For 2,000+ mile round-trip drivers only!

[BC1836]

Why would you go all that extra way east to I-95 from Houston?. We drove from Disney to Houston in June (part of our "visit Disney and the grandkids Chicago to Disney to Ft Myers to Disney to Houston to back home to Chicago" trip) the route we took was the Florida Turnpike to I-75 to I-10 so going to Disney from Houston is I-10 to I-75 to the Florida Turnpike to Disney.
I have to agree with the poster from Houston - the drive is not bad at all - much quicker than Chicago to Disney - as long as you have great weather and I-10 bridge over the bayou is clear in Louisiana. Unfortunately, we had heavy rain most of the way until Mississippi which slowed us down.

Indeed, if you link up with state 91 you can make that I-75 to I-10 link. But we prefer the Atlantic Coast route; it allows us to make stops in St. Augustine and a few select OJ stand stops.

Any method that gets folks safe and sound to WDW is O.K. with us.

All the best.

 

[ohlas]

ok cleveland, ohio to disney is 1084 miles from my door to disney can do it in like 18.5 hours with all the stops going the speed limit lol

it cost to much for a family of 4 to fly with rental. cheapest i can find is 1300 not including our luggage and knowing my little 7 year old she will want to buy somthing big that the airlines will charge me arm and legg for. plus the last 6 flight i have been on they have changed the time or have had a longer lay over the last one was my planned 1 hour layover in philly turned into 3.5 hrs, ty portable dvd player. I paid 440 for that fight and had to lug my bags around.


oh well an i did the math to get to disney by plane if they are being nice it takes 7.5 hours with wait time to/ from the airport, i can be in nc buy then almost half way there and only at 350 for gas at 2.5 gallon prices 6 tanks totals to and from and i dont have to take my shoes and belt off to get in my car but i might so my kids can roll there eyes lol that gives me 900 more disney dollars lol to spend woo hooo lets go shopping

 

[ohlas]

We had driven to Heber City, Utah from Dallas, TX this year which was about 1600 miles via Kansas. That took about 24 hours including a 2 hour dinner at Casa Bonita in Denver. I find that Google's estimates to be very conservative especialy if there are highways with 75 or 80 mph speed limits.

Right now I'm hoping for a good sale to fly in early June but looking at the state of the airlines I have little hope that I could get lucky on both the arrival and departure dates. Flying for $800 for 5 would be worth it considering $2.50 gas and 1200 miles (16 hours no stop). I also would figure in an extra day both ways and needing a hotel...so that would run us about $500 to drive. Seeing how few days are being offered for sale fares in the low season makes think it will not happen early summer '10. At best it will cost us $1100 if one date hits a sale and that makes driving worth it.

With all of the fees and taxes I guess it will never be economical for a family of 5 to fly anywhere short of 2000 miles each way and then only during a sale.

flying was never the cost affective way to go it was for the convince of time and relaxing, but with the way they jerks people around now its not very convient.. think about it what time are u saving driving

do the math how long it takes you to get to the air port, how long before a flight, how long to take off, how long is the flight, how long is the lay over, how long to take off, how long is the flight, how long to get bags, how long to get rental or magic express to hotel. from my house to disney to fly is 7.5 hours im saving 11 hours to fly if the airlines are on time. im spending 900 dollars for those 11 hours if the airlines are nice to me and i still have to take my shoes off and carry my bags. NO THANK YOU i would rather drive if i can.

 

[ohlas]

Can I join in?

Haven't actually ever been to Disneyworld, this is our first time for all as well as my girls first trip ever.

I'm up north of Pittburgh nearly on I-80. Google maps tells me it is 16 hours and 1090 miles. The longest I have ever gone on vacation was to Myrtle Beach 12 hours back as a teenager. I drove by myself from PA to Indiana last year which was an 8 hour trip, but that was for work and I was being paid. Thus, it was a slow driving trip with lots of stops .

We are doing a 2 day trip both ways. We have plenty of vacation time and only limited funds for spending in Disney, so it doesn't really matter if we take 3 days driving, or 4 days, whatever.

