Question for those driving around 20 hours...

[Minnie824]

I asked recently for opinions on my schedule, in which we planned to stay overnight along the way. That is still at the moment what is planned, but a lot of responses said they preferred to drive straight thru, most overnight. So my question is...if you do drive straight thru, what time of day do you leave? We'll have a 4 and 1.5 yr old, so again, not sure if we'll do this, but we want to get all options. One is leaving after dinner, have them go to sleep...another is leaving after breakfast, have them drive, but then us still drive after they fall asleep at night. Another is leaving after lunch. Anyway, our total drive time not including stops is about 19 hours. What times have you left in the past and which do you prefer? Thanks.

 

[Jimdamedic]

We have twice driven straight through from Orlando back to Iowa. It is right at 19 hours for us. We always leave as early as possible in the morning and drive straight until we get home. We don't have kids though so I don't know how much that helps you. We wouldn't drive straight down, it leaves us way tired when we get there. We always drive one day 12-13 hours, leaving a short day for the second day.

 

[bness]

Leave around 7 p.m. drive about 2 hours, make one stop for bathroom, then drive through the night. We live in WI, usually leave around 7 p.m., make one stop around 9, bathroom breaks, gas up, and hit the road until around 5 a.m. This makes pretty good time and the kids (6 &3) usually sleep through.

 

[CarolA]

Personally I think this is dangerous. (And I know I will get slammed here) There have been studies which show that response times drop DRAMATICALLY in the wee hours of the morning. (And remember it's not just YOUR response time you are worried about here)

If you do not normally work the night shift I would hope you would think long and hard about how alert and awake you will be...

A few years ago I posted some links with info on drowsy sleeping and got some VERY VERY nasty emails back. (Interesting that folks felt the need to curse me out for this...) So I am now putting on my flame proof suit. To me the risk of having a major accident is not worth it!

 

[Minnie824]

Personally I think this is dangerous. (And I know I will get slammed here) There have been studies which show that response times drop DRAMATICALLY in the wee hours of the morning. (And remember it's not just YOUR response time you are worried about here)

If you do not normally work the night shift I would hope you would think long and hard about how alert and awake you will be...

A few years ago I posted some links with info on drowsy sleeping and got some VERY VERY nasty emails back. (Interesting that folks felt the need to curse me out for this...) So I am now putting on my flame proof suit. To me the risk of having a major accident is not worth it!

I agree. As of now, we are planning on staying over. I just wanted to get some other views. One option is, if we do plan on driving straight thru, is to leave around 8am...the kids would be in the car either way for a long period of time...if we're ok, we'll keep driving, they'll sleep at night, wake up and be there. If we're too tired, we'll stop, prior to them falling asleep in the evening. Has anyone left and driven this way?

 

[Kellydelly]

We drive from MI to Orlando and this is how we do it. Usually we leave the house by 10 pm and start driving. We get to Tennesee by 6 am or so and stop for breakfast when the kids wake up (4 aged 5 and under). Then we might do a cavern tour or some other point of interest between Tennessee and Georgia. We stop in Valdosta GA (which is 12 miles north of the FL border) around 7 pm (depending on what we did earlier in the day) and get a hotel. Then when we get up in the morning it's only about 3-4 hours more in the car till we get to the Orlando area. I guess you definately could push it and drive all the way and avoid a hotel stay altogether. It just depends on your budget and schedule! I'm trying to convince my husband to fly next time. I'd like two more days of vacation instead of driving. But my husband doesn't see those four days on the road as wasted time, since we sightsee and stuff along the route!

 

[Karel]

I'm not sure that letting them drive is such a good idea...

We've been driving since the kids were young like yours. We like to leave early in the morning, like 3am. My husband gets up at 4 am for work anyway, so he's used to that. You can get four hours in and then stop for breakfast. Break up the rest of the day with lunch and bathroom stops.

We usually stop around 4 pm. Make sure there's a pool! My husband does all the driving, so when we stop for the night, he usually goes to bed early and I'm responsible for the kids.

I don't like driving through the night because while the kids may be well rested the next day, you won't be.

 

[DizneeCM]

I don't know if you have taken your kids on any relatively long trips before, but when our kids were that young, we tried to stick with their normal waking-up times so that they wouldn't be cranky in the car. So, we would normally leave at maybe 8 a.m. and stop every 2-3 hours (max they could handle). We've never made a ride as long as going to WDW (our max probably about 14 hours). We drive until about dinner-time and then stop for the night. It is kind of tough to keep the kids entertained when they're awake for most of the trip, but we just don't like to drive through the night. The one thing I would recommend is that if you break your trip into two days, try to get the longer drive out of the way on the first day.
My sister has 4 kids and they usually leave about 3 a.m., drive until dinner, and then stop for the night.

