For those who drive to Disney, how many full days do you spend at Disney?

[Surfinpiratee]

I'm trying to figure out how many days ill need off. I want to take off as little as possible yhough

 

[pepe of ohio]

For us, with a 1050 mile drive or Amtrak 36 hour ride... Nothing less than 7 days....

We like touring at a friendly pace, e joy pool time at the resort... And it's a vacation, we like to relax..

 

[gratefulfred]

I'm from the Philly area. We start driving on Friday night after work find a cheap place to spend the night, and arrive in Orlando around dinner time on Saturday. We have Sunday thru Friday as full days at Disney then start for home on Saturday getting another room somewhere along the route and get home at a decent time Sunday. Total of 5 days vacation. I love having my car there

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

We have a 12 hour drive (about 800 miles). Usually we break the driving up - 1.5 days down, 1.5 days back - and stay in a cheap Hotwire I95 hotel each way. We have done it in one day, but I'll only do that if DH is along to share the drive. This June we had a Saturday to Saturday stay at Wyndham Bonnet Creek. We left home on Friday evening and got to WDW Saturday afternoon. Then we left WDW on Saturday evening and got home Sunday afternoon. This gave us almost 7 full days in WDW - 4 park days, and a couple of waterpark/pool/DTD days.

 

[bigbabyblues]

We drive from Ohio, about 14-15 hours, depending on stops. We usually drive straight through both ways and stay 9-10 nights. We leave home around 3 pm, arrive at Disney around 6 or so the next morning. When we come home, we leave whenever we want but usually by noon.

 

[sharadoc]

We like 6 days minimum, we take 2 days to drive each way, but we don't do it so we arrive exhausted. We don't mind getting home exhausted but not to jeopardize our safety on the road of course.

Our best schedule is leave home at 9 am, drive until 9 or 10 pm, sleep over in Savannah area, then get up and hit the road again by 9, arrive at WDW by 3 for check-in. That gives us that first evening in a park, plus 6 full days. To come home, we like to leave around noon so we can get a good night's sleep. We'll drive around 10 hours, sleep, then get home around 2 or 3 the next day.

The best way to do this for us is Friday through Sunday. if it's NOT in the summer. If you are going to drive down 95 in the summer, do NOT do it on a Friday or Saturday or you'll sit for 5 hours from Washington DC to Richmond VA, sometimes in stopped traffic.

 

[minnierocks]

1000 miles-16 hours...we have stayed as little as 5 but we prefer 6-7. Most trips, we take two days each way to drive but on our last trip, we drove both ways all the way through. Our "kids" are now adults so it was no problem to do that and we didn't mind it at all. Our 20 year old could only get so many days off work so we needed to minimize our days away and didn't want to cut the trip short.

 

[LadyBeBop]

We are about 900 miles from the World. With liberal stops, it takes us about 15-16 hours.

We always trade into a timeshare, so we'll get there mid-Saturday or Sunday afternoon and leave early in the morning the following Saturday or Sunday. So we'll have six full days, plus part of a seventh.

This time, we have a Sunday to Sunday at Wyndham Bonnet Creek. We'll leave here early Saturday morning (around 4 AM), and drive to Valdosta where we'll stay overnight. The next day, we'll leave at about 6 AM and hope to reach our resort by about 10 AM, and we'll be in the MK by noon. We'll leave the following Sunday, probably around 6 AM and drive to my in-laws in Knoxville where we'll spend the night. After visiting with the in-laws for a few hours, we'll leave mid-morning for home, arriving about 4-5 PM.

HTH

 

[beancounter93]

We're just under 500 miles from WDW (9 - 9 1/2 hours) and we do at the least 6 days and usually try to fit in 8 if the vacation days work out.

 

[joedplumber]

Travel from Southwestern CT leave Friday at 4am and arrive at WDW on Saturday at 11am. We leave the following Sunday at 6am and arrive home Monday at 2pm.

So we have 7 full days of Disney on our driving trips and a half day to boot!

 

[joedplumber]

If you are going to drive down 95 in the summer, do NOT do it on a Friday or Saturday or you'll sit for 5 hours from Washington DC to Richmond VA, sometimes in stopped traffic.

What time on Friday did you travel that area? In July 2012 we buzzed right through the area around 9:30am.

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

At a minimum, I want one full day at each park, so 4 days. Ideally, I'd like 2 days at each park. I also really like both starting and ending with MK, so there is an extra day needed there. I usually start by planning for a full week (Saturday of one week to Sunday of the next), build travel time into that, and select my park days from there.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I live 8 hours away. Our normal disney trip is 4 full days plus about a half day after driving.

Sometimes we will stay until 1pm or so before driving home but didn't on the last trip.

 

[TiggerDaddyo714]

Surfinpiratee, you didn't say where you were driving from, or what you like to do when you get there. Add to that *how* you like to do it once you are 'in the magic'.

We too are about 7½ hours out, (south of Atlanta) and will leave early thirty when going down. Sometimes so early that we're there for breakfast. And we are ALWAYS there for lunch.

Coming home though seems to be worse traffic every time. We usually don't leave till mid to late day and just get home late. If we're going to work Monday morning (well my DW does, now I'm disabled/retired so it doesn't matter) then we'll leave Saturday so we have Sunday to rest.

The other thing you didn't say was how long you wanted to spend on property. If you're doing 7+ days you might as well get an AP and come back before it expires. (Sorta' like a free vacation next year.)

 

[kristenrice]

We drive from SW Michigan, typically in April over spring break...with everyone else from Michigan. We generally leave on Friday afternoon between 1-3pm and drive until about 10pm. Because we travel over spring break, I *always* book hotel rooms in advance. We've seen several tired and haggard travelers who drove to exhaustion get turned away at hotel after hotel because they were all full. Typically, our first night is in Northern Kentucky. We will then drive all day Saturday and stay around Lake City, FL. It's only about 2 hours from WDW, but by the time we get there, it is usually around 9-10pm and we don't want to "waste" a night at a WDW resort when we'd be checking in at midnight. That way, we get up on Sunday and have a leisurely drive to WDW. We start the vacation that afternoon and stay until Friday. On Friday morning, as early as we can wrangle everyone out of bed, we head out and drive all day, usually getting to central Kentcuky. Again, I will have a hotel booked already so we drive until we get there. We get up early again on Saturday and drive the rest of the way home, usually pulling in the driveway between 8-9pm. Then we have Sunday to recuperate before back to school on Monday.

Long story short, we spend about 4.5 days in the parks when we drive. Since the kids no longer have school on Friday before spring break, we've been known to leave on Thursday when the dismiss (3pm) and book an off-site resort for Saturday night. (*We have DVC and usually only enough points for the weeknights during premiere season.)

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Thanks a ton guys! I'm thinking ill leave on a Wednesday, to get to WDW Thursday, then haveall day friday, sat, Sun, Mon, and leave Tuesday to get back on Wednesday!

 

[AnnaS]

Coming from NY
We drove down in January - stayed overnight on the way down. Stayed 8 nights - dropped daughter off/Disney College Program.
Drove straight through coming home.

We drove down again in May - drove straight through and back. Stayed 7 nights. Helped daughter move again sine she extended her program and we got to see her.

We drove down again in July - stopped overnight. We were gone 2 1/2 weeks. Drove home straight through and brought daughter back also. We picked her up for our cruise and stayed a week since she was finishing up her program.

I would stay a minimum of 5 nights. I also told hubby no more driving through - no reason for it if we have the time but it can be done.

Have fun - driving is not too bad but we had enough driving for this year so we are flying down in October for F & W.