Driving From St. Louis

[frog3101]

Hi,

I'm hoping to get some great advice from those who have traveled to Disney from St. Louis. It will be myself, 4 kiddos (1,4,6,8) a family friend and possibly another family friend. This will be our first super long road trip and I'm looking for any advice or tricks to making it without wanting to pull my hair out. I've already started car entertainment "kits" and will be bringing snacks and Kindles. Any advice on place to stop and rest, spend the night?
Also, so I don't take up two threads...
Once,we arrive we are staying at the Fort Wilderness campgrounds. Something totally new to us. Thinking we will use the bus a lot, but how hard is it really to get around with our car? Only one of us grew up in a large city ( friend we are picking up in St .Louis has only lived there about 6 months), so heavy traffic isn't really second nature to any of us. however, if driving ourselves,to the parks will save us time I'm willing to give it a whirl.
Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[sam_gordon]

I can't help you on route, but my opinion... don't make plans on where to stay overnight while travelling. Sure, set a goal, but don't book rooms. What if you get that far and find out your feeling pretty good and get a couple more hours in? What if you get caught in traffic and don't make it as far as you thought you would? Assuming you have multiple adults, it's not hard to use a smart phone to find a room an hour or two before you want to stop.

Also, I suggest getting your vehicle checked by a reputable mechanic to make sure it's in good shape for the trip. Do this at least a month before so you have time for repairs (if needed).

As far as getting around Disney, we use the busses. Others will always use their cars. Disney is very well marked for drivers. We just prefer letting someone else drive.

 

[frog3101]

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it. You made some good points. we are hoping to get fairly far out first day, but who knows what will happen. Ideally we would just drive straight through with rest stops only to eat, bathroom break, and gas, but with kids not sure that is the best plan. Anybody do it that way? Thanks again.

 

[ktate82]

We drove down our first time when my kids were 4 and 5. It was my mom and myself. We lived about an hour and a half from St. Louis in IL and left at 8 p.m. We drove through the night and the kids slept for most of the trip. She and I took turns driving and sleeping, and thats how DH and I will do it when we drive back down this Fall. It makes travel with the kids so much easier. On the way back, I would stop for the night. That was a bad drive home, lol.

If you don't want to do that, then I would suggest what PP said and get a room when you get tired. I have gotten some great rates off hotwire the day of. We also have a charger that has multiple ports so you can charge several devices at a time. I would also suggest looking at getting longer charging cords so they can reach who is sitting in the back. Dollar Tree is a great place to get Disney stuff cheap to fill the bags. I have heard of people who had a "surprise" every hour for the kids to keep them busy such as a snack, coloring book, or toy.

As far as driving yourself, we do that and use our GPS on our phones. The roads aren't marked well, so have someone "navigating" while someone else is driving. People are not used to the roads so will cut people off or merge quickly into lanes, so the driver needs to be watching the road, not trying to look at the map on the GPS. The only "heavy" traffic we encounter is if we go into the parks at opening or leave at closing. Try riding the bus first and see how the traffic is.

 

[BJ7644]

We are just outside St Louis and drove down.

The way there we went through Alabama, we left the Saturday after Thanksgiving and wanted to avoid Atlanta on the holiday weekend. We didn't make it as far as intended, had a late start plus stopped to visit family along the way. Stayed in AL when we got tired. Traffic was heavy all through Florida, plus several wrecks, so again very behind schedule. Arrived at Pop around 9 pm when we planned to be there by 5.

The drive back wasn't bad at all. Left Disney around 3 pm, drove through Georgia, and stopped for hotel little ways into Tennessee. Slept in a bit, hit the road, was home by 5.

As a pp mentioned, I wouldn't book hotel before hand. Nothing wrong with looking into options and having a place or two in mind but any number of things can change your travel plans. Any small savings from booking in advance isn't worth the loss of flexibility. Plus you can pick up the travel books for hotel savings on the way.

For fun stops, I used the Roadtrippers and Trip Advisor aps. (Plus Google maps - opinions vary but I find it the most accurate.) Stopping at a rest stop or restaurant with a playground would be great for the kids. I often look for a Chick Fil A - clean bathrooms, bite to eat, play area for the kid or a rest stop with playground if no food is needed. 15 or so minutes of play really did wonders for DD.

At Disney we preferred using their transportation, used the car once for the parks. It is nice to have if needed and some people do prefer to drive. And you can switch options once you're there and find out what works best for your group.

 

[LadyBeBop]

Couple of tips:

1) Avoid Nashville and Atlanta during rush hour. Especially Atlanta (although I hate driving through Nashville more than Atlanta).

2) Driving through Atlanta, stay in the far left (carpool) lanes.

 

[frog3101]

Thank you all. I had heard Atlanta is super bad to drive through but had no clue Nashville was just as bad.

Chick Fil A has play areas? Did I read that right? I don't get out much, sorry. The closet one to me is in a mall, so this is great news to me.

 

[NotUrsula]

Best route depends on timing and weather. The Monteagle Pass on I-24 between Nashville and Chattanooga is some hairy driving in bad weather or at night (it gets VERY foggy there overnight). If you have a heavily-loaded large vehicle, going through the mountains will also adversely affect your gas mileage. That route is shorter than the Alabama route, but it's tougher driving.

I'm going to give a qualified disagreement on the "don't make reservations" advice. It's good so far as it goes, but be careful of running into situations where all rooms are booked because of an event. It's never fun to decide to stop and then discover that a regional wrestling tournament or a concert has filled up every room in a 100-mile radius. Do your research ahead of time on the towns where you are likely to stop; if the prices seem oddly high or the availability is oddly low, it is probable that there is an event in town that is filling up rooms, so Google to find out what to expect. If the availability looks iffy, go ahead and reserve a couple of rooms that have a 6pm day-of no-penalty cancellation policy, and make a note of the hotel phone numbers so that you can cancel from the road before the deadline once you know which place will be your best stop.