We want to drive at least 12 hours according to google maps, which should put us 4 hours from Disney in Georgia somewhere (Savannah or something like that I think.) This way we won't be forced to leave at some early hour and can drive at our leisure, especially on the way home. We may do some southern sight seeing on the way home.

My wondering mind wants to know, when you plan a 2 day driving trip, do you schedule the stop and get a reservation for a room, or do you just decide it's time to stop and look for a room? The overnight stay would just be for recoup from the driving, so a cheapie motel somewhere would be perfectly fine. Should I plan the exact stop and look at motels and make a reservation?

If you can get up early as you can and drive to savana,ga or to jacksonville,fl shot for at hotel time 8-10 pm time have dinner play in pool sleep then you can get up normal time, me im too excited to get to disney i have to drive till i cannt drive no more lol

 

[Morganpics]

A little late with this update, but here it is. We did drive to southern New Jersey and visited w/ DS and his DW. Left Sat. am Oct 31, took ferry from Cape May to Lewes, left there 11:02am, then drove Rte 13 to 58 and then to 95. We stopped in Lunenburg, SC for the night about 8:30. Left there 8AM Sunday and arrived at SSR at 3:50 pm. Drive was fine, traffic became quite heavy in Florida, but it sure moved along, so all went well. Spent 5 nights at SSR in Room 2730. Sorry to say, I am really not excited about SSR, but that's what makes Disney so great-there is something to please everyone, and this morning we packed up and moved over to our home resort at OKW, and went into Room 4515 - beautiful. 1st floor, water side. We love it. It is REALLY nice since last night at home it snowed!

I will try to update this for our trip home, too. We will be going straight to Maine, and are thinking already if we want to do 95 or the 81(?) etc. etc. Would appreciate any thoughts from those who have already done either.

 

[disneyfan55]

A little late with this update, but here it is. We did drive to southern New Jersey and visited w/ DS and his DW. Left Sat. am Oct 31, took ferry from Cape May to Lewes, left there 11:02am, then drove Rte 13 to 58 and then to 95. We stopped in Lunenburg, SC for the night about 8:30. Left there 8AM Sunday and arrived at SSR at 3:50 pm. Drive was fine, traffic became quite heavy in Florida, but it sure moved along, so all went well. Spent 5 nights at SSR in Room 2730. Sorry to say, I am really not excited about SSR, but that's what makes Disney so great-there is something to please everyone, and this morning we packed up and moved over to our home resort at OKW, and went into Room 4515 - beautiful. 1st floor, water side. We love it. It is REALLY nice since last night at home it snowed!

I will try to update this for our trip home, too. We will be going straight to Maine, and are thinking already if we want to do 95 or the 81(?) etc. etc. Would appreciate any thoughts from those who have already done either.

I have done both from NJ. The times we went on 81 was when we were going to the Atlanta area. Actually it's probably a little longer but a much better drive. I95 from Richmond north is a pain in my mind (we live in central NJ) We have driven all the times except twice so many a trip down 95 (even before it was completed through VA)

 

[Tina]

I just did the drive straight through on Oct 28th. Although, I wasn't going as far as you. I live in Northern Virginia. I was driving solo on the return trip so I only stopped for gas, bathroom, and quick food. I left SSR at 11am on a Wednesday and arrived home at 12 midnight, exactly 13 hours. I hit no traffic jams, accidents, or problems. My speed averaged at about 75mph.

 

[BC1836]

With every passsing trip, our goal is to get as close to WDW on the first day of our 17+ hour drive as possible. If a second-day drive is part of one's trip, make it as short as possible in order to maximize the WDW experience.

We've done two straight-through drives and they become asphalt badges of honor.

All the best.

 

[ge0rgette2]

Here I am lurking in this post again

We are a family of 4 driving from Long Island, NY over the
Christmas holidays. We are leaving either mid afternoon on 12/18 or sometime early morning 12/19 - hoping to be down in WDW by the 21st.

