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

[nono]

Going on my second drive to Disney in 11 days. Will be the kids first. They are super excited. Its been 15 years since my last drive.

How old are they and what's your driving plan?

 

[camgenemmysmom]

Sorry if this has been asked before...We are from mid-Michigan and driving to Disney in November. I have the drive down figured out but I'm having a hard time deciding what time to leave Disney. We will be checking out on a Saturday and my husband and children are early risers so we could be on the road by 7 or 8 a.m. I'm most nervous about Atlanta traffic. So any advice on when would be a good time to leave to avoid too many traffic issues would be appreciated!

 

[jcorco00]

How old are they and what's your driving plan?

DD11,DS9,DS4. We will be leaving from north central Arkansas. We will be going through Memphis, Tupilo, Birmingham, Auburn, across the southwest corner of Georgia, then into Florida. We are not sure if we are going to break it up or go straight through. It is around 16 hours without stops.

 

[hiddenl1fe]

Post edit: Wrong thread

 

[nono]

DD11,DS9,DS4. We will be leaving from north central Arkansas. We will be going through Memphis, Tupilo, Birmingham, Auburn, across the southwest corner of Georgia, then into Florida. We are not sure if we are going to break it up or go straight through. It is around 16 hours without stops.

Hey, just about our total time too, from the southern tip of NJ. Our two are 11 and 8 (now). For the 4 yr old, place a cooler or small bag at his feet so he's not dangling for hours on end. It should make his ride more comfortable. And I always take 3-4 beautifully illustrated books from the library. A book that only takes 10 minutes to read can take a half hour if you pass it around and discuss the drawings as well as the story. It's a simple thing that helps break up all the electronics time.

Have fun!!!

 

[nvrenoughdisney]

Quick question for those of you who drive from New England. We will be coming from New Hampshire, leaving around 2:00am on a Saturday. We are still deciding between 95 and the inland route but I've seen different variations for the inland route. The AAA TripTik has us going 90-84-81-77-26-95 but I've also seen some other variations. Does anybody have a preference?

 

[edbo77]

Quick question for those of you who drive from New England. We will be coming from New Hampshire, leaving around 2:00am on a Saturday. We are still deciding between 95 and the inland route but I've seen different variations for the inland route. The AAA TripTik has us going 90-84-81-77-26-95 but I've also seen some other variations. Does anybody have a preference?

I'm a 95 guy, but you'd hit some serious traffic in DC Metro at the time you'd get there. Why the 2AM departure time?

 

[AaronInWI]

Sorry if this has been asked before...We are from mid-Michigan and driving to Disney in November. I have the drive down figured out but I'm having a hard time deciding what time to leave Disney. We will be checking out on a Saturday and my husband and children are early risers so we could be on the road by 7 or 8 a.m. I'm most nervous about Atlanta traffic. So any advice on when would be a good time to leave to avoid too many traffic issues would be appreciated!

If you leave Disney at 8:00 am, that would put you in Atlanta around 2:00 or 3:00 (depending on stops and speed of travel). Just my opinion, but I can't imagine you'd have too much to worry about in terms of traffic at 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon. We normally depart around that time, but on a Monday or Tuesday, and I can't say I can recall any real traffic issues, just typical big city traffic; nothing that would give me panic attacks or anything. But maybe someone else can chime in here and give you some better advice.

 

[chepic]

Going on the Disney Wonder for April vacation next year. Checking out the airfare and almost having a heart attack that it will cost more for the 4 of us to fly than it did for the cruise!! Guess we are driving to Miami. Has anyone here done that from the North East? Thinking it will have to be a 2 day event. This past April we left our house at 2:30 am and made it to Disney by 9:30 pm.....it was an incredibly calm day on the road with no issues!!!!

Thanks in advance for your answers.

cheryl

 

[chepic]

Quick question for those of you who drive from New England. We will be coming from New Hampshire, leaving around 2:00am on a Saturday. We are still deciding between 95 and the inland route but I've seen different variations for the inland route. The AAA TripTik has us going 90-84-81-77-26-95 but I've also seen some other variations. Does anybody have a preference?

We tend to drive straight through with 95, unless it is really backed up, then we hit the GPS button for a detour and then will get off. We leave RI between 2-3 am on a Saturday and have been pretty lucky most years.

 

[nvrenoughdisney]

I'm a 95 guy, but you'd hit some serious traffic in DC Metro at the time you'd get there. Why the 2AM departure time?

Actually, we are 8 hours from D.C. We drove to D.C. last summer on a weekday, left here at 2:00am and hit absolutely no traffic (we got there at 10:00am). I know there's always traffic in some cities but it will be a Saturday so that might make a little difference as well.

 

[nvrenoughdisney]

We tend to drive straight through with 95, unless it is really backed up, then we hit the GPS button for a detour and then will get off. We leave RI between 2-3 am on a Saturday and have been pretty lucky most years.

That's good to know. I didn't know if it was possible to start on 95 and then cut over to the inland route if traffic is really bad. I know some apps, like Waze, can reroute you.

 

[LadyBeBop]

If you leave Disney at 8:00 am, that would put you in Atlanta around 2:00 or 3:00 (depending on stops and speed of travel). Just my opinion, but I can't imagine you'd have too much to worry about in terms of traffic at 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon. We normally depart around that time, but on a Monday or Tuesday, and I can't say I can recall any real traffic issues, just typical big city traffic; nothing that would give me panic attacks or anything. But maybe someone else can chime in here and give you some better advice.

