Thinking of driving from NJ... need advice

[plasfam04]

Good morning So we are thinking of driving this trip instead of flying. Since this will be our first time driving I'm wondering if anyone can recommend some good places at the midpoint (or a little more) from NJ where we could spend the night to break up the driving a little. I was thinking maybe South Carolina would be a good point but needed some advice. Thanks

 

[sanboogie]

We drive all the time (from Philly). We have gone 7 times in the last 8 years and have only flown once (pre-kids). I don't know if you have kids, but we have found it best to drive through the night with our kids (ages 4 and 2.5). If we can't drive through the night then we leave around 3 am and we get pretty far.

I'm pretty new so I'm not sure if I can link sites. Sorry if I can't! These are from our reverse trip so you might want to reverse them - I just copied and pasted.


Florence, SC (FAIRFIELD INN)- 7 1/2 hrs from Disney World; 9 hours Philly
Fairfield Inn - AAA rate 67.15 per room; Military Rate 70.15



Fayetteville, NC (FAIRFIELD INN) - 8 1/2 hours from Disney World; 8 hours Philly
Fairfield Inn - AA Rate 94.00; Military Rate 85



Hope this helps.

ETA - couldn't link so if you go to Marriott website, you can find those hotels. They are very nice and very clean and you can book them free. You can cancel up until 6pm on the day of your stay. That way if you want to, book both and if you think you can make it to the further one, cancel the first one.

 

[bratmomma]

We also live in NJ and have driven once. We drove through.

I wanted to say Florence, SC is nice. My Dad lives in the outskirts of the city. Depending on where you are in NJ (we are in northern central, Perth Amboy area) it will probably take about 10-12 hours to get to Florence, making a few quick stops along the way for potty breaks. We just did the driving trip to Florence in April to visit my parents. It wasn't too bad, just really dark at night.

There are 5 in my family and the money that was spent on airline tickets this time to fly was WAY more than we would've spent to all load into my van and drive.

Good luck with whichever you decide.

 

[Uno Mas]

We live in Charleston, SC and it takes 6 hours from there to get to Disney - sometimes a little less if we don't run into traffic in Orlando or on Rte 4. Hope that helps!

 

[solar]

I've driven with my husband before too, NJ here...waving

I think we stopped around Florence also...

I wanted to also mention the Amtrak AutoTrain if you hadn't thought of that...as something worth researching. My son and I have taken that a few times....we drive to Lorton, VA - then take the train to Sanford, FL. (about 30 mins from WDW)

 

[vorpalswrd]

We drove from PA (hour N of Philly) and we stopped to sleep in Savannah GA. Just a random Comfort Inn or somethng. It worked out pretty well. Got to Disney the next day in time for lunch

 

[tp1830]

We usually start the drive at 3-4 in the morning and stops only include gas....my brothers and i tend to drive a bit fast, but we usually make it to the orlando area by like 12-1. If you can't handle that much...last time we stopped in Jacksonville, FL...yea i know its far, but we had a 2 year old in a 15 passenger van...and we did good...made it there by like 9 pm. We left at 7 am and made it to the world by 10.

Whatever you do...start early...get passed the DC traffic...then you're coasting the entire way down.

 

[Dervis]

We also make the drive from PA.
We leave at midnight in order to miss DC rush hour. We stop for breakfast at a place called "South of The Boarder"...this corny little tourist trap on the boarder of North and SOuth Carolina. Its super lame, but its good to get out and stretch for a bit, get some food, buy some snacks, etc.
Then we continue to drive to St. Augustine in N Florida. We stay the night there, and spend the morning and afternoon in St. Augustine. Its a tourist trap...but much, much, MUCH nicer! After lunch, we leave and head for Disney, check in, unpack, and eat dinner at the hotel. Then the excitement builds for tommorow!

 

[Mickey'sApprentice]

Check out the Disney Hilton Head Island Resort in South Carolina!

 

[Dawnand4kids]

Well...no one said South of the Border?????????/

Hello...that was my favorite place to stop as a kid, when we drove down from NJ, me and my sis would scream as soon as we started seeing the signs!!
UNfortunately the place is pretty nasty, its gotten run down over the years!!
So sad, its a great place to stretch your legs though, go to the arcade, and see the big fake gator!! And take some goofy pics with the neon colored animals like the hippo, ape, and of course Pedro!!!

 

[EyeMan]

We are also from NJ and drive all the time. We are in North Jersey, not far from NYC. We leave around 6 am and make our first gas and restroom stop in Maryland...usually Maryland House off 95 South. We make it to Fayetteville SC or Florence SC as our overnight stop. We always stay at a Hampton Inn. They are all over and are comfortable and clean and give you a breakfast.
Also, you have to stop at South of the Border...just to see it!!! So tacky!
A great place for lunch or dinner and to just stop and stretch your legs is the Cracker Barrel. Lots of those around also.
Some of the bigger "truck stops" are nice and clean also for a quick stop.
Have a great trip!

