Fly or drive?

[AllThingsFigment]

We're coming from Indiana. Staying in All Star Music Suite Feb 8-14. 3 adults, 1 teenager, 2 toddlers, one newborn who will be nursing every 3 hours. It's a 14+ hour drive or a 2 hour flight. I will be taking a double stroller to all the parks. We have ADRs every morning before the parks open at Chef Mickey, Akershus, and Hollywood and Vine. Considering all this would you fly or drive?

I don't like flying so we always drive. For us it's 12 hours give or take and most of the time our kids have done really well. As long as you have enough room and don't mind stopping every 3 hours for the newborn to nurse I say drive, especially since you have 3 early morning ADRs. While our kids are little we prefer driving to the parks so it's nice having our vehicle with us. On our most recent trip we used the bus one evening and it was kind of a pain with the stroller since our two youngest had fallen asleep.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

How much time are you REALLY saving by flying? By the time you fool with transportation to and from both airports and security, you're probably looking at that 2 hour flight turning into more like 6 hours door to door (depending on how far you are from the airport). Is the additional cost and all the headaches of flying worth 8 hours each way? Only you can answer that.

 

[mjkacmom]

I'd fly. As it is, if we have a drive over 2 hours, we take 2 vehicles. My kids don't fight, my kids don't cry, my kids don't even whine - but it's just loud! When I drive with just my 3 girls, it's so peaceful.

The problem with babies and toddlers is that they do cry. I remember driving 12 hours when my 2 oldest were 2 and 4. The 4 year old would fall asleep, and the 2 year old would cry, waking her. It was just a bunch of crabbiness.

Now, to save money, we will split the family, some driving, some flying (not going to lie - it's usually the girls flying, although it was the twins and I when they were much younger). This also works out well, and saves some money. Plus, when we get to our destination, we have a vehicle.

 

[kydisneyfans]

How much time are you REALLY saving by flying? By the time you fool with transportation to and from both airports and security, you're probably looking at that 2 hour flight turning into more like 6 hours door to door (depending on how far you are from the airport). Is the additional cost and all the headaches of flying worth 8 hours each way? Only you can answer that.

We feel the same. We budget 14 hours from our part of KY. We estimate 7-8 hours if flying(2 hrs to drive to airport, 2 hours before flight, 2 hours on flight, 1-2 hours to Disney from landing). The trip we returned from cost $151 in fuel vs $1250 in airline tickets/airport parking costs. The actual drive both ways was 26 3/4 hours. I'll take the $1000 savings for using 10-12 hours of my time.

 

[Ayleana]

We have driven the three times we've been. It's about a 10 hour trip for us. The first and second trips were just my family of 4 (DH, myself, DD(6) and DS(2)), the last trip we had 5 adults and 2 children. That being said the first two trips were nice, especially the second trip which was in the SUV (have minivan that has better gas mileage but the suv has more room for the four of us to spread out).
I would NOT recommend the last car ride to anyone. It was miserable! Even with the cargo carrier on top of the car with most of our luggage, there was NO room to move about.
We usually leave early in the morning and do most of our driving that day, call it a stop once our youngest gets fussy of the car seat (which tends to be around dinner time). We usually find that we are about 3-4 hours from Disney by this point.
That being said, we had considered flying for our trip for next year. I found a website that helps to calculate gas cost (it comes fairly close to the cost from previous trips) then compared the cost of tickets to fly. For my family of four, even with a hotel cost for the road trip, it's cheaper to drive. I would say that if it depends on the cost then google gas calculator, factor in hotels and other stops (we don't stop for food or drinks but pack meals/drinks for the trip) then price airline tickets and figure out which would be the best for your family. There's also a website I found that actually compared all that for you (befrugal.com the fly or drive tool).
Either way it goes though Have fun!

 

[stargazer2892]

I would fly. We just flew from Charlotte to Maine a few weeks ago instead of driving because of our DS, the thought of making a toddler sit in a car for 17 hours I just couldn't do, yes we could have driven at night but he never sleeps well in the car and that would mean DH and I taking turns driving through the night. Now before kids we did it no problem (his family lives up there). The cost of driving is going to be significantly cheaper but I think its worth the money to save your sanity.

 

[luvmy2babies]

Trying to decide right now myself. We drove this year for the first time after flying 3 times. Everyone did fine, but mine are 10 and 3. We are in NC. Since I am the only driver, I broke it up with stops in Savannah, Ga. each way. Since we got back, my daughter has actually let me know that she prefers the drive, which really surprised me. She gets a little nervous flying, but I never thought she would say she prefers a drive that spans 2 days to getting from the gate at home to Magical Express in 3 hours. We are fortunate in that we are 20 minutes from our airport and I’ve always been able to get a non-stop flight. Last time we flew our flight was at 7:50am. We were on Magical Express by 10:15. She said she had fun on the drive though.

