Fly or Drive...Dilemmas...

[STLDisney_Freak]

I have no idea why the hardest thing to figure out is whether to drive or fly, but it is... We live in St. Louis (obviously from my name, ). So we would have a little bit of a haul to Orlando. We don't mind driving really...No biggie as my in laws live in Pittsburgh and we do the driving thing all the time. My girls ages 4 and 6 (at the time of trip) tend to like drives so again no big deal as far as they go. However, I like the idea of being at Orlando asap. Flying is sounding like a good option.

Reasons for driving are:
a. we would already have a car as we plan on going to Seaworld and Kennedy Space Center b. We wouldn't have to worry about getting all of our stuff back to St Louis. We are staying two weeks...one week at the WDW resorts and one week on the cruise ship. That could mean alot of souveniers
c. it is waaay cheaper.
d. We have AAA so we could use front parking and not have to worry about disney buses.

Flying...we'll we have these reasons
a. We could be there like yesterday..
b. alot more convenient (excuse my spelling) c. I could always UPS our souveniers and goodies back by UPS before heading on the cruise (I get free shipping with work, ).
d. We won't have to worry about our car at port canaveral.
e. we could already rent a car for the day or so at WDW.

Ahhhh..... What do you all think...

 

[Flyin2MCO]

My vote would be to fly . You'll get there faster, with more energy, and your return home will be more efficient.

We drove once from VA and agreed never to do it again!! (and that was only about 13 hours).

 

[LegoMom3]

I'm not big on flying but if you have the money for it, that's my vote!

We drove from New England to FL two years ago....LONG drive (oh, there are 5 of us so airline tickets are a huge expense!). This past fall we flew. As you said, you "get there like yesterday!!!" We finally decided that 3 hours in a plane beat 3 days on the road anytime (well, as we can afford it!).

When it comes to The Mouse, you wanna get there sooner than later!

 

[OKW Lover]

A couple of other data points in the fly/drive decision.

Driving is more dangerous than flying.
Flying will let you spend more of your vacation actually at WDW.

 

[AllesonWonderland]

We're going to fly. We've done 8-12 hour driving trips with the kiddies without issue, but WDW would be longer for us. I don't want to give up 1.5-2 days on either side of my vacation for driving. Plus, when we found airfare for our family of 4 for $468, that clinched it. (In my draft budget I was prepared to spend $1000-$1200 to fly) Yes, we'll have to pay for airport parking, car rental, parking at WDW, but we'll still come out ahead.

That said, good luck with your decision, sounds like you have a great vacation planned!

 

[donmil723]

We usually fly out of STL or MCI (Kansas City) on non-stop flights. My ears hurt while landing and with our drive time to/from the airports, layovers and flight times of flights with stops, it doesn't seem feasible to me to fly on anything other than a non-stop flight unless the price was EXTREMELY good. My cutoff point has always been $250 RT or less and usually much much less in the recent past. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find airfare to Florida for our March trip so I am driving to Florida with my college aged DD and another GF. This trip, time is not a factor as we had planned on only being gone 5 nights if we had flown and now with driving, we have added at least 2 extra nights--maybe 3 if we decide to go to the beach for one day. Now if a DING fare would happen to pop up on a non-stop flight with a reasonable fare from STL or MCI...... I'm sure I could be persuaded to fly.

Good luck with your decision.

Donna

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

FLY! FLY! FLY!
I don't know if SW airlines is in your reach but we flew to MCO last May, Sept/Oct. and last week and each time we were able to get Ding fares for $44 or $49 each way.
Right now Air Tran is offering $27 ow for certain dates in Sept & Oct.

 

[DISFANS3]

WE live in SW mo and have done both fly or drive. It took us about 19-20 hours to drive a good two days both ways. We do not mind the drive if we have two weeks,nice to have the car. If we only have a week we fly. Due to ice storms and other problems we had to change plans from drive to fly this year. Also we good not find any cheap fares on SW so we will be flying Allegaint out of SPFD MO, cost more money, but get fly from home airport. 94 days left for us until we make our 13th trip to WDW, time to pack the bags....