90% of the time, you should be OK going through Atlanta on a weekend. Just stay in the carpool lane and you'll be OK. However, you'll have problems before or after sporting events.
Last trip, we passed through Atlanta on a Sunday afternoon about 4 PM. And we hit traffic around downtown. Took us about an extra half hour to 45 minutes to get through. We think it was traffic leaving Turner Field (Atlanta Braves baseball). To add insult to injury, the Braves were playing our hometown Cincinnati Reds. And the Reds lost.
That said, you should be OK with a Saturday in November. No Atlanta Braves; baseball season is over. No Atlanta Falcons; the NFL never plays on Saturday afternoons in November. I don't know about traffic before or after Georgia Tech football games, however the Yellow Jackets only play one November Saturday game, and that's the Saturday after Thanksgiving. (You aren't coming back on the 28th, are you?)

Going on the Disney Wonder for April vacation next year. Checking out the airfare and almost having a heart attack that it will cost more for the 4 of us to fly than it did for the cruise!! Guess we are driving to Miami. Has anyone here done that from the North East? Thinking it will have to be a 2 day event. This past April we left our house at 2:30 am and made it to Disney by 9:30 pm.....it was an incredibly calm day on the road with no issues!!!!

Your trip will be longer than our last trip. Our last trip, we drove from Cincinnati to catch a non-Disney (Royal Carribean) cruise out of Port Canaveral. I would definately allow two days. Even a third if you can swing it. Who knows where you could have car trouble or horrible traffic? At least, at Walt Diseny World, if you have problems, you just lose a day or two in the parks. If you have problems with a cruise, the ship will leave without you.
That first day, I'd drive at least into Florida. And probably central Florida. That will leave you no more than two or three hours to make Miami the second day.
What we did: We left early on a Saturday morning (about 1:30) from Cincinnati. Made it as far as Orlando about 5 PM that afternoon. And that was with horrible weather (rained pretty much all the way down...we actually drove through a tornado warning in Northern Florida). The following day, we drove the last 45 minutes to the port.

 

[ddluvsdisney]

Quick question for those of you who drive from New England. We will be coming from New Hampshire, leaving around 2:00am on a Saturday. We are still deciding between 95 and the inland route but I've seen different variations for the inland route. The AAA TripTik has us going 90-84-81-77-26-95 but I've also seen some other variations. Does anybody have a preference?

We did the inland route about 2 1/2 weeks ago after saying never again. We drove it 3 yrs ago and thought it took too long. But after driving 95 in the summer we smartened up. We drive from MA. We absolutely loved it this time. We leave around 3 am on a Saturday as well. If you're driving in the summer I would say do this. Every July has been a complete nightmare on 95

 

[BC1836]

NJ drivers: Some recent roundtrips to Baltimore always feature that most unpleasant part of I-295 when the highway curves near the I-76 linkup with all of the construction and reduced lanes. Ugh. Avoid it at rush hour, especially heading south on it in the p.m.

However, we'll deal with it next month when we head farther south of Baltimore: Lake Buena Vista!

All the best!

 

[patclairesmom]

With less than a month to our drive, I just went onto Google maps to map our trip and found this. Is I95 in Virginia one big construction zone?

 

[cranbiz]

Its not as bad as it looks. A lot of that construction is building the "toll" lanes and have minor impact on the regular thru lanes.

My DW just went to Cape Cod from Durham yesterday. She did the I95 route most of the way and she made it in 12.5 hours. She said she ran into almost no traffic or delay's with the exception of CT (which I consider normal).

 

[MaggieMollyMom]

Sorry if this has been asked before...We are from mid-Michigan and driving to Disney in November. I have the drive down figured out but I'm having a hard time deciding what time to leave Disney. We will be checking out on a Saturday and my husband and children are early risers so we could be on the road by 7 or 8 a.m. I'm most nervous about Atlanta traffic. So any advice on when would be a good time to leave to avoid too many traffic issues would be appreciated!

We also Drive from Detroit area and find that the Atlanta area is never a problem.

 

[halssister]

We are getting ready to head out for our second leg of our trip.....packing up in Chattanooga now. We drove down from the South Bend, Indiana area, straight down through Indiana to Indianapolis. I debated between taking 65 south of Indy through Louisville and Nashville, or taking 74 through Cincinnati and Knoxville. Opted for the Cincinnati route due to construction reports, and I'm glad we did.....totally smooth sailing, except a slight hang up in Knoxville where we hit around 4:30 and I'm guessing it was close to their rush hour. But not nearly as bad as we are used to driving when we go through downtown Chicago . I'm hoping we get to POR by 4:30 or so;we are taking out time leaving since we are going to hit Atlanta at a kinda bad time anyway!

 

[LadyBeBop]

We are getting ready to head out for our second leg of our trip.....packing up in Chattanooga now. We drove down from the South Bend, Indiana area, straight down through Indiana to Indianapolis. I debated between taking 65 south of Indy through Louisville and Nashville, or taking 74 through Cincinnati and Knoxville. Opted for the Cincinnati route due to construction reports, and I'm glad we did.

Yea for the Cincinnati route!!! Did you stop by our area to have lunch?

....totally smooth sailing, except a slight hang up in Knoxville where we hit around 4:30 and I'm guessing it was close to their rush hour. But not nearly as bad as we are used to driving when we go through downtown Chicago .

Knoxville during rush hour isn't nearly as bad as Chicago. Or Atlanta. Or even Cincinnati.

I'm hoping we get to POR by 4:30 or so; we are taking out time leaving since we are going to hit Atlanta at a kinda bad time anyway!

That's the problem with staying in Chattanooga for the night. If you leave when you want to leave, you'll hit Atlanta rush hour. I like to stop south of Atlanta. But in your case, you wouldn't stop until well after dark.