Need Help..about pros and cons of driving to WDW instead of air..from missouri

[Jasper Dale]

we just got back from our last trip to the world a few months ago, and are trying to figure out our vacation plans for next year. we have never gotten an annual pass, but i am thinking about taking 3 trips to WDW in 12 months, and need some advice.

here is our situation:

my wife has two weeks off in July 2011, due to a company shut down. in addition, she has two weeks vacation per year. we live in Kansas City, MO and have always flown to Orlando, making the most out of every one of our vacation days.

however, i am thinking about using the 14 days in July to drive to Orlando for the first time and buying annual passes. since we are going for 7 days in December 2011 and 10 days in March of 2012, i figure the annual pass is the only way to go.

i'm really concerned, however, about driving such a long distance. we have driven to Colorado before, but i don't know how weary we will be after a 22 hour trip to get to Orlando.

i'm 45 and my wife is 33. i'm interested in advice from those of you who drive a long distance to Orlando on your vacations. how long does it take you to "recover" from the drive?

we can't afford 3 plane trips, so if we don't drive in July, we will just go in December 2011 and March 2012. but i'm thinking that since we will buy the annual pass anyway, if we drive it would be a pretty inexpensive trip for us if we go in July.

i know the crowds are bad in July. However, we have visited WDW so many times that i'm not worried about "wait times" on rides as we would be fine with doing attractions early in the morning and sightseeing the rest of the day.

did you enjoy driving? what are the pros and cons? looking forward to hearing from all my fellow Dissers.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

I'm a big advocate for flying. There are many reasons from it being safer, less stessful, etc. However, you are proposing a very interesting option, going for two weeks and utilizing APs to get three trips out of them. I'm not sure it would be worth it to me to drive the 18 or so hours from KC to DW, but it definately changes things.

I guess the question would be, how reliable is your car, do you have extra money set aside incase something breaksdown on the way or back? How does your kid do in the car for long distances? Do you get stressed driving at home? Planning on doing it non-stop or stopping overnight somewhere? There are a lot of variables to take into account.

 

[Disneycrazymom]

We have made the drive from STL a few times. I much prefer to fly but sometimes the air fare just doesn't come down enough. It takes us about 20 hours. 1 time we drove straight through and I will never do that again. I was so tired the entire trip! If we make it a 2 day drive it is not so bad. We go as far as we can the first day and then stop for the night. We like to get through Atlanta maybe as far as Macon. The second day we check into the Disney hotel even if it is late at night so that we are not unpacking twice. There is a thread here for driving 2000 miles. Lots of good tips. For 2 weeks away even I would gladly hop in the car!

 

[Jasper Dale]

We have made the drive from STL a few times. I much prefer to fly but sometimes the air fare just doesn't come down enough. It takes us about 20 hours. 1 time we drove straight through and I will never do that again. I was so tired the entire trip! If we make it a 2 day drive it is not so bad. We go as far as we can the first day and then stop for the night. We like to get through Atlanta maybe as far as Macon. The second day we check into the Disney hotel even if it is late at night so that we are not unpacking twice. There is a thread here for driving 2000 miles. Lots of good tips. For 2 weeks away even I would gladly hop in the car!

well, you are the perfect person to ask about this, as we would be taking the same route to Orlando as you did. thanks to the previous poster for their imput as well.

we just bought a new car, so not having to worry about the car breaking down is one of the reasons we are thinking about doing the "road trip" thing. i would NEVER drive all the way to Orlando, except that my wife HAS to take these 2 weeks off in July and it won't count towards her vacation days. so if we don't go somewhere, we are just going to be sitting at home.

as far as driving goes, we would not try to drive straight through. but since we will have 14 days off, it would give us 2 days down there, 2 days back, and 10 days at WDW, so i'm hoping if we took it slow, we wouldn't be all strung out during our vacation.

plus, this will be our 4th trip down there in 2 1/2 years and so we are not worried about "missing" out on certain attractions, so wait times won't be a big deal for us, if it is crowded.

the only thing i wonder about is the trip back home. i don't know if i will be able to enjoy myself at WDW knowing i will have a 20 hour drive ahead of me.

 

[jlovesee]

We are from KC also, my husband and I are about the same age as you and we have no children. However we have driven from Kansas City (independence actually) to Disney about five times round trip, its been a few years though. It is a long drive, and I would recommend stopping over somewhere on the trip for the night so you can hit the ground running so to speak.

Our first time was when we got married at Disney in Jan 2002 we left about 10:30AM (late) and didn't get into valdosta until about 2AM! never did that again. We got into Orlando/Disney about 1-2PM the next day, it wasn't THAT bad, and as we stopped overnight and there really was no recovery time needed.

The next couple of times we left friday night about 5-6PM, stopped in Mt, Vernon, IL (about 5-6 hours out from KC), got up the next morning and made it to orlando by 9-10PM or so.

