To drive or fly?

[collcass]

but flying won out. I have a son who, after 9/11, became completely petrified of planes. he won't even goto an airport. I also have a 6 year old who freaks at the very mention of two days in the car.

Dh wanted to drive but wanted to rent a car. The cost of rental here + food, gas, motel is actuall several hundred more than RT from newark - Tampa. My parents are in jersey so we'll leave our car there and my Fil is just outside of tampa so it works perfectly! Well, with the exception f DS who is going to flip when he finds out

 

[HelenePA]

I could have written this myself! When I was a kid, we used to go to the Outer Banks every year 2 different weeks, and it was about 8 hours each way. I really think that ruined me for long trips. Thank goodness my husband feels the same way. Honestly, 4-5 hours is about it for us in the car. Anything further we're flying, taking a train or staying home.
Also I get motion sickness so I would either need to drive or sleep - I can't read, look at a map, play board games with my son or I'd be sick. Just the thought of it - UGH! No way!
Our Dec trip our airfare was about $450 total for the 3 of us, which was a great deal. Average I've found now is about $600-650 total. I will find $200 to cut out of the budget somewhere to make up the difference. Maybe no DDP and we do a few more CS instead. Maybe no hoppers. Maybe less souviners. Or no rental car. Or we use our AMEX points for 1 of the tickets. Something...anything...to not have to drive!

if 200$ was the difference I might think again but really 800$ more this year is insane. that is the cost of 4 - 7 day non park hopping tickets (and to clarify even though ds was under 1 we still bought him a seat so our seat needs did not go up by 1)

 

[MinnieTink]

I was one of those people who used to say, Heck NO! to driving to WDW from NJ, esp. with kids...... However, my husband convinced me to try it....

We have done both. We drove in '04 when it was just me, DH, and 2DDs, who were, at the time, 9 and 4. It was fine. It was kind of an adventure. We left very early and the kids slept til we were in North Carolina!! In a weird sort of way, I kind of enjoyed it. What a freak, right? We used Disney Transportation while we were there, but having the car there 'just in case' was nice. The drive home was a bit rough....we had to cut our vacation short by one day because of an impending hurricane, could not find a gas station that actually HAD gas in it.... It was not fun.

We flew this past August out of Newark airport. It was, I think, about $1200 for 5 of us. Cha-ching! We had 3 kids with us this time, including my 11 month old son. I thought SOME of the security people in Orlando were really rude and had no patience. I was herding my kids thru the security area, with the taking off of the shoes and heavy bags and grab the baby out of the stroller and trying to fold the stroller to put it in the xray thing, the security "hag", as she has come to be known in my mind, grabbed the stroller from me so forcefully, and said, "LET'S GO!" in such a nasty way, and she was nasty to my younger DD. Plus the Magical Express schedule is kind of a pain. It has worked for us, don't get me wrong, it is not that bad, but if you choose an early flight...say 8 am, you will have ME picking you up around 5am.

All that being said, we are opting this November to drive again.

However you get there, I hope you have a wonderful time!

 

[Mouse House Mama]

I could have written this myself! When I was a kid, we used to go to the Outer Banks every year 2 different weeks, and it was about 8 hours each way. I really think that ruined me for long trips. Thank goodness my husband feels the same way. Honestly, 4-5 hours is about it for us in the car. Anything further we're flying, taking a train or staying home.
Also I get motion sickness so I would either need to drive or sleep - I can't read, look at a map, play board games with my son or I'd be sick. Just the thought of it - UGH! No way!
Our Dec trip our airfare was about $450 total for the 3 of us, which was a great deal. Average I've found now is about $600-650 total. I will find $200 to cut out of the budget somewhere to make up the difference. Maybe no DDP and we do a few more CS instead. