"For 2,000+ Mile Round-Trip Drivers Only!" (Part V)

[theyoungs07]

I'm looking for some advice on where to stop and drive times through Atlanta. We've driven several times from Omaha over the past few years, but each time we stopped about 45 minutes west of Atlanta and stayed with relatives for a day on our way down. This time our plans are different and we're looking to make it through Atlanta before stopping. Any advice on how far through we need to be in order to avoid Atlanta traffic the next day? Also, any towns/suburbs that would be good to stop at? We're not looking for a high end hotel, just want to avoid anything too low end. Also, we'll likely be leaving Omaha very early in the morning and want to time it so we're going through Atlanta well after rush hour is over. How long does it normally last and is there a time when it's best to be driving through? Thanks for the help!

Anything Stockbridge or further will get you out of the mess. We went to Macon on our last trip, but there were plenty of good looking hotels between Stockbridge and Macon.

 

[dvczerfs]

Hello fellow 2000 plusers!!!! We will be leaving this Friday morning around 11am, have to put my nine hours of work in before we leave. Heading down the "inland route" and planning on driving straight through into the Florida welcoming center. Should arrive 12:30 am or so Saturday morning. I'll grab a few hours of sleep and get through Jacksonville and Orlando before 4am.
We are heading to Bradenton for a few days to visit the in laws and some friends and Wednesday, around 4am, we will be heading to the Poly. For three nights for our 32nd anniversary. Lots of dinning reservation for three days and if we feel like heading into a park, we will have our aps with us.
I'll check back in after the trip. Happy Driving and keep the shinny side up!!!

 

[amcnj]

Hello fellow 2000 plusers!!!! We will be leaving this Friday morning around 11am, have to put my nine hours of work in before we leave. Heading down the "inland route" and planning on driving straight through into the Florida welcoming center. Should arrive 12:30 am or so Saturday morning. I'll grab a few hours of sleep and get through Jacksonville and Orlando before 4am.
We are heading to Bradenton for a few days to visit the in laws and some friends and Wednesday, around 4am, we will be heading to the Poly. For three nights for our 32nd anniversary. Lots of dinning reservation for three days and if we feel like heading into a park, we will have our aps with us.
I'll check back in after the trip. Happy Driving and keep the shinny side up!!!

Safe and happy trails to you!

 

[amcnj]

Driving down from Jersey(Forked River) late June. Planning on leaving on Saturday and driving straight thru for Sunday Check In. Looking for any advice or tips on preferable times for departure and problem traffic areas on weekends. Thanks in advance.

Are you leaving Saturday evening? I am about an hour and ten minutes from the DE Memorial Bridge, but leave early, around 2:30 AM, arriving in the Orlando area around 7 PM, so my experiences are for different hours than you will be hitting the same areas. The Baltimore-DC stretch is one you want to be careful around. I know weekdays you want to avoid DC between 6 and 10 AM, and 3 and 7 PM, I believe. But you are going on a weekend. Hopefully others can help with any times it is recommended to avoid DC on a Saturday. I also have not hit traffic on 95, aside from occasional accidents, so maybe am going through any beach/tourist traffic problem areas too early to be affected? And I assume you will not have any such issues with an overnight drive, but again, hopefully someone else can tell if there are any stretches of 95 that are affected by weekend traffic issues, and during which hours.

 

[BC1836]

Driving down from Jersey(Forked River) late June. Planning on leaving on Saturday and driving straight thru for Sunday Check In. Looking for any advice or tips on preferable times for departure and problem traffic areas on weekends. Thanks in advance.

The previous suggestions you received are all valid. But also watch out for late night and pre-dawn construction projects on I-95 in which a lane or two is closed. We have experienced brutal delays after midnight, especially in northern VA. The Waze ap may be helpful, but there's not much you can do once you're on I-95. If the weather is great on that Saturday, the Virginia Beach crowd will also be on the road.

All the best to a fellow Southern Ocean County neighbor!

 

[BC1836]

Hello fellow 2000 plusers!!!! We will be leaving this Friday morning around 11am, have to put my nine hours of work in before we leave. Heading down the "inland route" and planning on driving straight through into the Florida welcoming center. Should arrive 12:30 am or so Saturday morning. I'll grab a few hours of sleep and get through Jacksonville and Orlando before 4am.
We are heading to Bradenton for a few days to visit the in laws and some friends and Wednesday, around 4am, we will be heading to the Poly. For three nights for our 32nd anniversary. Lots of dinning reservation for three days and if we feel like heading into a park, we will have our aps with us.
I'll check back in after the trip. Happy Driving and keep the shinny side up!!!