The last time we drove we started about 6AM in the morning saturday, made it to Valdosta about 10PM, spent the night and hit Orlando around Noon, wasn't bad. Probably my favorite was the second option though as I personally like leaving friday night, it gets us there Saturday night (instead of Sunday morning), and gives us a full day on Sunday.

Just be aware to Georgia is a LONG LONG state to drive through, its the worst part of the trip for me, as you feel like you are "almost" there but the state of Georgia keeps going on, and on, and on and on....

Let me know if you have any questions!

Jennifer

 

[Jasper Dale]

we live by Zona Rosa about 5 miles from the airport. i really am not worried about the long trip. we listen to radio dramas and the time seems to fly by. i am more concerned about facing a long trip back after having fun on vacation.

the only reason we are thinking about doing it, is that it would be a cheap trip, and if we don't go, we will probably stay at home during those 2 weeks.

plus, i have never been at WDW during peak season. i want to experience really late EMH's and, yes, the big crowds. it would be the first time we actually had a car and there are other things in Orlando i would like to see for the first time.

thanks so much for your suggestions!

 

[Disneycrazymom]

The trip home is well - long and boring and depressing!

Best if it can be spent either sleeping while someone else drives or planning your next trip!

I try not to even think about it while we are there. We have found it best to just get up and go on the last day. We tried going to a park once and Downtown Disney once but honestly it just made it harder to actually leave.

Don't let the dreading trip home keep you from going.

 

[hollie1974]

We car travel a whole lot. I find that trip to your destination always seems to take ions longer than the trip home. I mean I know that it's not but to me it just seems to take forever to get there.

Personally myself I like to travel by car when possible. I like to stop and check out the sights if we so choose to. We have found quite a few little gems that we would have never known about had we flown.

Hollie

 

[fugarwe]

Distance driving is a state of mind. If you think it will be miserable, it will be. I love driving, and love seeing new areas, even if from the interstate. We leave the frozen tundra in the RV at about 8am on Saturday mornings and I drive till about 4am. That gets us to the Kentucky, TN border. If you think GA is a long state to drive through, try IL top to bottom some time. I sleep for a few hours then the family gets up and we have a sit down breakfast at whatever truck stop we parked at for my sleep. Then it's off to Orlando and we get in there at about 7 or 8 at night.

Get a full nights sleep that night, and hit the ground running the next morning!

 

[rubato]

I guess we have a lot of Disers from KC. We live in Shawnee and have driven twice and now, are flying for the 2nd time. I will NEVER do the drive again. And, we've driven all over the country. It takes 4 days out of my vacation. The drive back is, indeed, the hard part. We have done the numbers for this trip and our last trip, and flying Southwest is cheaper than driving. We have a minivan that gets 25 miles per gallon. With the gas and hotel for 2 nights (1 each way), we are always very close on cost. The 2nd time we drove, we took our camper. Boy, was that a mistake. The 8 miles per gallon completely made up for the cheaper price of staying at Ft. Wilderness.

 

[Toystoryfan32]

We are getting ready for our 12th trip to Disney since 2000. The first few years we always drove. We live near Springfield, MO. We would leave early in the morning and get as far into Georgia as we could and stay the night. Usually south of Atlanta somewhere. Then the next day we would be in Orlando in time for check in at our Disney hotel. My husband and kids prefer flying but air fare is so high for spring break this year. Yikes So we may try to drive again. We got $19.00 airfare on Allegiant to Orlando this past September so needless to say the high airfare for spring break is a budget buster for us. So we are trying to be positive about driving that far. The bonus with driving is I can pack tons of stuff and don't have to pack light to avoid luggage fees!

 

[WizardLarz]

I've driven from St. Louis to WDW twice in the past three years. My advice would be to plan on Chattanooga, TN as your midway point that way you should be able to avoid Atlanta during rush hour!

 

[3KidletsMom]

Another one from Independence

We have only driven down - airfare for 5 is just too much for us, plus, we prefer to drive!

We usually do a Sun - Sun at DW. We leave on Friday and drive to Mt. Vernon, on Sat drive to Tifton, and then drive to DW on Sunday, and usually get there right after lunch. On the way home we just do two days - Sun to Nashville and Mon Nashville to home.

Since we are so used to road tripping (Disney and Outer Banks) it doesn't take much for us to recover. I've never found the trips to be too bad, however, I hate Atlanta and those "mountains" just south of Nashville. Last year on the way home we drove those "mountains" in the dark during a nasty storm! I thought for sure we were going to crash, it was no fun at all!

Whatever you decide hope you have some fantastic trips in 2011!!

 

[wdwfam]

Well, we're from Columbia, MO and have been going to WDW every year at least once a year for 25 years. We're driving down for our third time this year, and honestly, we don't mind the drive. Sure, it's much faster flying, but we do love the convenience of having a car. We've probably flown about half the time and driven the other half of the time in all those years. We do tend to split up the drive - the second day's drive being short. The kids still remember all the rest areas that we used to stop at when they were kids and fondly speak of our road trips to Disney. From Columbia, it's 17 1/2 hours driving.