How Much Do You Spend on Driving to FL/WDW?

[KissMeKenley]

While I am sitting in the passenger seat.LOL Not that stupid!!

 

[SonicLogic]

We always stop at the official Disney welcome center in Ocoee, but usually don't buy a lot there.

Sheila

Perhaps "Ocala"?

 

[swilshire]

Perhaps "Ocala"?

I always get those O cities confused. Have the same problem with the P cities (Panama City, Pensacola).

Thanks for the correction.

Sheila

 

[cbusby]

I too will be driving down to WDW, but I will take 2 days......get a little sight seeing in. However gas prices are definitely an issue. There is this website that will explain the different stops make when filling up on gas.

For instance, fill up before you leave the state of NC because gas prices are
a whole lot higher in SC.

I will be bringing a portable DVD player for my son along with his gameboy...this will keep him interested for a while.

I will try an find the website....that show where the most expensive gas prices are.

Good luck

 

[cbusby]

We are driving from WI, roughly 18-19 hour drive. Besides gas, what have you spent $ on, on the way to FL? We plan on driving straight thru, just stopping to eat and restroom breaks. Any help, hints, suggestions on the cost would be GREAT!! Thank you!!
D.D.

Here's that website.........

http://www.usastar.com/i95/homepage.htm

 

[Straitlover]

I
For instance, fill up before you leave the state of NC because gas prices are
a whole lot higher in SC.

Actually, gas prices are usually less in SC than in NC. Their taxes are lower than ours. My sis always fills up when going over the border for lottery tickets. If you get past South of the Border down to Dillon/Florence way, they are pretty good.

They are even better in GA. I make sure I have enough to get me through SC and most of GA and fill up in GA before crossing into FL.

 

[SonicLogic]

I always get those O cities confused. Have the same problem with the P cities (Panama City, Pensacola).

Thanks for the correction.

Sheila

Rats! I was thinking that you found a new official Disney welcome center. Also, (speaking of "O" places in Flordia) have you ever been to the Okahumpka Service Plaza?

 

[Disneyof3]

We leave from just west of Toronto and we drive straight through. It takes us about 22-24 hrs. We leave at night about 6am and the kids sleep all night and are in good spirits when they wake up in the daylight and in the warmer states.
We stopped 7 times in January 2004, 3 bathroom brakes, 2 meals (breakfast and lunch), and 2 gas stops. Yes a good idea is to get gas just before you enter Florida. We pack snacks along the way and it worked for us and again this year. It would cost us about $2000 without taxes to fly from Canada with a family of 5. Then the car rental on top of that. The time goes by fast because by the time your in the warmer states it is daylight and we love watching the temp. rise instead of lowering. It cost us about $200 canadian last year to drive there and back. It took us longer getting back too because of the ice storm.

 

[Disneyof3]

We leave from just west of Toronto and we drive straight through. It takes us about 22-24 hrs. We leave at night about 6am and the kids sleep all night and are in good spirits when they wake up in the daylight and in the warmer states.
We stopped 7 times in January 2004, 3 bathroom brakes, 2 meals (breakfast and lunch), and 2 gas stops. Yes a good idea is to get gas just before you enter Florida. We pack snacks along the way and it worked for us and again this year. It would cost us about $2000 without taxes to fly from Canada with a family of 5. Then the car rental on top of that. The time goes by fast because by the time your in the warmer states it is daylight and we love watching the temp. rise instead of lowering. It cost us about $200 canadian last year to drive there and back. It took us longer getting back too because of the ice storm.

Sorry that would be 6PM we leave

 

[swilphil]

We are driving from WI, roughly 18-19 hour drive. Besides gas, what have you spent $ on, on the way to FL? We plan on driving straight thru, just stopping to eat and restroom breaks.

Lots and lots of coffee

 

[bobcat]

It is a little over 2,000 miles roundtrip and we spent $150 on gas and two hotel rooms for $80 total.

If you are driving I75 I highly recommend the along I75 book. We checked it out form our library this last trip since this was our first time taking I75 (we can go either I77 over to I95 or I75 and it is only a difference of <30 miles) and it was great to know what restaurants, hotels and gas stations were at each stop as well as the interesting tidbits and historical info along the route.

 

[mapmakerj]

We are driving from WI, roughly 18-19 hour drive. Besides gas, what have you spent $ on, on the way to FL? We plan on driving straight thru, just stopping to eat and restroom breaks. Any help, hints, suggestions on the cost would be GREAT!! Thank you!!
D.D.

Where in Wi are you driving from? We just drove from Oshkosh to FL last week and it was about 21 hrs. ( My DH always bents the speed limit a bit too!) We also only stopped for restroom breaks and to stretch our legs. Ate in the car almost the whole time, except for one picnic in KY.

 

[hockey mom]

We drive from near Toronto Canada and spend about $250 US. We drive straight through, stop for lunch and dinner and pull into Disney just in time for breakfast. Takes us about 22-24 hours.

