Driving from Springfield, MO

[DERSmom]

We leave for Disney World on June 6 and have decided to drive. Airfare for 6 is ridiculous! With that said, I don't have to exact route mapped out yet but we are thinking about leaving at 7 am and stopping overnight around Marietta, GA. Google says that's about 650-ish miles, roughly 11 hours. There is myself, my husband and our 4 kiddos ages 11,11,7 & 6.

Have any of you made this trip somewhat close to where we live and if so, where did you stop for an overnight stay? I'd rather not do more than 10-11 hours in the car since the natives will surely get restless.

 

[grimley1968]

This thread might help.

 

[DERSmom]

Thank you! That will help!


Btw...LOVE your pic! Ed Grimley has always been a favorite of mine...I must say

 

[grimley1968]

Thank you! That will help!


Btw...LOVE your pic! Ed Grimley has always been a favorite of mine...I must say

I saw Martin Short on Conan a few weeks ago, and he mentioned there would be some kind of Ed Grimley DVD coming out sometime. I loved to hear that because good video of Ed Grimley skits is extremely hard to find.

I think the thread linked earlier could be useful as far as routing. I would add, though, that you'll probably arrive in the Marietta area after rush hour. If it were me, I'd take that opportunity to go ahead and get through Atlanta at that time. Atlanta is not bad at all to drive through after 7 PM or so. Atlanta is only about 20 minutes south of Marietta. Just stay on I-75 (do NOT take the 285 bypass around Atlanta - big waste of miles and time). There are plenty of places to stop overnight between Atlanta and Macon.

This way, you'll already be clear of the biggest obstacle en route to WDW when you start the next day.

DO take the bypass around Macon. That one actually does save some time.

 

[RogueJayhawk]

We did the drive from Kansas City last June and we are doing it again this May. We leave as close to 3am as possible and stop in Macon GA for the night. This way its only about 6 hours the following day to Disney. Lots of decent places to stop for the night in Macon plus you are already past Atlanta to start your 2nd day of driving. I like leaving at 3am that we I am already past St. Louis by the time the kids just start waking up.

 

[DERSmom]

That's not a bad idea to leave at 3 am...I guess we could just stick the kids in the car and hopefully they sleep! I'd like to avoid St Louis rush hour since we're leaving on a Thursday. Sitting in traffic drives me crazy!

 

[k&a&c'smom]

We drive down to Orlando a good portion of our trips, and we've only done the route through STL once or twice. It isn't any shorter for us (we live north of you by about 1 hr. 20 minutes), in fact I think it added an hour or even two to our drive.

We always drive down through S'field to Cabool, on to Memphis - then, either down to the Miss. Gulf Coast and I-10 (for a more scenic route) or through northern Miss. to Birmingham, AL - and then choose the route into FL. Either straight down to I-10 via Montgomery to the Ft. Walton area, or through Dothan to the Tallahassee area.

Everyone has said, "oh, that's so much further/longer!" We have not found that to be the case at all. Just more turns in the road, which makes it more interesting. With such a long drive, I need some interest to keep me alert!

 

[smittette]

Driving from Springfield, MO
We leave for Disney World on June 6 and have decided to drive.

You're going to be about 4 hours ahead of us. We're leaving from Creston, Iowa (south and west of Des Moines) on the 6th.

 

[PoohbearMama]

We drove straight through with no stops 4 years ago. We left Springfield and went down 60 to 63. Probably because we have family at West Plains....LOL. We then went down through Arkansas. We probably would not take the Arkansas route again due to the HUGE mosquitos that attacked at a gas station. We are not driving this time but we did make memories on that trip that we will never forget. We got lucky and found amazing airfare rates on AirTran out of St. Louis. Have fun and make lots of memories.

 

[RogueJayhawk]

We are leaving on May 25th from Kansas City. Since this is a Saturday, there shouldn't be too much traffic. We have made this drive before and had to drive through both St. Louis and Atlanta during rush hour times which I do not recommend. The main thing is to get through Atlanta! You can easily spend an extra hour driving trying to get through town and there is not another great way around it.

 

[smittette]

We have made this drive before and had to drive through both St. Louis and Atlanta during rush hour times which I do not recommend. The main thing is to get through Atlanta! You can easily spend an extra hour driving trying to get through town and there is not another great way around it.

We should hit St Louis around noon on Thursday. Then I plan to get to just north of Atlanta or maybe just past it depending on how the drive goes before we stop for the night. That should give us an easy drive to Orlando on Friday, just in time to check in -we're staying off site.