Now that gas is cheaper, how much to drive down from Ont?

[dsneygirl]

To add: we left our house at 11:30 p.m on the 23rd. We arrived at our hotel in fayetteville, NC at 6:30 p.m on the 24th. We had two food stops, plus about a two hour detour thanks to GPS malfunctions. We left our hotel at 5:45 a.m and were checking in at CBR by 3 p.m, again making a stop for food.

On the way home we left Disney Springs at 1 p.m ln the 30th and arrived in our hotel in Charlotte at 10:00 p.m, having stopped for dinner. We were on the road by noon and arrived home at 1:30 a.m (would have been 2 a.m id nor for the time change) and we stopped for dinner and had another brief GPS malfunction.

You could have shave tonnes of time by leaving Charlotte at 7am. Just curious though what you did until noon? Shop?

This last trip we knew we were pressed for time so we only stopped at rest stops and for gas. ate out of the cooler the entire first day. If we had tonnes of time we could have done some more sightseeing. There are some really neat stops along the way.

 

[Misha72683]

You could have shave tonnes of time by leaving Charlotte at 7am. Just curious though what you did until noon? Shop?

This last trip we knew we were pressed for time so we only stopped at rest stops and for gas. ate out of the cooler the entire first day. If we had tonnes of time we could have done some more sightseeing. There are some really neat stops along the way.

Slept. We weren't out of our hotel room until almost 10. A week of early mornings had caught up with us and we weren't in any rush to get home, so we took our time. We also grabbed breakfast and went to Walmart and got some treats we can't get here. Oh and I got my foot run over by the car which ate up some time.

 

[mort1331]

We drove for the first time last March(2014) since previous year we lost 5 days due to snow storm I could have driven through. Wife finally agreed to drive and we drove straight from just north of Toronto. 25 hours each way, only stopping for gas and meals. We did pack some food, but liked (not the restaurants themselves) stopping to stretch the kids out and let them play at the playgrounds. So the stopping was about an hour each time. Total cost was $US435 return.
Will always do this now, and the wife now tells others it is the way to go. The only thing she didn't like was driving at night in the hills of Virginia.
Then you have the car down there too, we did use Disney transport for MK, but drove to AK.
This trip was with our Honda minivan and had the back seats down so tons of room and let the wife overpack as much as she wanted, less stress for me.

 

[bankr63]

If you haven't done this before, just to see if you have the stamina for this kind of drive, check out my time lapse video of the drive from Orlando to Ottawa. It compresses 23 hours of driving into about 23 minutes. If you can watch this without nodding off, you too might have the stamina to survive 23 hours on the road... (twice in a week...)

 

[alohamom]

let the wife overpack as much as she wanted, less stress for me.

LOL-the perfect husband does exist!

 

[alohamom]

Yesterday we headed over the border to Buffalo area as I had to pick up a couple of items from CBI mailboxes. We let the car go to (very) empty and filled it. The car has an estimator for how far you can travel on what gas you have so we filled it to 700kms to empty. That cost us 50 USD or 63 CND. Based on this info and the distance from our house to Orlando being approx 2025 KMS, my math shows me that we need just under 6 fill ups to do a round trip and that would be approx 400 CND. Probably less because I rounded the price up a bit but it allows for some driving at the destination as well.

 

[Cdn Gal]

It cost us $350 round trip a few years ago when gas was high. We had a Nissan versa at the time. This year we are driving with a prius and hoping to pay around the same!

 

[Skjhjb]

I'm loving reading everybody's experiences....

Long story that I can't get into - I may be going in a couple weeks with a family member and I'll be doing the driving. We'll stop once on the way down, once on the way home. We (meaning I) plan to make a pit stop at MK on the way home - after all the not great stuff we will be doing, the happy happy on the way home will SO be needed.

I cannot, in good conscience, drive right on by Orlando and not go to MK!!

 

[starvenger]

If you haven't done this before, just to see if you have the stamina for this kind of drive, check out my time lapse video of the drive from Orlando to Ottawa. It compresses 23 hours of driving into about 23 minutes. If you can watch this without nodding off, you too might have the stamina to survive 23 hours on the road... (twice in a week...)

Nice!

I actually did an "empirical" test run a few years ago with the kids by going to Montreal/Ottawa/Kingston. 4-5 hour trip max for the first leg and they were ok with it.

Then we went a bit longer and did Toronto - Montreal - Portland, ME-Boston - Syracuse (stopover) - Toronto two years ago. They hung in there quite well, so I figure that now they can do a one or two day drive to Florida or South Carolina.

 

[alohamom]

I cannot, in good conscience, drive right on by Orlando and not go to MK!!

Sounds like it is well deserved too!

 

[alohamom]

Nice!

I actually did an "empirical" test run a few years ago with the kids by going to Montreal/Ottawa/Kingston. 4-5 hour trip max for the first leg and they were ok with it.

Then we went a bit longer and did Toronto - Montreal - Portland, ME-Boston - Syracuse (stopover) - Toronto two years ago. They hung in there quite well, so I figure that now they can do a one or two day drive to Florida or South Carolina.

Funny you say this-A couple of years back, I drove myself and my daughter round trip to Ottawa from just west of Toronto in one day for a swim meet. It was a total of about 9-10 hours of driving and it wasnt too bad. I was getting punchy in the last hour but I think it was because I knew I was almost home. She was fine, we listened to a book on cd and actually really enjoyed each others company. I think I could do at least half of the driving based on this "test trip" to Ottawa. We have not done a long road trip with the kids together tho and that is kind of sitting on my mind but only one way to find out, riiiiight???