Tips for LONG Car Rides

[merfsko]

Need tips for long car rides-

A Four hour drive. Two parents, 13year old daughter, 11 year old daughter.

How to survive?! (The Dad needs almost complete silence excpet for his music)

Love,
merfsko

 

[tink&cinderella]

I gather you meant to say a 24 hour drive, rather then a 4 hour drive.

We are also driving to FLA WDW and are leaving March 31, 2005 from the Toronto area.

I would suggest TV's for the kids with individual head sets. My older daughter has a game boy, TV with all her DVD's on a copied discs, books, colouring activities, a journal, homework etc, sticker activities, and a leap pad. We are leaving early in the a.m. 3:00 and some of the driving will therefore be done while they are sleeping.

we also take kids music on cd's and have the XM radio system for uninterupted music. The kids love to sing along to their music and my DH does not mind this. He also got me my own TV so I can catch up on my soaps that he had taped on a DVD for me - I am behind something like 30 episodes on Days of our Lives LOL and hope to catch up on this as well.

There are some trip activity pages on the Transportation site and we have a book of car games to play on the road.

This will hopefully keep them occupied. If not there's always Gravol which will help them sleep - just kidding I wouldn't use it for that purpose but my older one has on occasion had motion sickness so I will be giving it to her, the fact that it makes her drowsy is a beneficial side effect when driving long distances.

Have fun

Tink&Cinderella

 

[Got Quattro?]

Do not stop at a hotel...drive through the night.

we drive often from st. louis (16 hours or 1,000 miles)

we leave home at 7:00pm after a nice dinner at home. We play a movie for our kid on the laptop. Then stop for gas after that at around 9:30pm. She goes to the bathroom, then we don talk and play some soft music untill she falls asleep.

Then drive all night, not worrying about her untill she wakes up at around 7:00am or so.

Since we then stop for gas and a nice sit down breakfast at 8:00am or so in ocala fl. Back in the car by 9:00 for the 3 hours to disney.

key is for the children to sleep 10 hours of the trip.

 

[kandeebunny]

We are driving the 24 hour trip in about a week, so here's what I do:

game boy with headphones!
deck of cards and lapdesk for solotaire
we bring along catchphrase and play in the car
I <3 scrabble so I have a small handheld scrabble
Pass the Pigs (check toys r us its fun I swear!)
personal dvd players with headphones
homework
coloring books
planning guide/book for Disney let them make a list of rides/shows they want to see while there

 

[merfsko]

I gather you meant to say a 24 hour drive, rather then a 4 hour drive.

Sorry- typo- My bad! Thanks for correcting me

 

[Jon99]

We also have about a 16-17 hour drive, but we always leave around 3:00, this way our daughter is awake for the first part of the trip, but then sleeps until we get into Florida.. We find it easier for her to be awake at the start of the trip, rather than the last part..

 

[mickeymousefan]

We have done the trip 2 times from NJ to WDW with two little kids. I suggest a DVD or TV/VCR player and lots of snacks. We make lots of stops too. It adds a lot of time to the trip, but it keeps our kids happy. Plan your trip to avoid the major cities at rush hour, ESPECIALLY Washington DC!!! Watch your speed.... and DO NOT use a radar detector in Virgina (the know if you have it!! we got a $110.00 ticket!!! ) Also, be careful where you stop..... you may run into some "questionable" areas....... Have fun!!!

 

[Mark P.]

Along with the must have DVD player, our 10 yr. old son enjoyed checking off the different license plates of the states he saw.
We drove from NJ, and all over Disney property, and found all but around 12 out of the 50! Kind of a scavenger hunt in a way.
BTW, we also added a column for Canada cars, too

Here's a link in which you can print out the 50 states, as well as other things to do:
http://momsminivan.com/states.html

-Mark

 

[weluvpluto]

We have a 9 inch tv that we bring, my daughters bring their game cube (we bought a car adapter last year) and they play that for hours along with their gameboys. I try to find a couple of cheap games before we go..
We try to drive a lot at night too, so they sleep

 

[Luvdisney]

If driving down I-95 my kids liked counting the South of the Boarder billboards. "Pedro says scream real loud kids, they'll stop!" I hate that one.

 

[MichiganMomto4]

We've done the 19 hour drive from Michigan 3 times and have left both in the late night (10 p.m.) and the middle of the afternoon (2 p.m.). It didn't seem to make a difference with the kids, they slept through the night both times falling asleep at pretty regular bed times.

I'll ditto the above suggestions like dvd players, movies, game boys, etc.... I also got these travel bingo cards that they had fun with and a magna doodle for the two year old.

I also want to suggest going to the DOT (Dept. of Transportation) sites for all the states you'll be driving through. They were very helpful regarding current construction and ways around it.

When are you leaving? We found that leaving on a Friday afternoon/night made running into a rush hour non-existent.

 

[kandeebunny]

LOL How can you not stop and see Pedro!?!?! We count the billboards too, wouldn't be a drive south without em!

 

[buzz2400]

We started the license plates also. If you are staying onsite look around the parking lots for a lot of different states. We could not find 4 states.

 

[DebMcDonald]

For our long car rides, protable DVD player with two screens was a must for us. A backpack or something of the sort of things they have never seen before, so they won't get bored to quickly and will be more into playing with the stuff, etc. Crafty type stuff, coloring books of disney (I know, but who doesn't love to color). The smallish books you can get at book stores with making hair beads, the book comes with the crafts, art type books, etc.

Good Luck. The trip down is always better than the trip home.

 

[ChrisNif]

Glad to see more Drivers

Hehe,

I drove almost 20 hours each way from NJ in December due to extra stops and a snow storm on the way home. Leave as late as you can based on when you want to be there, and let them sleep thru the night is the best possible way. Of course DVD's, Radios, Game Boys, and other Games are fun and helpful too. My neice was 6 and we had MIL(55) and SIL(35) along with Me (23) and wife(well almost) (20). we only watched 2 movies, but stopped quite a bit more then i wanted to while everyone was awake.

Good Luck on your trip...

 

[GIOny]

we done the NY to Florida trip dozens of times and it can be grueling sometimes but it can also be very enjoyable. We like to stop for the night and get a good nights rest and feel refreshed the next day. We tried driving through but we were so out of it the next day that we lost a day anyway cause we were too tired and cranky to do anything. Several years ago I bought a TV with a VCR player that was meant for traveling. That worked wonders, kept them busy (only the vcr part worked while driving). Then last year I bought a SUV with the DVD player-great investment. But like everyone else has said, weather it is books, game boys, art work, puzzles, whatever, it has to be what they enjoy doing and will keep them busy. If you are traveling at night don't forget booklights so they can read at night (most book stores sell them). Also maybe this website would be helpful:http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/welcome/treatmentguides/travel.html Enjoy and have fun