how to handle drive from Cincinnati

[emmababy]

We are driving for the first time and with 3 little ones- one of which will be 9 months.

On the way down, we plan to stop South of Atlanta. We would like to be within 4 or 5 hours of Disney. What would be a good town?

On the way home, we were thinking of going to the beach for the day. We would like to get some driving out of the way too. Upon research, Daytona or St Augustine doesn't shorten the drive any. We thought about Savannah, but that takes us up 95. I'm more confused now!!!

 

[PrincessSteph]

On our trip in January, we left the house at 4:00 am and stopped in Valdosta, GA (we stayed in a Country Inn & Suites). We arrived in Valdosta by dinner. The next morning we only had a few hours remaining (mapquest said 3.5 hours).

 

[emmababy]

I was just looking at doing the same thing. Leaving at that time, what time did you get to Valdosta? Did you get thru Atlanta ok?

What did you do on the drive home?

We would love to do a majority of the driving the first day and be refreshed and at WDW early the next day to enjoy it. Can I ask the age of your group?

 

[Bibbidi]

We've never had a problem getting through Atlanta on about 6 different drives down 75. We've stopped in Valdosta, at the Country Inn & Suites (2008) which was reasonably priced and very nice, which is about a 12 hour drive for us --without any travel delays (we're about 30 minutes north of downtown Cincy). The next day it is about 3-4 hours from there.

The only thing I'd caution you on is that if you have a rainy travel day, or if your kids aren't accustomed to long trips in the car, or you do hit traffic somewhere, you are looking at potentially more than 12 hours in the car in one day. So you need to decide if you want to commit to that. On our last trip down to Disney in August we decided to stop in Tifton, GA which is about an hour north of Valdosta, just to give ourselves a break a little earlier, while still only having a short drive the next day. That worked out well. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Tifton. I personally preferred the price and accomodations at the Country Inn, but I was thankful to stop driving when we hit Tifton.

Good luck with your decision and have a great trip!

 

[2girlsmommy]

Last year we drove from Columbus...and one of the best tips I got, was to stop at a fast food place for lunch/dinner whatever and let the kids play while you eat and then have them eat when you get back in the car to continue driving. It worked out SOO well! Instead of fighting them to eat so they could play, we just let them play and play hard, so that when they were finished eating in the car (which was something they could do instead of complain about how much further we had to drive!)they just might pass out! HTH!
Erica

 

[indimom]

We're from just across the border in Indiana, and have also stopped in Valdosta, the timing worked out nicely.

I also agree with the advice to stop at a fast food joint with a play place about half way through your long day. They are pretty easy to find the further south you go. It helped a lot to let our kids get out of their seats for 1/2 hour to run and play like mad while we ate a peaceful lunch (they ate in the car after we left ). It was a quick stop that accomplished a lot.

Sorry, no advice on the baby, we didn't travel that far until ours were toddlers. Hope everything goes well and don't be afraid to change the plan if it just isn't working. Also, no info on a beach day, hopefully someone else can help you out with ideas.

 

[emmababy]

Thanks everyone. Did you all stop on the way home or try to make it home in 1 day? If you stopped, where at?
I am trying to figure out if we should wake up early and power thru to make it home or do half a day at the park and drive halfway and stay the night?????

 

[powellrj]

We also live in Indiana, so we drive through there on our trip. We always make the way down 2 days, but we make the drive home in one. We leave early in the am and drive straight through home. Our kids are older and so its been awhile since they were little so I can't offer any advice about that! I will say on our last trip we had my 73 year old mother in the car with us and she was adamant we were stopping for the night on the way home, but once we got started she did fine and we were home around 11 pm.

 

[Bibbidi]

Thanks everyone. Did you all stop on the way home or try to make it home in 1 day? If you stopped, where at?
I am trying to figure out if we should wake up early and power thru to make it home or do half a day at the park and drive halfway and stay the night?????

We have always driven the whole way home in one day, except for one trip when we got a late start leaving Disney. If we can leave Disney by 4-5 am, it's worth it to us to get home by that evening around 6 or 7 pm.

 

[Bibbidi]

Oh, and let me give you just one warning about driving through GA, south of Atlanta. At least in our travels we've found that there aren't very many decent pit stops along the way unless you're stopping in the "major" city areas like Macon, Tifton, Valdosta--so plan accordingly for bathroom/food breaks in those places.

 

[indimom]

Thanks everyone. Did you all stop on the way home or try to make it home in 1 day? If you stopped, where at?
I am trying to figure out if we should wake up early and power thru to make it home or do half a day at the park and drive halfway and stay the night?????

We planned to make the drive home two days, so we left around 5 p.m. My hubby wanted to get at least 7 hours under our belt and was afraid he would get drowsy, so he drank one of those energy drinks (Redline Extreme?).I fell asleep around 10 or so and woke up in Kentucky the next morning!! WOW! He didn't sleep until the following night. Potent stuff!

 

[Disneybuckeye]

We have made the drive from Cincinnati to Orlando numerous times and have it down to 13.5 hours including stops. Of couse that was when our kids were older. I think the youngest we ever drove with one was 18 months, but she was fine in her car seat. We usually left after school on a Friday (4pm) drove till we were through Atlanta and then stopped for the night. I agree that making it to Valdosta is great. We never drove past midnight and I agree with stopping on the way down so you arrive at the world ready to go. Coming home we leave by 6am and are home before 8. I agree with the playgrounds. You will be fine. Enjoy your trip.

