Driving to WDW from Northeast

[MeghanNRileysMom]

Hi all, We are considering driving to WDW this year, as we just bought a brand new Honda Oddessy. We will be leaving CT for our reservations at the Polynesian on Sat Dec 6th. We've always flown down to FL in the past, but figured we would give driving a try, since we have the new minivan. Our girls will be 5 and 2 1/2 when we go. I would appreciate any tips you can give us, this is totally new to us and I haven't been able to find much info about this topic. I hope this is the right board to post this question on! Tips on when to leave, where to stop, how long to drive for, ANYTHING! Thanks in advance!

 

[CamColt]

I was quite surprised when we did the drive and I found it not bad at all. In fact we did it again, and have a 3rd drive down planned this summer.
Last year my kids were the same ages as yours 5 1/2 & 2 1/2. Lots of snacks helped and the biggest life saver was a tv/vcr, complete with tapes we had made of DS's favorites shows(anything on Nick Gas). I had packed a lot of toys for them,but surprisingly they didnt need most of them. They used some of course, but probably only half of what I packed. Between sleeping time and tv time, they werent too bored.
If you have any specific questions just ask. And enjoy your trip in your new car! I loved the Oddyssey when we test drove it. If it werent for the price we would have bought it. We are looking forward to our ride in our new CRV.

 

[crzy4dsny]

I haven't built up enough nerve to try the drive yet but some day I will. I drive to Virginia alot and the one bit of info I can give you is to stay away from Washington D.C during rush hours. The traffic there is horrible. I have a friend who drives all the time who I consider an expert. He has done the trip 23 times. He always drives straight through. He says to leave around 7 pm or 2 am. This way you miss all the traffic.

 

[ducklite]

The best advice I can give is don't wait until you are feeling tired before you stop to rest (sleep). Your mind and reflexes fail before your mind tells you it's time for a break.

No driver should put in more than about four hours before being relieved by the other driver, unless they are very used to doing long haul driving.

Anne

 

[tebright]

God Bless you guys who don't mind driving all of that. I live in PA right outside of Philly and we drove to Disney 2 years ago. It wasn't that bad but I felt like we spent so much time traveling and repacking overnight bags to take into hotels.

We are trying another option this December and I'll let you know if it is better than driving or worse. We're taking the auto train. We will need to drive about 3 hours to Lortan VA but kids are excited about riding on the train.

 

[Disneyholic]

tebright

We're from PA too and took the autotrain last year. It was great, but because of money matters this year we are going to try the drive. Never done this before. Just purchased an RCA DVD player with lift up flat screen that seatbelts into the center of the back seat. Games can be hooked up to it too which makes it nice for our 16 year old DS. It has 2 headphones, so I may join him the back seat to watch a movie for a while too.

If we decide that the trip down is too much, we will check in Sanford to see if there is anything available. If not we have 3 days to drive back to PA if necessary.

 

[SpaceAce]

You better keep those kids busy somehow! Especially talk to the 5 year old about not acting like hes 2 and a half just because her sibling is. Enlist the older one's help, try to convince her that you need or want his help with the little one, and that this trip wouldn't be possible except for you know that she will act her age, and she will help. Make her feel USEFUL and therefore she will feel IMPORTANT. That works great with boys who love to impress their mommies...I don't know if it works with girls or not.

If you can somehow get them really tired before you leave, do it! Keep them up late so they will sleep as much as possible in the car, if they can. You'd be surprised how many school organizations puprosely plan their trips to promote the kids being tired so they have the physical drain to go to sleep. On the other hand, that might just make them cranky and irritable...that's up to you to know how your individual kids will react.

Give the five year old a map to see just how far they are going.

Keep in mind how uncomfotable you would be strapped into a carseat all day - you will need to break more often because of the lack of luxury to move around that you have but the youngest one won't.

Just some ideas - some will work with some kids and others with others. Just decide based on what you know.

 

[dgaston]

You might also check out this thread.

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=383054

I think the TV/VCR is a godsend on long trips.

 

[WDW4KIDS]

We've driven 3 times and are planing to go again in August.My advice to you is to leave either early evening and drive while the kids sleep or leave early a.m.Driving overnight isn't bad as long as the driver is rested you'll miss all the NY and DC traffic nightmares.Leaving early a.m. means leaving at 3 or 4 a.m. and stopping over a night on the road.We've done both ways and there both good.please allow for weather and have a grat trip.Please e-mail if you have other questions.Good luck

 

[AuntMinnie]

Have you figured in your actual savings?

It's about 1200 miles, figure $1.50 a gallon of gas (that would be cheep I think) thats about $120 in gas round trip

Staying at a hotel about 80-100 one night each way $175 round trip

are you going to need an extra 2 days worth of food expense?$150 round trip

Tolls on the way? COLOR=red]there have to be some[/COLOR]


SO I get at least $450 to drive round trip, plus putting about 2 months worth of miles on your car.

Whats the best airfare you could get, does that plus the transfer to DW come to an amount that would be worth the difference of a long drive with 2 small children? Any chance the 2 1/2 yr old will be potty training. I had a 2 1/2 yr old potty training turn a 6 hr ride into an 8hr ride. ( after 3 months of clean and dry I wasn't going back to diapers and she wouldn't have dine anything in diapers either, she did however like to do one drop of pee-pee in every toilet from our house to the beach

I'm not sayin this to be mean, when were first planing I wanted to drive so DH told me to figure out the whole cost of flying vs. driving and for us the savings wasn't worth the headache. (Then I looked into the auto train and it was the most expensive of all )

If you do decide to drive, what I do for long (6hr) trips is make of bags of stuff (like gift bags or small shopping bags from bath and body works ) I put a book, some happy meal/cereal box toys. I make up several for each child and when they get fussy I give then a new one. If you don't have a tv for the car mine love childrens CDs and audio tapes. For packing snack it's much cheeper to buy a big (regular 8oz) size of a snack (like teddy grahms and pack it in baggies then buying the box that has small bags in it.

