Exhaustion? WDW to MI

[arielmomma]

Hello everyone! Now that my daughter is 2 we are likely done flying to Florida for awhile now that we have to pay for all four of us. My children are 2 and 5. We have driven to Florida before with the children to visit family and the road trip wasn't bad. We were tired, but not too bad. We drove straight through. When we visit family, we do not exhaust ourselves on the vacation. When we go to Disney we run ourselves ragged. I am concerned about how we will feel on the way home. We drive about 1300 miles each way. For those of you who have made the trip - Do you have any advice? I really like driving through. I hate to waste vacation time stopping on the way home. Will it really be necessary? Thanks for any advice.

 

[clkelley]

Even with my 700 mile drive, I split it up each way, but it doesn't really take any time out of my trip.

If you would normally leave early on Saturday morning, I would start on Friday night after you and/or your spouse gets off work, then drive for about 4 hours, then find a place to stop for the night, then start again the next morning.

The night before your trip, you are not going to get much sleep anyway as you will be going over lists, and everyone will be excited, might as well get a few hours and a few miles down the road.

As far as going home, if you would normally start driving home a week later on Sunday morning, start driving North on Saturday night after spending the day at the parks. Drive for 2 - 3 hours, then start again the next morning.

For the drive home, you will find it sooooo much easier to get an early start on Sunday morning from a nondescript hotel on the interstate than it will be to get out the door from a Disney resort. (The temptation to stop at one more shop, or have one more meal will be gone.) You probably weren't going to do anything that last evening except get to bed early so you could start driving early the next morning. You might as well get a few hours driving in that evening.