Questions for NJ Drivers

[Amirah95]

What time do you leave your home for the World? Do you have a strategy as to beat traffic and get there faster? What time do you hope to arrive by?

 

[jec13]

We drove down once before and left at around 2:30 AM. Just got through DC before morning rush. We stopped in South Carolina at around 1:00 PM. Left the next morning at around 7:00 AM and arrived at around 3:00 PM just in time for check-in. We are going to be doing it again in September and plan to leave around 2:00 AM and drive to around the South Carolina/Georgia border area. We should make this at around 3:00 to 4:00 PM. We will leave around 7:00 AM the next morning and hope to be in WDW by 12:30 - 1:00 PM. Hope this helps and happy motoring!

 

[RoseNJ]

WE drove last year, just DH and I. We took a leisurely two nights going down, making lots of stops along the way and getting off I-95 to see places in NC and SC we never have seen before. The only horrible part of the drive IMO, is from Baltimore to the southern side of DC. If you time it so that you do not hit morning rush (6-10 am ) or evening rush (3-7 pm), the rest of the trip I think is not very stressful. We are flying this year because we got $49 ding fare from Southwest for our trip, but enjoy driving (especially with a GPS, great when you don't want to eat at the greasy exit off I-95).

 

[byoung]

I'll fly myself.

 

[HugsForEeyore]

I drive solo from Northern New Jersey. I usually leave at 7:30ish, and drive to northern Georgia the first day. I usually stay overnight in Richmond Hill, GA (near Savannah). I arrive there usually around 10:00 at night. I admit I am not a fast driver, and I go the speed limit! Then the next day, I leave the hotel usually around 10:00 am and arrive at Disney a little before 3:00!

Often I take the AutoTrain home, so I only do the drive one way.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I'll fly myself.

I'm with you! Even if gas were free.. JMHO

 

[Ariel8676]

Whenever we drove down, we would leave around 11 pm and try to get as far as we possibly could. Sometimes we would stop and sometimes we would drive straight through....

 

[2infinityandbeyond]

What time do you leave your home for the World?

Timing for everyone would depend on where in NJ you're leaving from.

 

[jobie61]

I've only driven as far as Hilton Head, right near the Georgia border. But we leave from South Jersey around 8:30 - 9:00 AM.

This way we are past the Baltimore/DC nightmare by 1:00 pm. As others have posted, you don't want to hit this area around rush hour. Avoid rush hour at all cost.

We usually get to Florence SC by 8:00 PM after stopping at South of the Border for an hour or so. I think Disney is only about 7-8 hours from this point.

 

[Amirah95]

Staying over night in either SC or GA can work for us. We don't want to get to Orlando too early like we did before.

Flying is not an option for us this trip.

We live 10 mins from Manhattan so you can say we leave from NYC.

Thanks everyone! This helps.

 

[ducklite]

The way DH makes the best time from Somerset County is to leave at 4:00 am on a Saturday. It usually puts him here between 8:00 and 9:00 pm with minimal traffic.

Anne

 

[dfr1966]

We leave from Central NJ (South Brunswick) around 5:00 am and after stops for gas and food (not necessarily in that order) we stop in either Florence SC or Santee SC around 4-5:00pm. Then, we try to leave the hotel the next morning by 7-7:30 and get to Disney in time for checkin.

 

[GMULL]

We drove down from Central NJ in November 2005. Me, wife, and three kids. We choose to leave at 6PM on a Friday night and drive straight thru. My wife and I switched off every 4 hours or so. We were in Orlando eating lunch on Saturday at noon. After lunch we picked up some groceries and then headed over to check in. As crazy as it may sound this worked out pretty well. We went to bed early Saturday night (8:30 or so) and when we woke up on Sunday we were ready to go.

 

[Amirah95]

Do any of you use Owner's Locker? Ship your items down before you go? Or do you carry it all in your vehicles?

 

[j0esmoe13]

Cool thread. I live in Middlesex County and was always curious about the strategies of the folks who drive.

 

[Amirah95]

I cannot believe this thread went dead!!! Anybody going down for Jersey week this year or next year? We're going down next year.

 

[stephie1012]

we drove from middlesex country straight thru, left home around 9pm. we slept in the car for about an hour. we made a few smoke stops for DH and was down in disney i think by 4pm

 

[LisaRN97]

Have a great drive down!!We are flying and found a cheaper fare out of Allentown (live in Warren Cty). I remember driving down as a child with my family and I thought it was torture...perhaps because my mother made sure all our homework was completed prior to our arrival I'm sure you can find many things to keep your 2yo occupied during the drive.

 

[Donnainnj]

We are in Monmouth county and we found leaving at about 5:30am worked best for us. We usually drove about 13-14 hours to Darien, Georgia (2 drivers) and then had a nice easy under 4 hour drive the second day.
Donna

 

[patclairesmom]

We're driving down in May, from Monmouth County. Our current plan of attack is to leave @12noon. (Kids better be finished with the NJASK test) and drive to Florence, SC. We should get there @10pm, only taking gas and bathroom breaks. Then we'll leave the next morning @6am and get to WL by 1 or 2pm.