 

[redandblue]

When I was a teenage we went to Disney from SE Michigan. We stopped at a rest stop and my mom and dad got a few hours of sleep. If it is a busy rest stop I would do it again if my kids were sleeping and we were on a budget. But I know I would enjoy my first day a little better if I had a nights sleep in a real bed.

 

[Jenny-momof3]

We drive it often ( from Dayton...so we have an additional hour or so).

We just do the whole drive in 1 day. It's soo much easier for us IMO. It's alot of work to unload 4 kids for just a few hours at a hotel. We have stopped in Valdosta once. It was fine. But the kids had a harder time getting back in the car the next morning for 3 hours then they did doing 12 or so hours the day before!!

We usually leave at 3pm. DH drive for 5 hours, stop for a quick bite, fill up. I drive the next 5 hours and DH sleeps, kids sleep. Stop at 1am for fill up, switch drivers. DH drives the rest of the way, I sleep a little, kids start waking up. We arrive around 5-6 am. Have a nice breakfast, check in...room has been ready every single time but once ( and we travel during holidays!!). Then hit the parks! Yes...we're crazy but it works for us!

We've done this trip twice this year alone with our newest little one...10 weeks for the first trip and 11 months just a few weeks ago. The kids always do great any age for us.

Traffic driving at the time absolutely none! Except for this last trip where we hit an icestorm and had to spend 5 hours in park on a shutdown interstate. Took us 22 hours to get down instead of 15!

Drive home we get up around 3am and head out. Again taking turns driving. And we usually don't hit traffic til Cincy...every.single.time!

 

[brennicksmom]

We live just south of St. Louis and we are trying to plan also where we should stop for the night. Atlanta is about a 10 hour drive and we were thinking that we would stop in Macon. We know that we won't stop in McDunough (SP?). We have stopped there and stayed because we were too tired to drive further. It will NEVER happen again. It was a very undesirable city. At least where we ended up.

Is Tifton better that Macon? We were curious also as to which area we should stay for th night. We want to plan because we never seem to end up in places we feel are where we really want to be.

 

[Riviera510]

We just drove for the first time from the Detroit, MI area over Thanksgiving with our 5 and 7 year olds.

The first day we left our house at 4:15am and seemed to stop every 2 hours because someone had to pee(even though we made everyone try each time) and we got to our hotel in Macon, GA at 630pm.

The kids did extremely well, much better than I expected, but were wiped out by the time we stopped. Practically asleep in their dinner. We were all asleep by 830pm that night.

The next day we headed out about 830am and arrived at POR at 145pm.


On the way home we left around 930am. Planned to drive as far as we could and then stop for the night. However one of our 5 year olds started throwing up about an hour out of Orlando so we decided to drive straight thru. We wanted to get home before any of the others got sick(Thankfully no one else did). We arrived home at 440am. About 19 hours to get home. It wasnt too bad and actually I think that is our plan for future trips. 2 days on the way there so we aren't tired getting there... and drive straight thru if we can on the way home.

DH took one of those 5 hour energy drinks and it did nothing for him. He took another (I bough a 2 pack) about an hour later...and still nothing.

Good luck!

 

[hgitifton]

Thanks for staying with us back in August. I am delighted you choose to stop in Tifton and spend the night with us on the way to Disney! We love Disney travelers! I see that you enjoyed the price and accommodations better at the Country Inn in Valdosta, what is one thing we could have done to make your stay more enjoyable here? We love hearing feedback and learning what we can do to make someone’s stay more enjoyable! Thanks again for staying with us while on your way to visit Mickey! We hope to have you as our guest again soon!

 

[emmababy]

Can someone post their driving directions once in Florida to wdw?

 

[kycanonist]

We are thinking of driving straight through the night from Louisville, but on the way home we'll go in the morning... we may have to stop overnight somewhere...

 

[Normangirls]

Can someone post their driving directions once in Florida to wdw?

You'll take I-75 to the Florida Turnpike (Route 91) south, and go about 40 miles to Florida 429 south (which is also a toll road). You'll be on 429 about 15 miles (the BEST 15 miles of the trip!) and there's an exit (exit 8) for WDW (it brings you in on Western Way).

If you stay in Valdosta, it's about three hours to WDW. If you need a pit stop, try to use the state rout 44 exit off of I-75 (just before the FL Turnpike exit), because once you're on the Turnpike, exits are scarce (and the rest stops are expensive).

We drive down from west of Toledo, about three hours north of you. One of the best things we did when the girls were smaller was to leave really early (like around 1 or 2 a.m.) to drive as much as we could while they slept. Even if we made more/longer stops, we'd make Valdosta by dinner time.

Coming home, we leave around 5 a.m., and even with the longer stops (again, because the girls were younger) we made it home my midnight -- so maybe around 9 p.m. for you.

The drives weren't perfect, sometimes someone would get cranky and whine and squirm and cry (but I'd tell DH to settle down and he'd stop -- JK!). But we'd just keep swimming (driving!) and get through it.