SW Ontario who have driven (question)

[snickerboo]

Did you drive straight through or did you stop? If you stopped for overnight stays, where did you stop?

I think I'd rather stop (have two younger kids) for overnight to rest and let kids have a break. My kids are great car travellers but this will be quite a bit further than usual. I'm also nervous about driving overnight. I'm thinking 5am-5 or 6pm would work out well.

I should add that we will have our stops planned in advance and be staying at Holiday Inn Express locations as dh has Priority Club Platinum so we can stay free.

Care to share how you did it? Much appreciated

 

[Disney_Mama]

We have done both....Driving straight through is tough but in the end it's nice to get there. We lived near London Ont. If you need to book hotel in advance I would map out about half the drive and look there for the hotel you want. Good luck and safe driving.

 

[F4disneyfan]

Did you drive straight through or did you stop? If you stopped for overnight stays, where did you stop?

I think I'd rather stop (have two younger kids) for overnight to rest and let kids have a break. My kids are great car travellers but this will be quite a bit further than usual. I'm also nervous about driving overnight. I'm thinking 5am-5 or 6pm would work out well.

I should add that we will have our stops planned in advance and be staying at Holiday Inn Express locations as dh has Priority Club Platinum so we can stay free.

Care to share how you did it? Much appreciated

We have done it both ways we like the straight through drive as you get there and that is it. Now when we stop we usually stop at teh bottom of Georgia in Valdosta so the drive the next day is only a few hours and then you are there. It really depends on the drivers and how they feel if they can pull a straight through then go for it if not then stop for the evening. We do the trip with 3 kids ages 10-4 for this Dec trip they love the drive and don't care if it straight through or with a stop. We always leave after dinner so the kids sleep for the largest part of the trip and we wake them up the next morning at the GA welcome centre. We let them run around for an hour or 2 and wake up and stretch then my wife takes over and drives to Macon GA where we stop for lunch and let the kids again run around and play for awhile. If we stop in Valdosta the drive is only a short one and we arrive there around 3-4 in the afternoon and stop for the night let the kids sleep in a bed and rest up if not then we arrive at Disney around 7-8 PM and check in.

 

[digskat]

We have done both, and while driving overnight reduces traffic, I found it too exhausting, and it killed my first day there.
Last year, we left at 4am, and drove until supper. We stopped for the night in Dalton, Georgia, just north of Atlanta, and left after breakfast, arriving at WDW mid-afternoon. We found it quicker to hit the border that early, and avoided most traffic in Detroit. I did all of the driving, and found I wasn't near as tired.
This year, we are picking the kids up from school at noon, and leaving shortly after. We have made reservations in Dry Ridge, Kentucky, and will have a nice supper and a swim, before relaxing for the night. We will drive as far as Valdosta, Georgia, and have another relaxing night, before hitting WDW Sunday am. The return trip, we drive as far as Corbin, Kentucky, and stay at the Holiday Inn Express. We found this close enough to half way, and the kids love the kids' suite

 

[snickerboo]

digskat-I'll have to look into that HI Express. Thanks, everyone, for the differing opinions. We're thinking leave at 4 or 5 am and driving til suppertime. So, I guess I need to figure out what's about 11 hours away. I have lots of time. We're looking at first week in April for ds's birthday. It's helpful to have so many people here from SW Ontario!!!

 

[digskat]

Dalton is about 12 hours from London as per Mapquest, so closer to 11 hours. We cross at Sarnia, and with meal breaks, and a detour in Detroit, we were there in a little over 11 hours. There is a Holiday Inn express in Ringold, about 30 minutes before Dalton, right on I75, and a Holiday Inn just off the I75 in Dalton.

The HIX in Corbin is nice, it is just off the I75, and there are a couple fast food joints real close. McD's is just off the parking lot. Here is a quick rundown

http://www.trails.com/all-hotels/hotel-info.asp?hotelid=13774



have fun.

 

[F4disneyfan]

Dalton is about 12 hours from London as per Mapquest, so closer to 11 hours. We cross at Sarnia, and with meal breaks, and a detour in Detroit, we were there in a little over 11 hours. There is a Holiday Inn express in Ringold, about 30 minutes before Dalton, right on I75, and a Holiday Inn just off the I75 in Dalton.

The HIX in Corbin is nice, it is just off the I75, and there are a couple fast food joints real close. McD's is just off the parking lot. Here is a quick rundown

http://www.trails.com/all-hotels/hotel-info.asp?hotelid=13774



have fun.

That is a great driving outline we may have to try that one some time the problem is the kids love leaving after dinner they get in their PJ's and get a stuffed animal and a blanket and pretty much fall asleep by the time we hit the border in Windsor. We usually hit the GA welcome centre by 7 AM so that is our 12 hour point. This Dec we are heading out at 4 in the afternoon to switch things up a bit which will put us into GA around 3-4 AM so I can grab a fer hours shut eye before the kids get up at 7 for breakfast.

 

[briarberry]

I live just outside of London and we drove last August. We left at 4:00 a.m. and stopped just north of Atlanta near Dalton for the night. We had time for a nice meal and a swim in the pool then turned in early. We left by 6:30 the next morning which was a Sunday so the drive through Atlanta was great - no traffic at that hour on a Sunday. It was kind of weird. We were at our Disney hotel by 2:00 p.m. I was the only driver so I made sure we stopped often enough for me to stay alert. My DD was 8 at the time and she is a great traveller. I found Along I-75 to be a great help with stops, it tells what facilities are off every single exit.
I found the drive home awfully long though. I just wanted to get there. We are going again in a few days but flying out of Detroit.
I hope you have a great time!