Oh, I also meant to say that you can often make a hotel reservation ahead of time and then cancel it on the day you are due to check-in, as long as you cancel it by the hotel's "cancellation policy" time. This way you are covered if you decide you don't want to stop (although if you do get to Disney a day early, I don't know where you would stay).

 

[lovelyk68]

We just came back driving from Michigan to Orlando. Our trip is around 18 hours and on the way down, I left at 5:00 pm and stopped at a hotel around 11:00 pm. We got up had breakfast and left around 9:30 am and got there around 8:30 pm. We tried to minimize stops as much as possible. If we stop for gas we do bathroom and meal or snacks.

On the way back, we got up at 5:00 am and drove until we reached home (12:30 am). It took us longer time wise to get home because we hit some traffic and we made more stops (being in the car longer). All in all I think I prefered driving straight thru. It was good to know that at the end of the driving we would be home. But I also know that we could NOT drive thru the night. We tried that when we were younger and it was always a miserable night and next day.

Our kids are 5, 8, and 17 and we watched plenty of videos. I went to Blockbuster and rented 5 new ones and brought our own. Good luck on your decision.

 

[Minnie824]

We just came back driving from Michigan to Orlando. Our trip is around 18 hours and on the way down, I left at 5:00 pm and stopped at a hotel around 11:00 pm. We got up had breakfast and left around 9:30 am and got there around 8:30 pm. We tried to minimize stops as much as possible. If we stop for gas we do bathroom and meal or snacks.

On the way back, we got up at 5:00 am and drove until we reached home (12:30 am). It took us longer time wise to get home because we hit some traffic and we made more stops (being in the car longer). All in all I think I prefered driving straight thru. It was good to know that at the end of the driving we would be home. But I also know that we could NOT drive thru the night. We tried that when we were younger and it was always a miserable night and next day.

Our kids are 5, 8, and 17 and we watched plenty of videos. I went to Blockbuster and rented 5 new ones and brought our own. Good luck on your decision.

We have been thinking of different times to leave, etc, and we also can not drive thru the night. We need to stop for at least a little sleep. So now, I have a new plan, and its similar to your drive home (and I'm sure my plan will change 10 more times before our trip). Anyway, plan to leave around 3am, stop as you said, bathroom breaks, gas, food, drive all the way there, and stay at Pop for the night. The price is actually less than any of the hotels we looked at along the way, and we'll be there. I figure we'd arrive around 11pm/12am time, and we'd get a few hours of sleep at least, and be there already, just relax in our room, or whatever until we move hotels. I don't know, I'm so confused on this!

 

[ILPHIL]

since we have to go thru or around Chicago. This allows us to miss peak traffic times everywhere along the way. My wife and I alternate driving during the day and evening, then about 11pm once everyone is bedded down in the back of the van, I take over and chew up the miles in peace and quiet. Normally will stop for a couple hour nap in GA and hit the GA-FL border at sunrise. Once everybody is awake we stop for a decent breakfast then my wife drives the rest of the way while I snooze.

To me the idea of leaving late at night is more dangerous. You are just getting started and have probably been awake all day already. Plus the kids will be wide awake in the mornng while you still have a long way to go.

I realize this isn't right for every one, but it's worked for us on over a dozen trips.

 

[inkkognito]

If I had my choice, I would leave very early in the morning. However, the one time we did it, we had to choice but to leave after work (around 6 p.m.) from Chicago. Normally, it is an 18 hour drive...however, there was an ice storm in Atlanta which stretched it out to 24. I happen to be a night owl, so I knew I'd be pretty well awake at night (but it was still rough...driving in that storm and seeing all the accidents around me added lots of stress). If I could do it the way I wanted to, we'd leave around 5 a.m. and my husband would take the early morning stretch and I would take the night stretch.
Barb

 

[isyt]

We just got back from our summer vacation in Disney. We needed to get down in one day from North Jersey, We left at 4:45am and stopped at Dunkin Donuts ( I really needed my tea) and were on the highway by 5am. We stopped every 3 hours whether it be for food or gas and tried to combine those activities as much as possible and we pulled in the hotel parking lot around 12:30am. We hit a little traffic in VA but not bad. My kids are 4,6 and 8 and my DH is the "entertainment Director". I do 99% of the driving but I had been sick the week before and real tired so we switched more often.

I say play it by ear. This is the first time I had planned to drive all the way, We usually stop a few hours away or even 1 time in Days Inn, Lake Buena Vista ( never stay there). If we had not made it, it wouldn't of killed us. Safety first!!! Have a great trip!!

 

[Lewisc]

You don't want to be getting to Disney in the morning and find out you can't get a room until after 3:00p. Particularly if you arrive at 4:00a and you're killing time waiting to get to your resort at 6:00a (not sure of the exact time) so you don't have to pay for the first night.

Make sure you have a room after driving. Either plan to arrive in the afternoon or just stay overnight on the road so you won't be dead when you arrive.