Good luck with your plans![

 

[MeghanNRileysMom]

Thanks so much for all the great info! We keep going back and forth about this! Our youngest was 18 months when we flew down this past November, and it was TORTURE. I'm sure the rest of the airplane thought so too! We are driving to Wildwood, NJ in July from CT and that will be our test. If she does poorly we will just have to subject the passengers on some random flight from Hartford to MCO in December to the horrors of Riley! LOL I promise to warn all DISers of our flight number to avoid us at all costs!

I appreciate all of your efforts and will use them all on our trip to Wildwood, and take it from there for the Orlando drive.

The cost isn't our biggest issue, it was really the stress on all of us flying with Riley! At least in the car we can pull over and we're only torturing ourselves, not innocent strangers! LOL

 

[AspiringCindy]

We drove last Aug. with a 14 month old from Northern New Jersey(right by the GW Bridge). The drive was not bad. We left early in the morning, missed DC traffic and continued on till we hit Santee, SC. DD slept a lot of the way, watched movies and her other 2 DDs kept her busy. If you do drive, anticipate where you will stop and reserve a room before you leave. Also, stock a small cooler with drinks and snacks!

 

[KIRSTIN'S MOMMY]

We have done this twice with our dd, once when she was a year and a half, and once at two and a half. She did great....granted, we don't have that long to drive, it only takes about 4 hours from here. But, my husband's family lives in Lincoln,NE, and we drove there with our dd when she was a year old. It's about a 25 hour drive, and we did it straight through, with my dh and I sharing the driving duties. We left at around midnight, so my dd slept through the whole first night and part of the day. By the time she woke up, we were stopping for breakfast. We played games for a while, then she went back to sleep and took her daily nap. It really wasn't that bad, but the poor kid went to sleep in the car, woke up in the car, ate in the car, you get the idea...Anyway, we were going to WDW a month later, and when it was time to leave, she refused to get in the car!!! Can't say that I blame her! If I hadn't known where we were going, I probably wouldn't either!!!! Good luck with your trip, and in addition to missing the DC traffic, don't forget about Atlanta, at rush hour it's absolute gridlock.

 

[DEH3rd]

We bought a conversion van for this very reson. We leave from philly suburbs. about 19 hours with stops. I drive the whole way, straight through. I actually like it. My wife and i get to talk, and we sing along with the kids. A couple of tips.
1. Have a tv/vcr & a CD player
2. allow kids to pick out 3 or 4 videos each from home
3. buy 1 or 2 videos as a surprisefor on the way.
4. go to kazaa.com & download your favorite songs toput on CDs
-we put about 4 CD's worth of disnety stuff on there. You'd
be amazed at what you can find. I was even able to get
the entire monorail announcement off of Kazaa. (I am still
looking for the Spanish version"por favor mantenga se
listening to the parade music, MSEP, Spectro, TON, SADCT,
etc...
5. Buy a cooler that you can plug into a cig.lighter. I got one for about $100, it is great, plus, you won't need to spend $$$ on a fridge at WDW. It pays for itself in 1 trip. It has an adapter for both car and home. One of the best investments I ever made! Stock it with fruit, ham chese milk, juice boxes, soda water. It helps save time & $$$.
6. Pick up a couple of lap desks & coloring books/games/activities, kids will love it.

hope this helped. have fun

dan

 

[DisneyPoly]

DEH3rd ... we live in the bucks county, pa and although we've driven before -- have not done it straight through. Since you have, what time is best to leave? Not sure if we'll be able to do it, but thought it worth asking someone who has.

Thanks!

 

[MulanMom]

The Honda Odyssey is excellent for road trips. Haven't done the road trip to WDW and back, but have done the long haul for beach trips. Still has lots of power and maneuverability even when loaded up and the AC on! We place our children in the middle captain's chairs where it's a reasonable reach to hand out snacks and drinks.

 

[KIRSTIN'S MOMMY]

To the poster that wants the monorail announcement...We've got it, and all the announcements from all the parks, and all the rides, shows, anything you can think of!!!! Go to WinMx.com, download the program and type in Disney, Disney Parks, Walt Disney World, etc. in the search window....we have over 200 things!!!! We listen when we need a Disney fix, not quite as good as being there, but if you close your eyes........

 

[DEH3rd]

Thanks, Will DO!

 

[DEH3rd]

we left at 2:30 am last year. we were able to get past DC before rush hour. saved us alot of time. This year, we are leaving around 3:00 pm, as soon as I am done with my last day of school. Don't know how it will work out, but I'm sure we'll be ok. I only wish my wife would drive the big van, it would help, but it truly isn't too bad, just be prepared with activities for the kids! good luck.

 

[DisneyPoly]

Thanks for the update!

We left at 1:00 p.m. in January and arrived in Florence, SC at 11:00 p.m. after stopping once for dinner.

We left Florence at 8:00 a.m. the next day and arrived in WDW at 3:00 p.m.

Wasn't too bad!