Drove to WDW and back: just returned!

[Praying Colonel]

Some thoughts on transportation to/during/from WDW:

--Covered approximately 900 miles (Louisville to CSR) in about 13.5 hours. Our route was
65S to Nashville
24E to Chattanooga
75S to Florida's Turnpike (took 75 directly through Atlanta and Macon instead of the bypasses)
Florida's Turnpike E to the new Western Way (429S)
Western Way to Buena Vista Avenue, take a left to CSR;

--Significant construction in southern Kentucky around Bowling Green, Nashville, and in GA below Macon. But traffic never came to a stop, just speed limit reduction to 55-60;

--On the way down we (and by "we," I mean "I"--DW slept--I felt like this around 3 a.m. ----> , but it was my idea to drive, so I had it coming) drove through Georgia in the early hours of Saturday morning and there were a ton of cops running radar in the Atlanta area. Only a couple when driving through around 11 a.m. Sunday morning. Be careful going through metro Atlanta at night;

--I love the 70 mph speed limit in TN, GA and FL--max is still just 65 here in Kentucky. Even with the construction noted above, we still made great time, getting there about 90 minutes faster than we expected;

--429S is awesome. You save so much time taking this from 75 S. It was practically deserted when we were driving in, to the point where we thought for a minute that we'd missed a turn or were on a piece of road that was still under construction.

--Also, 429S is completed all the way down to 192, so it was only about 15 minutes from our resort to the nearest Wal-Mart; take Buena Vista west to 429S, then 192W to US 27N and the Wal-Mart is about a mile up 27N.

--We used the AAA Diamond parking for the first time and were pleased with the location of the parking. Even when we went in the evening and the Diamond parking was full, the attendant would find a special spot close by;

--We found Disney transportation to be OK, but there were times we had to wait quite a while at the parks to catch a bus back to our resort. By the end of the week we were just driving our vehicle to the parks;

--We had dinner at the Poly, Beach Club and Boardwalk on 3 evenings. The Poly is the only one that asked why we were visiting and gave us a separate parking pass. The BC and BW waved us through when we showed our CSR parking pass. My guess is the Poly has more folks trying to game the system due to it being on the monorail line.

 

[mommiepoppins]

great info

 

[KINGBOBOFTHENORTH]

We live right near TOLL 429 and glad to hear you were pleased with it.

For those of you entering the Orlando area via Florida's Turnpike from I-75, this is a new faster route into Disney World. When you get to the Winter Garden area just west of Orlando you'll see the large interchange for State Road 429 aka TOLL 429 aka the Western Expressway. The signs are labeled as Apopka/Tampa. If you take TOLL 429 south (direction: Tampa) it will whisk you down to the Disney area in just a few minutes. Exit at Western Way and you will enter the Disney World complex from the west, near the Animal Kingdom and adjacent the Coronado Springs Resort. The toll is just $1.00 one way and can save a LOT of time compared to remaining on the Turnpike to I-4 followed by the congestion on I-4 through the Universal, International Drive and Disney areas.

Currently TOLL 429 is open one additional mile beyond Western Way to US192/Kissimmee. Unfortunately that additional mile costs another dollar. By year-end the tollroad will connect to I-4 west of Disney and east of US27/Haines City.

BobK/Orlando

 

[loveswdw]

Glad to hear you had a good trip! Sorry you couldn't find a good deal to fly!

 

[kaddjr]

This is the route we took last month. Well, most of it anyway as we live 2 hours north of Indy. It's not a bad drive at all, especially if you can hit Atlanta in the early morning hours. On the way home, we made the mistake of hitting it around 11:00 pm on a Friday. We won't be making that mistake again. And there is a small stretch on 24 that I'm not fond of, but I can live with it. We also took 429, but exited onto 535 and took that to Vista Blvd. (we stayed at WL) Not getting on I4 was really nice!

 

[sleepingbeautymama]

Hi, thanks for the transportation info. We are 3 hours north of you in Indiana and plan on driving. Did the 13.5 hours include any stops or was this non-stop driving? We plan on making an overnight stop somewhere in GA but a part of us just want to drive it straight through to get there.

 

[Uncleromulus]

Praying:
Thanks for the information!! Your take on Disney Transportation the same as mine--easier to just drive everywhere.