According to your tentative schedule, you'll be missing out on your courtesy OJ at the FL Welcome Center.
Don't forget to check out the new Florida border welcome signs: one for arriving, one for departing.

All the best!

 

[BC1836]

Nothing reminds us more of why we drive to WDW than flying somewhere.

We flew to Texas from Newark last night. Of course, the United Flight was delayed. Why? The weather was so bad in Ohio that our pilot couldn't make it in time for Newark. So the airline searched for another pilot. Due to the bad weather, the jet would have to take a different route, which would require additional fuel. The trade-off for the the weight of the added fuel? Eight passengers would be removed (according to their fares: cheapest seats folks get bumped first). Eventually, we got a pilot. And then we overheard the gate attendant say to a member of the flight crew: "If they knew how bumpy this flight is going to be, they'd never get on." How right he was!

Bottom line: We can hardly wait for our April drive to WDW!

All the best!

 

[ddluvsdisney]

So I'm almost afraid to ask this question b/c regardless of the answer we really can't change our plans.
We are leaving the Thursday night before Easter and driving straight through down 95.
This will be our first drive right before Easter. Should we expect heavier traffic due to holiday?

 

[Tanooki]

Back from our 10th drive! I think it was one of the best ones. Only one or two traffic incidents that slowed us down on the way there and clear all the way coming back home! Glad we got a Sunpass so we breezed through the toll roads when we got to Orlando. GPS originally had us going on I-4 but changed his mind because of major traffic issues there.
We do use the inland itinerary from Montreal (87-287-78-81-77-26-95-4) and it works perfectly
Of course, we could have done without the hour-long wait at the border but that's what you get when you come home on the last day of winter break...
We became APH holders during this trip so now on to planning the next one!

 

[BC1836]

So I'm almost afraid to ask this question b/c regardless of the answer we really can't change our plans.
We are leaving the Thursday night before Easter and driving straight through down 95.
This will be our first drive right before Easter. Should we expect heavier traffic due to holiday?

Pre-holiday driving days are usually busy. The time of your departure and your avoidance of major urban areas are primary factors which affect your drive.

All the best!

 

[amcnj]

So I'm almost afraid to ask this question b/c regardless of the answer we really can't change our plans.
We are leaving the Thursday night before Easter and driving straight through down 95.
This will be our first drive right before Easter. Should we expect heavier traffic due to holiday?

It has been more than a few years since I last did an Easter week drive, but not surprisingly, that and Christmas week drives had the heaviest traffic volumes of any drives I have done. And the volume increases led to/were accompanied by some accident delays too. The volume curbed my normally heavy foot, and together with accidents, these holiday drives took 1.5-2 hours longer than normal, with normal being 16 hours +/- an hour. I typically leave 2:30 AM (starting an hour and ten minutes from the DE Memorial Bridge) so once in states like NC, SC and GA, am in their daylight drive time windows, hitting SC around 11 AM. So due to my timing, I experienced the most lost time in SC and GA. But maybe an overnight departure would be different. Hopefully there is someone else who has actually had an overnight driving experience

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

Hi! We have a 15 hour drive to Orlando and we want to pack some cold items from home. Mainly fresh fruits and veggies (strawberries, grapes, carrots, peppers), some hardboiled eggs, and half n half. We have a medium sized soft cooler from Costco but it doesn't really keep things cold enough and 15 hours is a long time. Any recommendations on a cooler and also on what you use inside (ice in bags, some type of icepack things etc.) to keep things cold?

This is not for snacking on the trip, the stuff all needs to be cold 15 hours later when we arrive at resort.

Thanks in advance

 

[Cheerio]

We have a 20hr drive to FL, we freeze water bottles, they go in the bottom under ice packs, they are still pretty cold when we arrive. You could grab ice about halfway there from a gas station and top up. We are looking into those plug in coolers as well.

 

[patclairesmom]

So I'm almost afraid to ask this question b/c regardless of the answer we really can't change our plans.
We are leaving the Thursday night before Easter and driving straight through down 95.
This will be our first drive right before Easter. Should we expect heavier traffic due to holiday?

We drove down during Easter and hit a lot of traffic. There were tons of RVs on the road, but that year Easter was in March so I'm not sure if it was snowbirds going down or just vacation traffic.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Hi! We have a 15 hour drive to Orlando and we want to pack some cold items from home. Mainly fresh fruits and veggies (strawberries, grapes, carrots, peppers), some hardboiled eggs, and half n half. We have a medium sized soft cooler from Costco but it doesn't really keep things cold enough and 15 hours is a long time. Any recommendations on a cooler and also on what you use inside (ice in bags, some type of icepack things etc.) to keep things cold?

