HELP! How do I entertain 4 kids on a 20 hour long drive to Disney?

[disneynewbie01]

My family and my relatives (total=4 adults and 4 kids) are driving to Disney from Boston, more than 20 hour drive. This would not be a problem but since we only wanted to bring one vehicle we are going to rent an 8-passenger van. The van unfortunetly has no TV to entertain the kids. Any suggestions on how to entertain the kids and make the long drive to Disney seem shorter?
Thanks for the help.

By the way the kids are 15(Girl), 12(Boy), 11(Girl), and 10(Boy)
We decided to drive because plane tickets are expensive for this time of year.

 

[MidgeD79]

Portable dvd's are pretty cheap now. With 4 daults you should be able to dive it straight through except for potty/food breaks. There are lots of different sites with Disney coloring pages and activity sheets. I let each of my kids have a backpack and whatever they can fit in it to keep them happy that what goes. I try to have as many non-sticky drinks as possible in the car like water and ice tea. take lots of wipes and air freshner. Each person gets their own pillow and we use beach towels to double as blankets. Personal cd players and handheld gmaes help too. have fun

 

[A&CsMom]

We bought portable DVD players (2 - one for each child) since are children are 3.5 years apart in age, and one's a boy and one's a girl. The DVD players were only $50 each (Canadian) and they are lifesavers on our drive to Florida! We also borrow DVDs from friends that are new to our kids.

 

[calgarygary]

Get the portable DVD player(s)! They will make the time fly for your kids.

 

[guangs]

May I ask why you decided to drive instead of fly? I live in Maine and was considering driving until I saw the price of flights out of Manchester. I still haven't made up my mind.........

 

[mommyoftwinfants]

At the disney store they have a CARS bingo game that entertained my boys for hours, if you don't live by a disney store you can make your own.
The squares are stop sign, RR tracks, gas station, car, truck, yield sign, etc..... Also stopped by toys r us and got them the travel hungry hippo.
We had a 22 hr drive with 4 drivers so we just drove straight through with stopping for potty breaks and eating.

 

[kaytieeldr]

May I ask why you decided to drive instead of fly? I live in Maine and was considering driving until I saw the price of flights out of Manchester. I still haven't made up my mind.........

Yeah, that was my first thought too... but even if the fare was $50 per person each way, that's still $800 - and this way, they'll have a vehicle already, too.

 

[LeahA]

We went to SAMS CLUB and invested in one of those television/dvd's that plug into your lighter and it also plugs into a regular outlet in the house or hotel room.

We bring with their Gameboy's, Books, Coloring Books for the littler ones, I made my older son write in a journal about each day of our trip. Plenty of snacks, music.

I went to TARGET and bought some stuff for the younger ones from their $1.00 section. Little toys and games that I would bring out every couple hours of the trip.

The game WOULD YOU RATHER is a fun game to play, maybe screen some of the question for age apporpriate, but it's fun for adults and kids, we played on New Years Eve and we all had fun and laughed alot!

We drive from Illinois every year, dh and I, 3 boys, 9-6-3. If the kids get really crazy, we stop and take a break, strech our legs, etc...

Good Luck! Have fun! Drive Safe!

 

[Deedlbugg]

How about an audio book or two?
Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson would be a great choice for that age group, plus how cool to be listening to a book about Disney on your way down? Good Luck!

 

[Deedlbugg]

How about the "battleship" game? Or boppit? Some Mad Libs?

 

[FigmentGuy]

We went to SAMS CLUB and invested in one of those television/dvd's that plug into your lighter and it also plugs into a regular outlet in the house or hotel room.
Good Luck! Have fun! Drive Safe!

Yah, depending on your rental and available adapters.. you may be able to bring along a PS2 or Game cube!! lol Sound like a great way to pass time to me.

There are alot of travel games you can get for a cheap price at general super stores. Travel versions are just smaller versions.

If its not tooo close to your trip you could order a WDW triva book. Then read them and let everyone guess an answer in their head and read the answer out. Take turns with readers.

You could go out and pick up magazines for them and suprise them part way down.