 

[bmurr33]

My wife and I (we don't have little ones yet) are driving down from Mt Laurel NJ (near Philly) on October 9th. We have driven before, and it was no sweat. We are leaving friday night at about 9pm and driving through the night with no stop overs. On the way back, we are stopping over in Florence SC. We decided to stop in Florence because it is just south of South of the Border, and we wanted to stop there for nostalgic purposes in the morning on our way back north. Well, I want some things that go BOOM too, but don't tell anyone!! Even though flights were around $200 each, we decided to drive because we are staying off site, and the price of flights with all those added fees such as bags (my wife packs like she is going away for a year) plus a 2 week car rental would cost us over $1,000 extra, even for the cheapest econo box car out there. I would rather give that to the mouse!! I went to the AAA site and put in my address and car model, and they did an estimate of what it would cost us to drive based on current gas prices. Needless to say, the roundtrip price of gas was less than 1 round trip ticket after all the fees are applied. That made the decision very easy for us! We are bringing our own snacks and drinks, so the travel costs will be minimal for us as far as that goes. Even after all that, driving there is kind of an adventure of it's own!! GOOD LUCK and HAVE FUN!!!

 

[GrumpyMom25]

I'm from Jersey too and we always drive. When I was younger and traveling with my parents we always stopped and spent the night near South of the Border ... there was a Days Inn near by. As others have said SOTB is pretty run down these days but every time we go down south we still have to stop ... now my kids love the gorilla. I have 5 kids so we no longer stop for the night. We drive straight through. Just the thought of unloading the van for one night makes the long drive well worth it.

 

[dismom2-3]

Go to the transportation board, and find the thread for 2000+ mi drives. There is a ton of info for anyone considering driving and for seasoned Disney road trippers. It was a great help to me! Plenty of PA/NJ drivers too! Enjoy the ride!

 

[mjbradeis]

Some one beat me to it and said Charleston, SC. From South Jersey it is about 12 hours. We just drove in Sept and drove to Daytona Beach 15hrs, and spent the night and only had to tackle I-4 in the AM.

One suggestion I would recommend is Drive I95 Book, we love it.
http://www.drivei95.com/

 

[ennisb]

We have driven down many times from the Jersey shore. The first trip our son was 5 months old, this was back in the days you booked a trip at least 1 year in advance so you could get a room on site. Anyway on most trips we drove down near the end of South Carolina or as close as we could based on the mood of the children.

Best bet still for us is AAA guidebooks which are free if you are a member. We could just drive down starting looking for a place the books had ratings and rates. A fast phone call to check on an open room and we were good to go. We preferred this as then we had no target it's going well we drove a bit more, not a good day and the troops had enough we stopped sooner. Oh yea.. we tried for close to Georgia as the next day we started 9am after a nice breakfast and the second day was not a bad drive at all.

 

[Peanut&Piglet'sMom]

Some one beat me to it and said Charleston, SC. From South Jersey it is about 12 hours. We just drove in Sept and drove to Daytona Beach 15hrs, and spent the night and only had to tackle I-4 in the AM.

One suggestion I would recommend is Drive I95 Book, we love it.
http://www.drivei95.com/

We did this in August. Left North Jersey (Sussex County Area) at 7:30pm and we drove right through the night. The kids slept, I slept on and off, while DH did the driving.

We stopped for Gas and "potty breaks" every 3 -4 hours and then around 7am I took over driving after a quick breakfast at Denny's.

We checked into the Day's in right off 1-95 in Daytona by 12 noon!!! DH took a nap while I took the kids to the pool. We had a great dinner at The Olive Garden, drove over to see the beach - which the kids LOVED!!! since we drove right onto the beach!!!! And the we went to bed.

Left the hotel at 9am...got to ASMovies before noon and were able to have our room right away!!!!

It was a great trip!

 

[mrsg00fy]

We make the trip from NJ 3x a year and have rarely flown down. We much prefer to drive.

The most important consideration is really when you plan to leave. In all of the trips we have taken down there, the only thing that just does not work out well is driving straight through the night. Even if the adults split the driving, at some point someone will be too tired to drive and at least one person will be "out of sorts" for a couple of days. We have been there and done that and will never drive straight through again.

What we found works best for us is to either leave @ 6pm, and drive into North Carolina and stay over (pull over at @2am and leave by 8am) and finish up the drive the next day or to go to bed at 9pm (have car packed) and get up at 3am and then drive straight through. With these two plans, sleeping schedules don't get so out of whack.

We have never made a reservation in advance for an overnight stay on the road because we never know exactly where we are going to stop for the night.

Good luck on whatever you decide. It is a very doable drive and can range from @ 16 hours of total driving time (optimum driving conditions with no traffic), to 24 hours....(Easter week.....).

 

[Brook1099]

We are leaving in a week for our 6th drive to WDW. We have stopped in South Carolina(Santee) a couple of times, driven straight thru(yuck, had surgery a week before last vacation with no sleep on Xmas nite)never again. This time we are staying overnight in Savannah Ga. We also have 2 kiddies anged 8 and 9.

 

[tami82]

We left at 3:00 and this is a great time to leave from NJ. You beat some traffic and can either stop a bit earlier or drive a bit longer. We had chose to drive about 2 hours past the town we were originally going to stop at and stayed in Savannah off I-95. We arrived there around 4:30/5:00 in the afternoon. It was a great stopover and lots of places to eat. We stayed at Springhill Suites and loved it. We have 3 kids ages 5, 7, and 17. Im glad we decided to drive a bit further (we werent tired at all and just decided to keep going so we would have a shorter drive the next day which was about 4 1/2 hours to Orlando.