Nov09 Roadtrip to Disney

[boettj]

The reservations:
Nov 6-14.
Port Orleans Riverside - Alligator Bayou
Disney Dinning Plan
2 adults 3 kids (10 year old on adult dining plan)
Drove from RI to Disney World
DW's Honda Odyssey

 

[boettj]

Our journey did not start off on the right foot. We left RI at 5pm Thursday night, Nov 5th. Let me first tell you about the plan for the drive down. It looked good on paper. My DW would drive from home until we go onto the Merritt Parkway. From their, I would drive around NY, and she would take over again once on the NJ Turnpike. From their, I would drive through the night. All while she and the kids slept. Late in the night I'd wake her up, and then she would drive for 3 hours, and we would switch on and off the rest of the way. Hahaha I am laughing thinking of how stupid this plan is.

What really happened:

40 minutes into our drive, we hit a major backup on rte 95 in Ct. I ended up taking over the driving, and attempted to get us around the backup. No luck there. Other than frustrating myself. Shortly after that, my DS10 threw-up in the car. Fortunately for me, he did so in a bag. Our next hour went ok. Then we got onto the Merritt Parkway in Ct. Has anyone ever gotten a trip-tik from AAA? They are suppose to warn you of construction. Well the trip-tik I put together online at AAA made no mention of this. We sat in traffic on the Merritt Parkway while the construction crew put out cones. No cars were allowed to go by during this event. We are now 4 hours into a ride that should only have been 2 hours.

When we get to the Tappan Zee bridge we hit the same thing. Traffic ground to a halt while construction crews put out cones blocking several lanes on the bridge. Add another hour for this event. As you can imagine, my blood was boiling at this point.

Well you don't think it ended there do you? Hahaha, nope. From 87, I took the Garden State Parkway. It appear that I left this craziness behind me. Just as I am feeling better, we ground to a complete stop. This stop was so bad, that I turned off the car. Periodically I would start the car up to move 20 feet to keep other cars from pulling into our lane. Add yet another hour.

What should have taken us 4 hours resulted in 8 hours of travel. Not a good start.

From the NJ Turnpike on, things went much better. One small glitch happened at 3am in the morning. I decided to take the 5-Hour Energy. My body did not take well to this. The niacin set my skin to tingling, and the whole experience was just unsettling. At 6am, I pulled over and took a nap.

30 minutes away from Disney we hit a small backup. My DS7 lost it. Our kids did a great job on the drive down. She simply melted down, and we both felt she had earned the right after 28 hours.

We all slept well that night.