For 2,000+ Mile Round-Trip Drivers Only! (III)

[slusher]

New post for my trip plan:

Leave Ontario, cross at Buffalo Peace Bridge

South to Bradford PA. Visit Zippo museum
South through mountains to Gettysburg. Stay overnight

Early AM battlefield drive through, hope it's misty
South to Washington DC. If I've planned this right, this will be a Sunday and we will attempt to have a drive around and gawk at the famous sites.
South I-95 maybe stop at JR cigar, maybe stop at south of the border (for old timey memory sake) hopefully through to Santee for overnight

Early AM to Charleston, visit aircraft carrier
Drive Charleston to Orlando

 

[Taylor'sMom]

For those of you that drive your own vehicles-at what point would you no longer choose to drive them to FL and instead go with a rental or a different mode of transportation? Our van just hit 100k miles and DH is refusing to let me use it for our January FL trip (either to drive down or just use there). In his defense, it did refuse to start last summer on the way home from the beach but turns out it had the original battery (04). Replaced that and no problems since. We will need a minivan down there and I am cringing at rental prices .

Last year I thought my car wasn't the best choice to drive that long so we rented. I asked DH about a size class before we boked and he said compact was fine, so that's what I booked. I shopepd aorund and did my research and found a price for about $140 including taxes and fees. When I went to pick up Dh had me ask about bumping up to midsize, which at that point they said would be another $100, but it was for a brand-new vehicle. DH said "yes, do it" so then we thought we were at $240. When I lokoed at the final paperwork there was a bunch of extra fees and taxes that incresed us to over $300. The car was great, and we returned it on time, no problems. 2 weeks later we got a letter in the mail, the rental car company (budget) charged our credit car a $100 cleabing fee because there was beach sand in the trunk. We have rented a car EVERY YEAR in Orlando, had the same minimal sand transfer in the trunk, and it was never a problem. Aparently a little sand in the trunk in a car in upstate NY panics them and so all told, we paid over $400. Add in what we paid in gas and tolls, and we probablly could have flown.
Long story, but... we're driving our own vehicle this year in an attempt to actually "save" money. For us, that is the only reason we woudl choose to drive. We are having repairs done (need to be done anyway) and a tune-up. My best freinds husband is a mechanic, so we know he'll get make sure we have a good vehicle to drive.

 

[supersuperwendy]

Questions for the return drive home to the northeast...

What time do you usually leave WDW and hit the road? Where do you like to stop for the night on the way back? We plan to take our time and see some sites along the way with the kids. I'd like to take a detour and show them the chesapeake bay bridge on the way home.

 

[BC1836]

Questions for the return drive home to the northeast...

What time do you usually leave WDW and hit the road? Where do you like to stop for the night on the way back? We plan to take our time and see some sites along the way with the kids. I'd like to take a detour and show them the chesapeake bay bridge on the way home.

We always leave no later than 9 or 9:00 a.m. from WDW. We attempt to make it either to Emporia, VA (just over the border) or Petersburg, VA where we book a hotel for the night. We depart around the same time the next morning in order to reach the Jersey Shore by 4 p.m.

If you want to make stops at the the "sites" along the way, you can leave at any time. Just make sure you avoid metropolitan areas around rush hour if driving during the week.

All the best.

 

[dvczerfs]

Questions for the return drive home to the northeast...

What time do you usually leave WDW and hit the road? Where do you like to stop for the night on the way back? We plan to take our time and see some sites along the way with the kids. I'd like to take a detour and show them the chesapeake bay bridge on the way home.

3:30am!! past orlando and jacksonville before the chance of any traffic.

 

[sharadoc]

I didn't get any feedback, so I thought I'd throw this out there again. I did some math and I'm worried our 11:00 departure will put us in D.C. at a very bad time... any way to avoid this coming from our direction? Or should we just suck it up? Or leave even an hour later (I'd rather spend an hour at home, than in standing rush-hour traffic. Thanks for any help...

Friday afternoons and Saturdays at 5:00 are a parking lot from DC to Richmond VA. I think if you left after dinner and drove to below Richmond late on Friday you could be okay, but I don't know what you have to go through before then. Will you go through NYC?

This is why driving to WDW on summer weekends stink! Can you go out to I-81 and join back up to 95 in the Carolinas?

 

[sharadoc]

3:30am!! past orlando and jacksonville before the chance of any traffic.

