Driving to Disney World from Toronto?

[stefanospops]

Hi all,

I am contemplating a trip the first week of December and thought maybe I will drive the family this year since my minivan comes off lease at the end of the month and I am nowhere near my allowed kms! My wife hates driving so it is up to me to drive the whole way and I know I can't drive it straight. Where do people who have done this before like to stop for the night? Any good midway points where the kids can run around and use as much energy as possible during our stops? This is also a test to see how hard I need to work to pay for the airfare on future trips until they are older. Current ages are 4, 2, and 3 months. Thoughts?

 

[mommytodarlings]

not sure where to stop along the way as we drove straight through, but something we did with our kids on the drive was stop at a McD's etc. with a playland.

We let them run around and burn off energy while we relaxed and then gave them their food/snack in the van.

Our kids were 6, 4, 3 and 1 at the time.

We left at 10am on a Friday and arrived at our rental house at 11am Saturday. That was with quite a few stops.

 

[stitchfan23]

Just keep in mind that driving in Dec can be a gamble. While the weather here may not be the issue but if you are going through Buffalo and down the lake effect bands coming across between Buffalo and Erie PA can be dangerous. My parents were involved in a large pile up on that stretch of road a few years ago. The weather was beautiful and sunny and then all of a sudden they saw dark clouds up a head and boom they were in white out conditions. We don't drive down between Nov and March just in case.

 

[dancin Disney style]

We have done a few long road trips with small kids. We always tried to drive as much as possible while the kids slept. I would suggest leaving home at maybe 3am. Just put the little ones in the car and go. This works well if you can go to sleep, yourself, at 9 or 10pm. That way you will have approx 5 hours sleep under your belt. That also assumes you can funtion on 5 hours sleep. If you can stay awake all night then leave home around dinner time. We've done that too.

I actually hate road trips but my Dh loves them. We drove to WDW last year and the year before. I have to admit that he drove most of it. I might have driven 5 or 6 hours roundtrip each time. My DH just drives and drives and drives.........I don't know how he does it. We leave from Oakville around 3am and drive until about 9pm. We pack our meals, drinks and snacks in a cooler. We then stop at a rest area for about 15-20 minutes to eat and let the engine cool down. The only other stops we make are for gas. We end our first day near Savannah, GA which then leaves us only about 4 hours. That's really the only way I can manage the trip. If I had to suffer through two 12 hour days I would need major sedation and maybe a divorce lawyer.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

My family and I drive down each summer using Interstate 75. On our first day of driving leave our house at 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM and drive all the way until Cleveland, Tennessee. The next day instead of arriving at WDW because we would get there at 7:00 PM or 8:00 PM, we would drive all the way to Valdosta, Georgia and spend the night there. So that way we can arrive to WDW during the afternoon of the next day.

 

[ace9224]

We drove down last Christmas from Toronto, and took I75 from Detroit to WDW. We spread it out into three days each way. Next time I will do it in two days. It was a beautiful drive through some spectacular scenery. We took our time so that we could check out some of the historical Civil War battle sites etc. If you're thinking of doing it, buy the Along I75 book (http://www.i75online.com/HowToBuy.html). It helped us out immensely, especially with regard to cheaper hotels, radar traps, cool things to check out on the way, and history too.