? For those who drive 10 or more hrs to the MOUSE!

[growinupdisney]

Do you prefer to leave in the middle of the night,so the kids can sleep through, early in the morning, or late evening? I have done all three and trying to decide for our next trip....When we could take the kids out school ( elementary) we would leave around 11:30 am straight from school, this way they were still considered A full day at school and we could have an extra day on vacation without them missing anymore school(never let the miss more than 5 days) We don't go to WDW in the summer so now my 2 older kids being in middle school and high school we are going during school breaks. Which means we try to squeeze every minute we can out. The last to times we have gone we left any where from 9pm to 1am. This way the dd2 could sleep majority of the time in the carseat and not be awake for the long drive. (My older kids can sleep day or night the entire drive) Now with her being a little older almost 3 I'm trying to decide when to leave early am or night before?
Of coarse whatever time we decide it always gets bumped up a few hours earlier because we are so excited to leave.

 

[crysplefty]

We like to leave around 3 am. We've tried leaving in the evening and it didn't work because after a few hours of sleeping our kids (4 and 2) start crying since they can't get comfortable. If we leave at 3 am they have already had a pretty good nights sleep and will usually sleep another 3 hours once whe have left our driveway. This could all change once they get older.

 

[mpbest]

I usually prefer to leave early morning, no later than six. He can always take a nap in the afternoon. I have thought about spending the night on the road for a more leisurely trip down and maybe finding something to do in Atlanta. My husband doesn't care for Disney, so personally I wouldn't feel safe driving all night.

 

[mjkacmom]

We've driven that long on I95 going from NJ to NC. We like to get up really early and leave around 5 am. However, I also have to figure out how NOT to hit metropolitan areas (Philly, Baltimore, DC...) anywhere near rush hour.

 

[Faldred]

By "the book", it's a hair over 14 hours from here. In theory, we could load up the critters at their bedtime, drive all night, and get to WDW by noon the next day -- overnight driving should avoid most traffic issues until about 7-8 AM.

But then, you've got a tired set of parents, and you're probably just going to spend the rest of the day chilling out.

With youngish kids, I prefer it as a two-day trip, trying to get 10 hours done on the first day, get a good night's sleep, and still arrive early afternoon on day 2.

I think when the kids are older, we could consider making the trip in one day (possibly stay offsite that night) and get an early jump on the parks the next day.

 

[kbheap]

We have a 9-10 hour drive. We ALWAYS leave at night. We leave between 9pm-12am. We travel with 5 kids ages 1-7. Travelling at night always makes time go faster. The kids sleep. We stop for gas and they don't even have to get out. They wake up for breakfast, travel for another hour or so and we are at DW. Now I will say, this makes for an interesting first day. We go straight to the parks after resort checkin with no napping. The kids are raring to go and the adults (those of us who drove) are tired. But it is Disney and it wakes us up b/c it is magical.

 

[canfield77]

We are planning a trip in May for 10 Nights and we have a little over 14 hour trip. We are taking two parents, a 17-year old SIL, a 23-year old BIL who can help drive, and a 14 month old. So the baby can sleep (he sleeps very well in his car seat), we are leaving right around his bedtime, around 8 PM. However, my husband works nights so he is accustomed to staying up all night and then for a while the next day to get back on a day schedule. With three drivers and one awake during nights, we should be fine. The whole reason I scheduled the vacation for 10 nights is because I know that first night down there we are going to be tired and want to go right to sleep. But honestly, for us, this was really the only alternative with a baby who (unless he is sleeping) gets REALLY tired of being in his car seat after a couple of hours. If we left during the day when he is usually awake, it would either be very stressful with the crying or it would take us four days to get there!

 

[growinupdisney]

[But then, you've got a tired set of parents, and you're probably just going to spend the rest of the day chilling out.

My dh amazinlgy will lay down about 6pm after dinner and will sleep till we leave. We have usually already packed the car, I tend to the kids until time to leave. That way he gets about 6hrs of sleep before we go! I'm usually to excited to nap before we leave so I have napped on the way down so we are usually ok when we get thereto do the parks or at least half a day at the park!

 

[shaylahc1]

We've always just done it during the day. My kids do not sleep in the car and if we did an overnight trip, we'd have extremely grouchy kids the next day.

The most we've ever driven in 1 stretch is 12 hours. My kids do fine. We bring movies for the DVD player and plenty of activities, we stop for potty breaks and snacks every few hours.

 

[Goofy'slady]

With youngish kids, I prefer it as a two-day trip, trying to get 10 hours done on the first day, get a good night's sleep, and still arrive early afternoon on day 2.-Faldred


That's exactly what we do. We have to young girls and we're drive from Baltimore, MD. We leave about 5am (girls still in PJ's) and drive thru til we get to Savannah, GA. We usually get there early enough to do a little sight seeing for a few hours there; this year we're gonna try and have dinner at Paula Deen's place "The Lady and Sons". Up fairly early the next morning and we drive until we hit WDW which should be around 2pm.