I'm hoping the weather holds out for us - the traffic would help too!

We normally fly - but car rentals that time of year, omg, you can't touch them... Flights aren't horrible - but still around $1200/4.

Anyways - any tips or suggestions, please drop a post or email

Hope everyone is having fun!

 

[Tweevil]

I have driven down all the times I have went (Flying isn't my bag..) and it is sooo BORING. I go straight down I95. I will have to check out the 81 way. Does it prolong the drive or about the same?

I am in SNJ - go over the DE bridge and straight from there.

 

[cindermomma]

Hello fellow dis drivers! We are planning on driving from the Omaha, Nebraska area down to Orlando the Thursday before Memorial Day. We would really like to avoid Atlanta if possible, just because of the traffic. Does anyone have a good route that they take from this neck of the woods? We are SOOOOOO excited! We plan on stopping about 15 hours into the drive for an overnight, then get up and drive in the next day. Any tips, ideas or feedback would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks!!

 

[mrodgers]

Did I ask this already? Sorry if I did....

For you 2000 mile trekkers that take 2 days to travel, do you just wing it and look for somewhere to stay when you feel like stopping the first day or do you plan how far along you will be and make a reservation somewhere?

I am coming from PA (approximately Pittsburgh, 1090 miles one way according to Googlemaps) and plan a 2 day trip down and 2 day back. I plan to drive 12 hours the first day and spend the night. This may get me into Florida or just outside of Florida in Georgia, I don't know for sure at the moment.

I don't know if I should make a reservation somewhere and get to there or just stop when I feel like stopping and look. I know everyone will say, "just look it up on the GPS and call on the cell phone for vacancy.." or similar. I am not in the 21st century on this stuff and don't have either a GPS or a cell phone (may get the GPS for this trip though.)

 

[FINFAN]

we travel from Chicago burbs, close to the same mileage...anyway, we like to make a ressie, and usually make it just N of Atlanta so we FORCE ourselves to get a decent nights sleep, so we don't rob ourselves off of decent sleep heading into our vacation. (hope that made sense) I know it is tempting to travel further if still awake enough, and we have pushed it at times..but we have learned to book a place that we would arrive to earlier, and then get up early the next a.m with at least 6 hours of sleep...makes the next day easier to get the room organized, have time to check over the room, eat something etc., and we get to bed at a decent hour our arrival night. We need to do this because once we get to WDW we are commando so the days we are at WDW, we get minimal sleep. We have made ressies at 2 hotels in the past...usually if you call before 6 pm you can cancel penalty free and we have a pretty good idea if we can make it further by 6 pm.

 

[cruisingkat]

The first time we drove, we just winged it. When it got to around 7 or 8pm (8 or 9 with the time change), we started looking for places to stay. We stopped in Chattanooga.
Coming home, we decided to stop around Kennesaw, GA as we wanted to stop by Armstrong Glass (an art glass company as we do stained and fused glass) and booked a place in Smyrna, GA.
We found that the drive from the Atlanta area home to Chicago wasn't that bad, so we decided to do our stop in Atlanta on the way down - and Chattanooga on the way home. That puts us over halfway mark on each drive.
Unfortunately, because of a veterans day program at our granddaughter's school, we won't be able to leave as early tomorrow as we normally do, so we will be stopping in Chattanooga on the way down - which means an extra hour and a half to two hours the next day.

 

[cruisingkat]

We have made ressies at 2 hotels in the past...usually if you call before 6 pm you can cancel penalty free and we have a pretty good idea if we can make it further by 6 pm.

We live in the Chicago burbs also, and the only problem with trying to cancel a reservation is that we actually have to cancel by 5pm as once you get to Chattanooga, you are on Eastern time so their (Chattanooga, and Georgia hotels) 6pm is actually 5pm where we are driving.
And to not pay a cancellation penalty, you have to cancel by 6pm hotel time.

 

[Calle&Jakesmom]

For you 2000 mile trekkers that take 2 days to travel, do you just wing it and look for somewhere to stay when you feel like stopping the first day or do you plan how far along you will be and make a reservation somewhere?