This is not for snacking on the trip, the stuff all needs to be cold 15 hours later when we arrive at resort.

Thanks in advance

We have a hard sided cooler and we pack it FULL of groceries that we'll use during our trip. The key for us is to pack it as full as possible and that usually includes 2-3 packages of FROZEN meat that we'll cook during the trip. We even freeze the coffee creamer that we take to help keep things cold. Our drive is 20-24 hours give or take, and our food has always remained fresh and cold. If we have any space left that isn't taken up by food we plan to cook for the week, we use bags of frozen veggies to fill the gaps and keep things cold.

 

[morrik5]

We leave Oshawa, Ontario just east of Toronto usually between 5 - 5:30 am on a weekday when driving to Disney otherwise we'll be sitting on Highway 401 in morning rush hour commuter traffic going from here through Toronto and onward towards Niagara Falls (if we go that route). Likewise we have to plan our arrival back home so we don't hit afternoon rush hour traffic going the other direction. Now that's what you call travelling stop and go, crashes or summer construction.

 

[dvczerfs]

We are home. Took the inland route both ways. On the way down we left home at 11am, pulled into the Florida welcome center at 1am. Took a snooze and departed At 3am. Arrived in Bradenton Fl. At 7am. No traffic or slow downs. Speaking of slow downs, I75 south of I4 is interesting.lol I was doing 83-85 and getting passed like I was standing still. Hitting Jacksonville and Orlando in the wee hours of a Saturday morning is great, nothing on the roads!!!
Coming home same way, we departed world drive gas station at 3:30am and pulled into home at 7:30pm.The only place there was any kind of traffic, which was moving at 65-70 was in Charolette nc. Even 81 had very little on it. Probably one of the easiest trips we had.
We had a great three days at the Polynisian. California grill, Narcoossee, tepen Edo, kona and ohanas couldn't be better for our 32 anniversary.
We are looking forward to our two week September trip in a one bedroom at Boardwalk.

I'm already replaced and reloaded !!!!

 

[BC1836]

We are home. Took the inland route both ways. On the way down we left home at 11am, pulled into the Florida welcome center at 1am. Took a snooze and departed At 3am. Arrived in Bradenton Fl. At 7am. No traffic or slow downs. Speaking of slow downs, I75 south of I4 is interesting.lol I was doing 83-85 and getting passed like I was standing still. Hitting Jacksonville and Orlando in the wee hours of a Saturday morning is great, nothing on the roads!!!
Coming home same way, we departed world drive gas station at 3:30am and pulled into home at 7:30pm.The only place there was any kind of traffic, which was moving at 65-70 was in Charolette nc. Even 81 had very little on it. Probably one of the easiest trips we had.
We had a great three days at the Polynisian. California grill, Narcoossee, tepen Edo, kona and ohanas couldn't be better for our 32 anniversary.
We are looking forward to our two week September trip in a one bedroom at Boardwalk.

I'm already replaced and reloaded !!!!

I will update the All-Time Records on page 1.

All the best!

 

[ddluvsdisney]

We are home. Took the inland route both ways. On the way down we left home at 11am, pulled into the Florida welcome center at 1am. Took a snooze and departed At 3am. Arrived in Bradenton Fl. At 7am. No traffic or slow downs. Speaking of slow downs, I75 south of I4 is interesting.lol I was doing 83-85 and getting passed like I was standing still. Hitting Jacksonville and Orlando in the wee hours of a Saturday morning is great, nothing on the roads!!!
Coming home same way, we departed world drive gas station at 3:30am and pulled into home at 7:30pm.The only place there was any kind of traffic, which was moving at 65-70 was in Charolette nc. Even 81 had very little on it. Probably one of the easiest trips we had.
We had a great three days at the Polynisian. California grill, Narcoossee, tepen Edo, kona and ohanas couldn't be better for our 32 anniversary.
We are looking forward to our two week September trip in a one bedroom at Boardwalk.

I'm already replaced and reloaded !!!!

Sounds like you had a great trip Dave!
The Poly sounds heavenly. I miss staying there. Narcoosees and Cali Grill are our 2 favorites. We have celebrated a few anniversaries and b-days there- can't be beat!
We will be driving down in about a month. Can't wait to be back in my happy place!

 

[BethanyF]

leaving Friday afternoon from NW Suburban Chicago for our trip down. We usually go 65/24/75. Any major construction projects to be aware of?

Honestly, I'm a bit more concerned about St Paddy's Day partyers heading home when we are going through Atlanta.