We listen to music, watch Disney movies of course and try really hard not to pitch the 4yr old out the car while it's still in motion. She talks waaaay to much. On our return trip we drive through to somewhere in NC so our 2nd day driving back won't be so long and we arrive home somewhere around 3-4pm. I've driven more times to WDW than I've flown and because we split it up in two days it makes for a more tolerable trip and as long as the gas prices reach 3 bucks or more it's usually cheaper than flying.

T.

 

[blessedby3]

The one time we drove we did a 2 day trip. We left in the afternoon and drove until about 10 pm, got a hotel and finished the trip the next morning. My dh and I are not long distance drivers. I get very sleepy driving for a long time and then Im no help.
We are driving again in May (unless we get some killer airline ticket deals) and we will do the same again.
I have visions of DH falling asleep in the family truckster like Clark Griswold and jumping over the interstate
That is why we do it in 2 days

 

[Pea's Mom]

We usually fly, but for our trip a couple of weeks ago, we decided to drive. We're in southern Delaware and left about 3am, that got us through Norfolk, Va before rush hour.

We made it to Savannah, GA about 2pm which allowed us to relax. We did have dinner at The Lady & Sons (Paula wasn't there - DRAT!) and we were up, well rested and on the road by 6am the next morning. We pulled into the Animal Kingdom Lodge about 10:15 am and were able to enjoy the day without dragging our rear ends

 

[Liberty Belle]

We've driven down twice from central Kentucky. Both times we left very early in the morning (once around 3 and the other time around 4:30-5). I think next time we'll leave around 4:30 again. That gave us time to get a little sleep (we loaded the car the night before) and the kids still slept (or went back to sleep after a bit) until 8:00 or so.

 

[DisneyDreamer8]

Since we live on the West coast this is related to us driving to Disneyland.

We usually leave around 4am. When it was just DH and I we would drive straight through, about 16 hours.

The last time we took our son for the first time. He was 7 months old at the time. We decided to take it slow and stay the night out. We drove about 11 hours until we could find a hotel (there are long stretches of empty highway). We got up around 6am and got to our hotel before our room was ready so we went to the park.

It worked well for us. But as our son gets older we will take the overnight portion out so we can spend more time at the parks.

 

[McDuck]

We leave early in the morning, get there mid to late afternoon, check in and get situated, go to DTD for a bit, and then hit the sack. We are refreshed and ready to hit the parks the following day. It's about a 12 hour drive or so for us.

 

[carrotf]

I usually leave around 2-3 in the afternoon and about 1/2 the kids seem to get tired and sleep. We usually arrive around 11-12 that night. It has worked for me pretty well, and we are about 9-10 hrs away

 

[DawnM]

We leave early am......our trip is about 9 to 10 hours though, so maybe not as long as yours.

We used to not leave until around 8am-9am and just get there in time for dinner and hang out, but the last couple of times we have left around 5am-6am and we arrive at 3pm or so and head strait to the parks for a few hours.....DH doesn't like that plan nearly as well as I do! He likes the leaving early part but is too tired to hit the parks that night.

Dawn

 

[MickeyHereWeCome!]

It takes us 14 hours to drive from Maryland. In the past, we've picked the kids up from school around 2 and driven for about 8 hours. By that time, my younger two are dead asleep and can easily be moved to the bed in a motel. The older two don't really sleep in the car, so driving all night isn't really an option for us. We hit the road by 8 the next day and check in mid-afternoon.

Our kids have gotten used to the ride. They each have an ipod nano, so they can watch their own shows as we ride. We also have a built in DVD player, but it's hard to find something that all four like these days (they are 12, 9, 6, and 4).

It works for us...and is so much easier than having to stress over plan seating, baggage, security at the airport, etc. Plus, for a family of 6, it's a whole lot cheaper

 

[gabriellyn]

We drove on our last trip - left around 5 am, spent the night in Tallahassee and continued on early the next morning, for a total of about 14 hours. Got to our resort around lunch time, checked in, and hit the parks. We did something similar on the way back - staying in a different town about 5 hours from home. We liked it - we didn't feel too tired and neither did the kids! Wish we could leave a bit earlier to hit the parks earlier, but we really aren't a crack-of-dawn kind of family. If flying were more affordable we'd do that, but with 5 of us it just isn't going to happen. Rather spend that $$$ in WDW!

 

[kbmck]

I like to leave early morning, before 6 am. DS(5) doesn't sleep well in the car. Fortunately he can be entertained with his DVD player. Although it does aggravate his Daddy when trying to pick the next movie. LOL I usually do the driving, not DH.

Kathy