Oh, he's just a machine anyway! We leave around 9 in the morning and use 417 to avoid all of Orlando and by the time we get to Jacksonville, rush hour is WAY over.

 

[dvczerfs]

Oh, he's just a machine anyway! We leave around 9 in the morning and use 417 to avoid all of Orlando and by the time we get to Jacksonville, rush hour is WAY over.

HI SHARON!!! "just stay to the right and nobody gets hurt"!!

 

[shannon006]

So we are from the Metro Detroit(MI) area. We are heading down to WDW end of May. We will have 4 kids with us. 4,11,17 &19. Its been 2 1/2 years since we have driven. Let me say, I am not looking forward to it. I was so tempted to buy plane tickets today. I could have gotten them for $1350 + baggage. Still it is much cheaper for us to drive. $600 @ $4 a gallon. If it goes higher, it will be more. We drive straight through on the way, and pack a cooler. We are in a hurry to get there. We will stop on the way home at a holiday inn express. We love the complimentary breakfast. This could be our last "road trip" with our oldest 2, so kind of looking forward to the family time.

 

[preschoolmom]

Favorite foods for the car? We're taking our standards - Pretzels, cereal... Looking for some ideas...

I think we'll make sandwiches for lunch the first day.

What do you pack?

 

[BC1836]

Favorite foods for the car? We're taking our standards - Pretzels, cereal... Looking for some ideas...

I think we'll make sandwiches for lunch the first day.

What do you pack?

bagel w/cream cheese & jelly for the early post midnight snack (we depart around midnight)

peanut butter & jelly sandwich

[We might pull up to a fast food restuarant's drive-in window for breakfast if it's at a time when we are getting gas.]

turkey & swiss sandwich

fresh cut fruit + bananas

100-calorie bags of snacks

lots of canned and bottled beverages (iced tea, lemonade and Red Bull) in a cooler


All the best.

 

[artesian]

Rotterdam, NY (Schenectady County)

Have you considered the 87,287,78,81,26 route?
If i were to leave in prime time i personally would avoid DC and Richmond id i could totally

 

[ReneeA]

Tippy-toeing into this thread for our August trip. This is the thread my DH never, ever wanted to be in...we have to travel 300 miles to visit my family, and he hates that drive. Traveling the 2400 mile RT from Detroit is really going to get to him.

We normally go annually the same 10 days every year - last week of August through Labor Day, and fly Spirit from Detroit to Orlando and back. We've never paid more than $700 for the 4 of us, and we get great flight times - into Orlando by 9am, fly out at 7pm to return.

This year? Our flight is priced at $1300 and the flight times stink. Oh, and last year my kids missed the first day of school, we had to get an airport hotel room, and spent an additional $400 or so because our flight home on Labor Day was cancelled. This year I'd like to avoid that hassle if possible.

The plan so far is to leave Fri Aug 24th about 3pm and drive until midnight. I'm guessing we can get into Tennessee, or possibly to the Georgia border in that amount of time. Gotta find a cheap, clean, SAFE room around that area to stay in. Then we'll leave Sun Sept 2nd at about 2pm to return home. I'm hoping to be able to drive straight through, but I'm not opposed to stopping.

Either way, I'm having fun reading these threads, and it's not seeming so horrible to me now!

 

[preschoolmom]

Tippy-toeing into this thread for our August trip. This is the thread my DH never, ever wanted to be in...we have to travel 300 miles to visit my family, and he hates that drive. Traveling the 2400 mile RT from Detroit is really going to get to him.

We normally go annually the same 10 days every year - last week of August through Labor Day, and fly Spirit from Detroit to Orlando and back. We've never paid more than $700 for the 4 of us, and we get great flight times - into Orlando by 9am, fly out at 7pm to return.

This year? Our flight is priced at $1300 and the flight times stink. Oh, and last year my kids missed the first day of school, we had to get an airport hotel room, and spent an additional $400 or so because our flight home on Labor Day was cancelled. This year I'd like to avoid that hassle if possible.

The plan so far is to leave Fri Aug 24th about 3pm and drive until midnight. I'm guessing we can get into Tennessee, or possibly to the Georgia border in that amount of time. Gotta find a cheap, clean, SAFE room around that area to stay in. Then we'll leave Sun Sept 2nd at about 2pm to return home. I'm hoping to be able to drive straight through, but I'm not opposed to stopping.