 

[digskat]

That is a great driving outline we may have to try that one some time the problem is the kids love leaving after dinner they get in their PJ's and get a stuffed animal and a blanket and pretty much fall asleep by the time we hit the border in Windsor. We usually hit the GA welcome centre by 7 AM so that is our 12 hour point. This Dec we are heading out at 4 in the afternoon to switch things up a bit which will put us into GA around 3-4 AM so I can grab a fer hours shut eye before the kids get up at 7 for breakfast.

I do all of the driving, so the overnight thing won't happen again. I thought since I work shift work, the all-nighter wouldn't bother me, but I couldn't get any sleep during the day, so by the time we hit Central Tennessee, I had been awake for 25 hours, and was finished. We had an unexpected break (alternator failure) in Loudon, that kept us off the road until around noon, and I was able to drive to Macon before calling it a day.
I found it alot easier to leave at 4am, after getting 6 hours sleep, and driving until tired. We had a quick supper, a swim, and relaxed in our room for the evening. We had 7 hours to go the next day, but I was relaxed and refreshed.
I have 4 weeks off this year, so we decided to take an extra day and leisurely drive down.

 

[Disneyof3]

We have done it both ways. The first time we drove I75 and drove the whole way and did it in 23 hrs and then we spend the night in Kissimee and then head to WDW the next day. Last year we drove I77/79 and we spent one night over in Charlotte and then got up the next morning and drove to Clearwater and the drive was longer. The traffic through Daytona was a nightmare and we said we'd never stop that way again. If we go this Feb. we will go I75 and it will be straight through. If it's March then it is I77/79 and it will be all the way and somehow we will by pass Daytona.

 

[F4disneyfan]

I do all of the driving, so the overnight thing won't happen again. I thought since I work shift work, the all-nighter wouldn't bother me, but I couldn't get any sleep during the day, so by the time we hit Central Tennessee, I had been awake for 25 hours, and was finished. We had an unexpected break (alternator failure) in Loudon, that kept us off the road until around noon, and I was able to drive to Macon before calling it a day.
I found it alot easier to leave at 4am, after getting 6 hours sleep, and driving until tired. We had a quick supper, a swim, and relaxed in our room for the evening. We had 7 hours to go the next day, but I was relaxed and refreshed.
I have 4 weeks off this year, so we decided to take an extra day and leisurely drive down.

Ya I work straight 3-11 and always take the day off that we are leaving so I stay up till 6 AM then my wife takes the kids to Adventures on Wonderland and swimming then home for dinner so I can sleep in the day I only usually sleep about 4 hours and that is it. I love driving at any time and my wife hates driving at night so I do all the nightime driving. I think this is why leaving at night works so well for us plus our kids are great in the car mind you they have been making the drive every year from the time they were about 6 months old.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

I've done this trip several different ways. When my kids were younger, I was the only driver (I'm a single parent) so I usually had two overnight stops - I just didn't want to risk being too tired to drive safely. Usually the first night we'd stop in Kentucky (around Lexington) and the second night in Macon or Valdosta (Georgia). Then we'd hit WDW by noon or early afternoon.

When my kids got old enough to help with the driving, we started to do it in two days. We'd try to get to just north of Atlanta the first day, and then try to do the drive through Atlanta very early in the morning.

Our last trip, with my oldest son and his wife and their two young children, we did it overnight. Left at supper time and drove straight through to southern Georgia (can't actually remember where we stopped). Then we stayed overnight there, got a good night's sleep, and drove the rest of the way in the morning. That worked out well as the kids slept through so much of the trip.

Teresa

 

[snickerboo]

Thanks for all the info, everyone!!! There are some great alternatives here. I think we'll do the 4 am thing but it's still a long ways off. I'll show dh this post. I want to book our stops in advance since we'll be using our priority club points for the stays.

 

[Debbie]

See if you can get a copy of Dave Hunter's Along I-75. It is a wealth of information, and there are some cheap/free side trips if the kids are getting restless. We always did them on the way down to Disney, but maybe we should have done them on the way home....to make that drive not so

 

[CindyAnn]

My personal nightmare would be arriving in Orlando with two exhausted parents and two kids who are just raring to go, so we don't drive overnight.

Twice in the past (and again this coming December) we've headed down I75, leaving from Toronto around 7:00 a.m. We only made a few quick stops along the way for bathrooms/food/gas, and the kids changed into pyjamas at our dinner stop. We drove until about 11:00 p.m. (with the kids sleeping the last couple of hours) and got a hotel once in southern Tennessee and the second time in Dalton, Georgia. While the first day was long, the second day was much shorter, and we arrived in Orlando somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m., which works well with check-in times at hotels. After a normal night's sleep, everyone was rested and ready to head to the parks early the next morning.

We encountered some construction/volume delays on both trips, of maybe 45 minutes on the first day, and at least double that on the second day. This time we're going to look for a different route once we hit the Florida border.

Like Briarberry, we used the "Along the I-75" book to help us decide which exits to use for restaurants, gas and hotel.

Cheers,