 

[ricktib]

South GA often has the lowest gas prices in the country. Not sure if you enter FL on I-95 or I-75, but in the interest of saving time and money we usually plan to stop for gas/food at GA Exit 1 on I-95. The one gas station there has a little food court area so everybody can get what they want. I usually go to the Long John Silvers in there.

 

[Poohnatic]

I haven't done the drive since May, but I will tell you our biggest savings was investing in a refrigerated cooler.

We picked one up at WalMart for 90 bucks, it did six or seven trips from Maryland to Florida, was used in the hotel rooms throughout the stay and saved our sanity! For the trip, the cooler got filled with yogurt and fruit to go with the other snack stuff in the car. Once we were in the room, we'd get a quart of milk, some cold cuts, wine for us and soda for the kids in it.

The bonus is that my store gets use of it during the holidays, as I fill it with soda.

As far as gas, meals and hotel...

Our trip was usually 15 hours, for 1,000 miles.

We'd stay overnight each way, the most we spent on a room was 80 bucks. It won't help you for Wisconsin, but Savannah, GA has lots of hotel rooms cheap. All we wanted was two beds, lol!

We'd stop for dinner on the way down and breakfast the next morning-maybe lunch. Usually, we'd spend about 150 on food, sodas and snacks.

Gas varied drastically, but if we did the trip today, our Jeep gets about 16 miles to the gallon, and the trip is 1,000 miles= 62.5 gallons x 2.00 per gallon= 125 for gas.

Enjoy your trip!

Suzanne

 

[steveknj]

Those of you who drive and stay overnight someplace before arriving, do you book the hotels/motels prior to leaving or do you just find someplace to stay on the way? Last time I drove was pre-internet, around 1993-94 and IIRC we got the AAA book and called up somewhere and booked in advance. I'm just wondering if it's better to just wing it in case I decide to drive longer than I had planned.

 

[disneymom3]

Those of you who drive and stay overnight someplace before arriving, do you book the hotels/motels prior to leaving or do you just find someplace to stay on the way? Last time I drove was pre-internet, around 1993-94 and IIRC we got the AAA book and called up somewhere and booked in advance. I'm just wondering if it's better to just wing it in case I decide to drive longer than I had planned.

What we have done that works best is to estimate where we will be when we want to stop and make a reservation that is good until a certain time without a credit card gaurantee. Then, if we don't make it or want to go further we can stop or whatever. I like the assurance that there is somewhere we for sure would be able to stay if things were really busy. But I also like the flexibilty. One trip we did a Hotel Kingdom ressie which we had to pay for upfront of course and that was a BAD move!! If I had had my way, we would have stopped about 2 hours earlier and just paid for a room in addition to the one we had reserved further down the road. DH won that battle though as it was supposed to be a budget trip and he was pretty sure that paying for a hotel we were not going to use was not part of the budget. That was a rough two hours!!

 

[Mom of Sleepy Bashful and BabyDoc]

We love to drive and wouldn't have it any other way. We have three kids and the hassle involved in flying and packing are not worth it to us at all. Yep, time is money, but the quality of how you spend that time matters too!

You got it disneymom3.........we've flown many times with our children and it just isn't fun at all.

This is what we did in Sept. We started out at 6 pm, stopped at my mom's in Pa. to drop off the pooch, then headed to FL, straight thru the night. I thought I would hate it. Ofcourse, my DH didn't need to sleep until around 5am, then I took over. We stopped for breakfast at 8 am. Visited a friend in Ocala then on to Orlando checking in at our condo at 3 or 4pm. You know what the best part of that trip was?? That the kids were asleep from 10pm to 8am. Only 11 hours of wake time. Yeeeehaaaa!! lol The trick is to not start out tired. We made sure we had a ton of sleep the night before.

On the way back is different because you are starting out in the morning. We stopped at a hotel on the way back.

Gas was around $325 round trip( we have a high top conversion van w/tv dvdplayer........we LOVE travelling in this car but it does cost more in gas). we stopped for breakfast on the way down($25), I had the lunch packed in the cooler and I had chili (that I made at home and froze) also in the cooler for our dinner at the condo.

We plan on doing the same thing for our trip next December.

 

[LovePug]

Those of you who drive and stay overnight someplace before arriving, do you book the hotels/motels prior to leaving or do you just find someplace to stay on the way? Last time I drove was pre-internet, around 1993-94 and IIRC we got the AAA book and called up somewhere and booked in advance. I'm just wondering if it's better to just wing it in case I decide to drive longer than I had planned.

I do, but I pretty much know what my limit is. Once I found the place that I want to stop on our first trip, I stop there every time now. I do take my AAA book with me just in case there's a glitch in the plans. The place I stop at allows a cancellation by 6PM on the day of arrival. That leaves me with essentially no risk of being charged since I usually arrive by 7 or 8. I also travel with the Pug so I have to find pet friendly stops which is little more of a hassle than just pulling over at any hotel when I'm tired.

 

[ricktib]

Those of you who drive and stay overnight someplace before arriving, do you book the hotels/motels prior to leaving or do you just find someplace to stay on the way?

I'm a big fan of hotwire.com - just search on the town in which you think you'll stop - usually really great rates.