Either way, I'm having fun reading these threads, and it's not seeming so horrible to me now!

No question it is a long, long drive - but so worth it, IMO. I hope it goes smoothly for you! We have done lots of driving trips with our kids - and there is nothing like getting out at a rest stop in some other state, and feeling like you're part of the whole American tradition of taking a road trip! I love hauling my sleepy kids into rest stops, and seeing all the other travelers doing the same thing.

Make the drive part of the adventure!

 

[WI_DisneyFan]

Thanks for all the feedback on my sightseeing question. The more I think about it, the more I realize that we'll just be too anxious to get there on the drive down to want to spend time touring. And on the way home, we'll be tired and will just want to get home. And that's how we did it as a kid, too. "Second star to the right and straight on 'till morning".

Joining in this thread. We are making our first trip to WDW this September. Given the cost of flying for a larger family along with the hassles with air travel nowadays, we made the decision to drive. Almost 1300 miles each way, per Google Maps.

I've been reading this entire thread with interest as it has been a while since we've done a trek this big. We've done big trips like Wisconsin to Maine, and Wisconsin to Texas before, though. We like to start our trips in the evening, drive about 12 hours, break in the morning for a few hours for DH to nap, drive a little in the afternoon and then stop at a hotel for the night. The kids are a bit older now, but I still think that will be our plan. If we hit it all according to plan, we should leave our driveway about 6-7 pm central time on a Thursday and roll into our hotel at WDW by noon on a Saturday.

We are coming from south central Wisconsin, two drivers and five kids. Should be a good time in the Family Truckster.

Welcome fellow cheesehead! South Central, so Madison area? I'm from the Sheboygan area. Our plan is slightly different than yours. I do much better waking up early than I do staying up late, so we'll be leaving home no later than 4:00 am Saturday morning. We'll drive until we get south of Atlanta, hopefully around 7:00 pm. Then we'll leave Atlanta after breakfast and continue on to Orlando. Since we won't get to Orlando until Sunday afternoon, we're getting a non-Disney hotel for the night before we check in to our Disney resort Monday morning. I haven't given much thought yet to the return trip. That one will actually be a little dicier since we'll be leaving Anna Maria Island on Wednesday, so we'll have to worry about midweek traffic in Atlanta, Nashville, and the other big cities we'll be going through. We won't have to worry about that on the way down since that entire drive will take place on the weekend. But that just gives me something to plan, which is half the fun for me anyway.

 

[sharadoc]

Favorite foods for the car? We're taking our standards - Pretzels, cereal... Looking for some ideas...

I think we'll make sandwiches for lunch the first day.

What do you pack?

Our must-haves: peeled hard boiled eggs, individual M&Ms bags, bottles of water, some sort of nuts, regular and flavored (honey wheat, mustard) pretzels, granola bars, bananas. We don't like to eat meals, just graze.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Favorite foods for the car? We're taking our standards - Pretzels, cereal... Looking for some ideas...

I think we'll make sandwiches for lunch the first day.

What do you pack?

Deer sausage!!!

 

[nono]

What do you pack?

Cold pizza!

 

[cruisingkat]

Favorite foods for the car? We're taking our standards - Pretzels, cereal... Looking for some ideas...

I think we'll make sandwiches for lunch the first day.

What do you pack?

We stop at Subway in the morning for a breakfast sandwich, at the same time we pick up a sandwich for lunch since they make those that early in the morning also. Put the lunch sandwich in the cooler and now we don't have to look for someplace to eat on the way down.
Day before I make a batch of brownies and we cut into slices and individually wrap each one with saran wrap.
I bring chips in those Park popcorn buckets - yellow lid is potato chips, orange lid is fritoes, purple lid is brownies, red lid is the pretzels, green lid is the Mios, etc. The popcorn buckets protect the chips and the different colored lids lets me know what is inside without having to open each. Also helps keep the chips fresh down in humid FL.
I bring a bunch of Iced Vias to turn our bottled water into iced coffee.

 

[Belle0101]

This October will be our 4th time driving to WDW, all 2243 (RT) miles. We've flown 4 other times to WDW, and 1 time to Universal, but the flight, gas to the airport, airport parking fees, and the like, make it too cost prohibitive this time around.

We'll be leaving on a Thursday at 5PM, driving straight through, and arriving early afternoon Friday.