WDWjen]

with kids the same age!

Its really not bad at all! We drove in 07 and stayed offsite so having our own car was great. It saved us a ton of money over flights... even with gas/tolls. (Make sure you have Ezpass)

Last Feb we decided last minute to go to WDW over the school break so flying was out of the question. Only problem was that we got the stomach virus while in WDW so I was out of commission for the ride home and my husband did most of the driving... other than that it was fine.

Our kids are 4,6,8 - we make sure we have DVD player or a laptop that plays DVD's... they each have nintendo DS and games, we bring a cooler bag of snacks/drinks and then assorted books and crayons/coloring books.

We leave after dinner from the NY area (my sister lives in NJ so had dinner there and we left from her house b/c we live on LI) and drive until around 8-9 which is their bedtime. We stop so they can use the bathroom & brush teeth and we get gas or snacks for us. Then we alternate driving / sleeping and by the time the kids wake up we are in GA or FL.

My kids are great in the car, they never usually give us a problem - so that helps a lot! If we stopped and got a hotel room we'd have to do more driving while they were awake so I dont think we would do that. We power up on coffee and books on CD and time flies very fast.

Few things:
1- the 2-6am hours are the worst.
2- the ride down to FL is SOOO much better than the ride home
3- make sure the 4 yr old give advance notice of when they have to use the bathroom, we've had to pull over on the side of the road for him when he waits until the last minute!
4- we consider it a family adventure that they will remember forever!

AND PS our upcoming trip we got RT airfare for 5 of us for around $800 so we are flying!

good luck!

 

[ohlas]

plus you can go to like a dollar tree and buy small prizes and play a game with the kids. they get one prize per x amount of time and ask them to answer something they know like who lives in cinderella's castle that one got my 13 year old for couple of mins. and it still make us all lol till this day. wrap them up so they get to unwrap them its lots of fun. we bring the ds and the dvd and laptop, mp3 players too, plus travel games that everyone can play, you can make a road trip as fun or as boring as you want.

 

[mousebymarriage]

We drive down from Bergen County , NJ (6 miles from the GWB). We have made the drive 3 times and it has never been a problem. I agree with the pp have plenty of DVD's (including a couple of new ones, they hold little ones attention a little longer than ones they have seen over and over), a portable DVD player is the GREATEST invention ever when traveling with kids. A few little inexpensive surprises are great, just give the kids each 1 periodically (wrapping them in Disney paper is fun too). Nintendo Ds is a great idea too or PSP, and if you have an i-pod maybe download some songs the kids would like and let them take turns listeneing to their own music. WE play the license plate game (write down what state license plates you see, you'll be amazed at the variety as you drive that 1100 miles), my DS8 will be writing them down this trip because his sister did it last time. My kids were amazed that we ended up with 42 states and a few different plates from Canada as well on our last trip., don't forget truck license plates count too.
Another good game for the car is a handheld game (it's a little smaller than a tennis ball) and it's called 20Q, you can buy it for a few dollars at Target, Wal-mart, Toys R us, Five Below etc. . It's great because the game uses a series of questions to figure out what you are thinking of. It's amazing because 9 times out of ten the game figures it out. We take turns in the car thinking of an item that we want the game to figure out. The kids get a kick out of it.

AS far as the time of day we have left it has been different times. Late afternoon, dinner time and even 2:30am. The last time we left it was at about 4pm and we drove straight through No traffic problems at all however, it was on a Sunday. The 2:30am was the WORST idea EVER! We listened to someone DH works with and since it was our first time driving we thought this guy had good advice, WRONG! The problem was that we woke the kids up at 2:15 just enough time to brush teeth and go to the bathroom (they went to bed in sweatpants and t-shirts the night before so they didn't need to change). We were in the car and pulling out of the driveway at 2:30am but, the kids didn't go back to sleep. They were wide awake and off the wall excited. By breakfast time they were sooooo cranky from being overtired. DD was 9 and DS was 4 1/2 at the time.

We leave again in 2 weeks (Feb5th) which is a Friday, and we are pulling the kids out of school at 12noon (their lunch hour). Our plan is to stop home let them drop off the backpacks, use the bathroom and be on the road before 12:30pm. We are driving straight through again.

 

[disneylovin24]

We drive from right outside the city on long island The worst part of the whole trip for me is getting through NYC, pretty much everytime of day has traffic and its a pain in the butt!! After that there's also Balitmore and DC traffic then smooth sailing untill Jacksonville and Orlando. The last few trips we've been going down I 80 to I 77. It takes you through the western part of the states instead of the coast like 95. The only major city you hit is Charlotte NC, so traffic is never a problem when you go that way You met back up with 95 in southern South Carolina, it's a little longer (about a hour) then taking 95 but I really think you actually save time by not sitting in traffic. Also, once you get to Floridia I would suggest taking 417 to avoid I4 through Orlando. Once again it's a little longer but there is always traffic in orlando and it really saves you sitting in traffic four hours. (Can you tell that my family doesn't like traffic)

I don't know when you plan on leaving yet but I've pretty much left at everytime imaginalbe The last 2 years we drove straight through, but I wouldn't recommend it with young kids and it is exhausting. What we're doing this year and what has always been our favorite way of traveling, we're leaving around 4 am and going down to Pooler GA. We usually get to Pooler around 8 or 9 at night and it's only 4-5 hours from disney!! You get a lot of driving done in the daytime and you can still rest up and be close to disney in the morning. There's a million more ways you could split up the driving, but that's what I would suggest. We have also left at noon, and 4pm, and 6pm. Noon, we drove down to NC and got to disney around 6pm the next day. I personally didn't like that because we arrived in disney so late that night. 4pm and 6pm, we drove to Northern Virginia and first day, Jacksonville the second day, then arrived in disney the third day. I would NOT recommend this at all, spending two nights in hotels before you reach disney is too expensive and it gets to a point when you just want to get there!!

The drive is a fun experience and I'm sure your family will enjoy it!! Mine always has