 

[Dana49]

Thanks for taking the time to write such an informative thread.

 

[madge]

Some thoughts on transportation to/during/from WDW:

--Covered approximately 900 miles (Louisville to CSR) in about 13.5 hours. Our route was
65S to Nashville
24E to Chattanooga
75S to Florida's Turnpike (took 75 directly through Atlanta and Macon instead of the bypasses)
Florida's Turnpike E to the new Western Way (429S)
Western Way to Buena Vista Avenue, take a left to CSR;

--Significant construction in southern Kentucky around Bowling Green, Nashville, and in GA below Macon. But traffic never came to a stop, just speed limit reduction to 55-60;

--On the way down we (and by "we," I mean "I"--DW slept--I felt like this around 3 a.m. ----> , but it was my idea to drive, so I had it coming) drove through Georgia in the early hours of Saturday morning and there were a ton of cops running radar in the Atlanta area. Only a couple when driving through around 11 a.m. Sunday morning. Be careful going through metro Atlanta at night;

--I love the 70 mph speed limit in TN, GA and FL--max is still just 65 here in Kentucky. Even with the construction noted above, we still made great time, getting there about 90 minutes faster than we expected;

--429S is awesome. You save so much time taking this from 75 S. It was practically deserted when we were driving in, to the point where we thought for a minute that we'd missed a turn or were on a piece of road that was still under construction.

--Also, 429S is completed all the way down to 192, so it was only about 15 minutes from our resort to the nearest Wal-Mart; take Buena Vista west to 429S, then 192W to US 27N and the Wal-Mart is about a mile up 27N.

thanks so much for the update! we'll be taking the same route in about 7 weeks... starting a little farther south in E'town!

 

[Praying Colonel]

Hi, thanks for the transportation info. We are 3 hours north of you in Indiana and plan on driving. Did the 13.5 hours include any stops or was this non-stop driving? We plan on making an overnight stop somewhere in GA but a part of us just want to drive it straight through to get there.

Hi sleepingbeautymama,

13.5 hours was the driving time. On the way down we stopped for breakfast at a Waffle House in Lake City and stopped for groceries at a Publix in Clermont. We left at 7:30 p.m. and arrived at CSR at 10:30 a.m., so if you include the stops we made it was 15 hours total.

On the way home we drove 5.5 hours to Macon, GA where we stayed at a Residence Inn (we were disappointed), then drove straight home 8 hours to Louisville the next morning.

 

[LizAgna]

Would you recommend driving straight thru like you did? We are about 3.5 hours closer to WDW than you. DH & I are planning a surprise birthday trip for our DDs next year. DH wants to leave after work on a Friday and drive straight down, not tell the girls until we are in the parking lot of the Pop Century in the wee hours of the morning. We would have a room at Pop that night even though we wouldn't arrive until 3 or 4am. After doing something similar...should we do it??

thanks!!

 

[K9pal]

Hey Praying Colonel,
We live just across the river in southern IN. Have you ever tried I-64 to Lexington, then straight down I-75? Once you do, you won't go back to the Nashville route! No difference in mileage and actually saves time since you don't have Nashville traffic. Also more scenic.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Liz,

We saved about $300 in driving it vs. flying it. Was it worth $300 to me to be tired that first day? Yeah, probably, but I'm not as sure I'd want to do it again. Hard to say right now, because I'm still a little tired from the vacation. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation! If you asked me in a month, I might have a different answer.

K9,

You may be right. I've driven it both ways now and although Google Maps lists the route through Lexington as being a little longer, I'm not sure it was longer in terms of driving time. We did encounter traffic delays south of Lexington the last time we drove that route, but that was back in 2004 and things may be different now.

 

[JoeCathyAngelina]

13-14 hours is not a bad drive, I've ridden my bike for longer than that during my yut.
March of '03 we drove down and back from Boston with my 3 yr old daughter. It was a 1,350 mile, 23 hour ride each way, the time went by a lot faster than we thought it would and we're planning on driving down again in April of '07.
The past 2 years we've been lucky with $500 total for nonstop airfare for the 3 of us. If we booked airfare today it would cost us about $2,000 ($500 to drive) for airfare, rental car, taxis, and it would still be a 12 hour travel day from the time we leave our house to the time we get to WDW.
Good Luck All,
Joe