Staying off site - First time. What to know about driving to WDW?

[lcoult]

Hi!
I started reading pages of threads in the pinned post, but can't find anything about this, I'm sorry if it's redundant.

We are trying off site the first week of June for the first time. We will be in a house in Acadia Estates/next to Windsor Hills.

We'd like to get to the parks before rope drop some days.. or for a pre-opening ADR at MK one day. I don't want to mess this up. How bad is the traffic heading IN to the parks? How long do you figure it takes you to actually park and get to the gate,etc.? I've only taken disney busses. For example if google maps says 20 mins should I assume it's a lot longer with traffic or go with that?
Thanks!!!

 

[kj2mom]

We were off site on the other side of the world, close to Disney Springs. When I printed directions (yes, I did just in case) most of my travel times were 10-15 minutes. I found the times to be true to form with no traffic at all when we went for RD. We were there from July 3-10 so it wasn't exactly an off peak time. We always parked close enough to walk without a tram. The first day we left super early, 4th of July, because we were super concerned about traffic. Our worries were for not. Once we got our bearings, we started leaving our condo at 8am to make it for rope drops with 9am openings and we were always there in plenty of time. I would never suggest that this will be your exact experience, I am glad we left early that first morning because it was our only day to see the MK morning show but I am also glad we got smarter and smarter with time each day because it allowed us to get a little more sleep which was helpful since we were opening and closing the parks every day (leaving at 8am meant not having to get up until 7:30 since we all had our own bathroom).

I was extremely nervous about driving, it was just my two kids and I and my first time renting a car. I studied maps of the area online so I had my bearings of how things were laid out. I am super glad I did that but the signage is fabulous and we had no problem at all maneuvering wherever we needed to.

ETA: Don't forget with MK you have to allow enough time after parking to ferry or monorail over the MK.

 

[rwdavis2]

From where you are it's wasn't bad at all, although we stared in Windsor Hills in 2008.

One more thing, try the route on google maps at the same time you would do it and it should take traffic into account.

 

[lcoult]

Thank you guys!! I didn't know if there was like a traffic pile up or what. I live by a Six Flags and to get there it's like 30 mins just to sit on the exit ramp to get in the gate. (ugh!!!) It seems like they have figured out a better system. Phew!

 

[kj2mom]

I was especially prepared for the traffic issue when leaving. I had read on certain nights it can take hours to get out and one of our nights was 4th of July. I was soo pleasantly surprised when we actually left each night there was no traffic what so ever and we were back in our room in about 15 minutes every night the entire week!

We did actually have a bit of traffic when leaving Sea World (which ironically has multiple exits from the parking lot where as I believe Disney mostly has one) but even then it only took us about 5 minutes and since we were actually closer to our time share we still were back within 15 minutes of getting to the car.