Or play talk games to keep people invovled. Let everyone take thier turns:

If you had $50,000 in good detail how would you spend it?

If you were on an island and could only have 1 person and three things with you, what/who would they be?

If you were locked in a WDW park all night by yourself with fully operation rides, which one and why?

If you were to add a country to world showcase what would you pick and why?

If you were in charge of Disney resorts and had to create a new resort what would it be (value, mod,deluxe,etc) and what would its theme be?

Or create a list of "must do rides" for when you arrive.

Have a clock/stopwatch available.. and start a story and after 1min say switch and the next person has to pick up where there previous storyteller left off. See how zany the story gets.

Play the alphabet game. Everyone takes a turn and does a letter. do different themes. "charachters A-Aladin, B-Belle.." or "cars A-audi, B-BMW" or movie titles, food etc.

Could play Road/travel Bingo.

Or have everyone prepare/find a ghost story before the trip and tell it during the nightime journey...

Ok. If I think of anymore I will be glad to share. I hope none of my ideas seem dumb. Have a great trip.

 

[Bearvet]

We drive every feb. from western Mass to either Ft. Myers Beach or Orlando with 3 boys (ages 17, 13 and 11). We've done this since our youngest was 1 year old and now they actually look forward to the drive! ITA that it's great to have your own car when you arrive!

As other posters have mentioned, buy 1 or 2 portable DVD players and stock up on movies! These are great for passing the time and you can buy them for around $80. Ipods or MP3 players, GameBoys and PSPs, Books & magazines, travel games, etc. can make the trip fly by! The kids you're travelling with are old enough to entertain themselves - just provide enough things for them to do.

I pack extra treats (candy, gum, etc) and they always look forward to that. We drive straight through (22-26 hours) and always look forward to stopping for breakfast. We usually end up in South Carolina and LOVE to go to Waffle House since it's so different from anything here in NE. We also love to watch the thermometer in the car slowly creep upward.

BTW we tend to leave around 4 PM and sail through all of the major cities in the middle of the night with no traffic at all. Good luck!

 

[mareed]

I know you didn't ask about this, but I really hope you've rented something larger than an 8 passenger minivan. There is just no way that 4 adults and 4 older children would be comfortable in a minivan. Hopefully, it's something like a 12 passenger van. The other problem with a minivan would be room for luggage.

Back to your actual question. I also think the portable DVD players would be your best bet. Also hand-held games like gameboys (with headphones).

We're recent driving converts and our drive is about 18 hours (just under 1000 miles) from TX. It's just 2 adults & 2 children (7 & 10) in a 7 passenger minivan, and I think we'd be comfortable with perhaps one more person at the most. So I do speak from experience against 8 people in a minivan. I belive the 8 passenger minivans aren't any larger than the 7 passenger ones - they just have a bench seat in the middle instead of 2 separate seats.

 

[timandlesley]

I second what everyone is saying about DVD players, car bingo and other creative ideas but what we also did was a "good behavior bag". We had a bunch of goodies (small etch a sketch players, squoosh balls, magic marker activity pad thingy's, pez dispensers etc) in a bag hidden up front. Every two hours or so (randomly to reward good car behavior) we'd make a HUGE deal out of the SURPRISE bag, and let them each select something from the bag, then it seemed to entertain them for an hour or so. THIS WORKED GREAT!!!!! we stocked up before we left. When they would start to argue we would remind them of the surprise bag and things would get quiet fast . I HIGHLY recommend it!!!!
Lesley

 

[Funwith4kids]

Like many others have said already...DVD, CD player, PS2, travel games are part of our arsenal. We also bring a bag of surprises for our 2 youngest kids to bring out when needed. Also, we have been taking the trip to Orlando on an annual basis so we know where some certain landmarks (i.e. Ruby Falls) are and put them on a homemade travel bingo/coloring board. We haven't perfected it yet, but are getting closer to finding the right landmarks and travel time in between them to keep the kids occuppied/interested with this game for several hours at a time (we human beings have something about us that we will stay interested if we are part of it; otherwise on to other things)