If we drive though, I could probably put more into the trip. Calculating fuel costs, hotel stays, one meal stop each way (for us) it made a difference. Then there was the difference in cost of the meals we were able to eat in our room with the food I brought from home and the price of a QS meal for us. I came out between $300 and $400 cheaper driving. In the end, I think it will depend on whether I decide to add the dining plan to our reservation or not. If we don’t have it, I will need to drive to bring more food from home unless I send stuff ahead.

My concern for you is the little people. I don’t know how old your toddlers are, but one thing I will say is that I am glad I did not have to drive before my son could communicate. He was not good on long drives when he was a baby. And my daughter wasn’t much on them when she was younger either. But my son…I’d say most of the time he had a limit of about 2.5 hours before he’d had enough and even stopping to nurse him didn’t help. Once he’d had enough of the van, it got ugly. And since you say newborn, I’m figuring this is a child you have yet to meet. That makes the decision more difficult.

Questions I'd ask all revolve around comfort. How well will the temperament of the two toddlers match up with the long drive? Are you renting that double stroller? How much luggage will be involved? Are you stopping overnight? If not, will all 3 adults help with the drive so that one person isn’t completely worn down?

Honestly you have a group that spans a large spectrum and with that many, I'd probably opt to make the trip shorter.

 

[tlh0726]

We're coming from Indiana. Staying in All Star Music Suite Feb 8-14. 3 adults, 1 teenager, 2 toddlers, one newborn who will be nursing every 3 hours. It's a 14+ hour drive or a 2 hour flight. I will be taking a double stroller to all the parks. We have ADRs every morning before the parks open at Chef Mickey, Akershus, and Hollywood and Vine. Considering all this would you fly or drive?

If you can get decent airfare I would definitely fly

 

[kohlby]

If I could find the extra money, I would definitely fly with that crew. We had a 7.5 hour without kids drive turn into a 15 hour drive due to a newborn. She wouldn't take a bottle though I had tried before our trip many times. And I couldn't bend over safely to nurse her. She nursed every couple of hours normally. However, I accidently ate something with dairy in it and she was very uncomfortable as a result so she wanted to nurse and nurse and nurse. And we hit some traffic at one point - the only time we've ever hit terrible traffic and we've made that trip 8 times, so 16 times for there and back.

However, I understand how fast airline tickets can add up. I think a 14 hour drive is doable if you have no other good choice. Some babies and toddlers are great in cars. One of mine screamed bloody murder the entire time he was in the car until he was 16 months old. So, in that case, I'd find the money! I have heard about babies and toddlers who actually sleep in cars though, so if you have some of those, then saving the money may be worth it. (Even my kids who weren't terrible in the car wouldn't sleep in the car).

 

[Gumbo4x4]

My parents Winter near Austin and have a similar drive from STL area - ~14 hours. They ALWAYS take off very early in the morning, like 4:00 or 5:00 at the very latest. In part, that's to miss Dallas traffic. But also, it puts them at their destination at a decent time of night. Getting up a couple hours early is also a lot easier than trying to stay up a couple hours late at the end of a long drive.

 

[JediDad]

As other posters may have already mentioned:

Drive (1) if the cost savings are important, (2) if you have ALOT of baby gear to haul, (3) if the length of stay allows for it, (4) if you plan to visit other Florida attractions and need a car, (5) if you want to avoid airport parking fee or airport shuttle fees, baggage fees, and potentially a rental car in FL, (6) if you can't imagine getting through the security gate with all your baby gear and sanity intact

Fly (1) since your newborn and maybe one of your toddlers is under 2 and free, (2) eliminate the need of lugging around three car seats, (3) if you can find good non-stop ticket prices, (4) since you are staying at a Disney resort you can take advantage of free transportation, (5) if this is your first trip to WDW and splurge, (6) if you think you may hit winter related traffic, (7) since park tickets are so much cheaper on your 5+ days, your family may be able to stay at the park on the travel days, (8) if you are not a good driver like ME

I'm new to this so there may be holes in my logic above. Our first WDW is in Feb and we decided to fly instead of driving from the DC area mostly because we are only staying 6 nights. I also looked into an Amtrak service that takes our car with us. If we really enjoy WDW, we will try driving when my kids are older and our stay is longer and our schedule is more relaxed.

Also with respect to baby gear (e.g., diapers), I thought I read some posts about folks shopping online (e.g., amazon) and shipping them to the resort. Enjoy your trip!