I don't know if I should make a reservation somewhere and get to there or just stop when I feel like stopping and look.

Last time we drove down I made 2 reservations for our overnights. The first reservation I made at the point I thought we would want to stop and the second reservation I made at a point that was about as far as I thought we could go in one day (which was about 3 hours beyond the first). I made sure both hotels had policies that allowed us to cancel with no penalty up until the day of our stay. I think one let us cancel by 4pm and the other maybe 6pm- something like that. This way we were able to make a judgment about how far we were going to go while we were on the road. This made me feel better about potential weather or traffic problems we might encounter. We did this for the trip there and back and it worked out great! We had no trouble canceling the reservations we didn't use.
We got great deals on hotel rates (I'm sure we would have paid much more just walking in the door and asking for a room), I was able to check reviews and get rooms with comfortable queen beds, and we had some flexibility with how far we went before we stopped for the night. I strongly recommend this and will do it every time from now on!

 

[Hasil72]

Did I ask this already? Sorry if I did....

For you 2000 mile trekkers that take 2 days to travel, do you just wing it and look for somewhere to stay when you feel like stopping the first day or do you plan how far along you will be and make a reservation somewhere?

I am coming from PA (approximately Pittsburgh, 1090 miles one way according to Googlemaps) and plan a 2 day trip down and 2 day back. I plan to drive 12 hours the first day and spend the night. This may get me into Florida or just outside of Florida in Georgia, I don't know for sure at the moment.

I don't know if I should make a reservation somewhere and get to there or just stop when I feel like stopping and look. I know everyone will say, "just look it up on the GPS and call on the cell phone for vacancy.." or similar. I am not in the 21st century on this stuff and don't have either a GPS or a cell phone (may get the GPS for this trip though.)

Won't be able to tell you how it works out for us until next week. We're leaving this Friday from southern NJ. We plan to leave around 4:30 once the kids are home from school so we miss most of the DC traffic, drive until we're tired, then stop for the night and finish on Saturday. Typically, I am a HUGE planner but since we're leaving so late, we wouldn't be able to cancel any ressies. I have my fingers crossed that it won't be a big problem. We hope to get at least mid way through NC before we stop.

Good luck!

 

[BC1836]

Won't be able to tell you how it works out for us until next week. We're leaving this Friday from southern NJ. We plan to leave around 4:30 once the kids are home from school so we miss most of the DC traffic, drive until we're tired, then stop for the night and finish on Saturday. Typically, I am a HUGE planner but since we're leaving so late, we wouldn't be able to cancel any ressies. I have my fingers crossed that it won't be a big problem. We hope to get at least mid way through NC before we stop.

Good luck!

We're fellow south Jersey folks and we wish you the best on your drive. You've got some rush hour traffic to deal with before you even reach DC but if you have to leave on a Friday afternoon, go with the flow. Hopefully the flow is moving!

If you make it into NC (on early Saturday morning) you would have made some good progress (considering the Friday night traffic issues) but the further you get into NC the better for your next day's drive to WDW.

Approx. I-95 drive times (with only bathroom breaks and gas stops):

* SC: 3 hours
* GA: 1 hour 45 minutes
* FL to Exit #67 on I-4: 3 hours

All the best.

 

[Hasil72]

Thanks, BC! We realize that it's not exactly a perfect situation but, it is what it is. DS is on the autism spectrum and has two tests that day so we didn't want to rock the boat any more than we already are by pulling the kids out yet another day. It's going to be an adventure, that's for sure!

 

[BC1836]

Thanks, BC! We realize that it's not exactly a perfect situation but, it is what it is. DS is on the autism spectrum and has two tests that day so we didn't want to rock the boat any more than we already are by pulling the kids out yet another day. It's going to be an adventure, that's for sure!

But why would you want to leave this wonderful* Jersey Shore weather we're having right now for sunny and warm Walt Disney World?


* Nor'easter caused by Ida: 50-mph wind gusts, rain, beach erosion, etc.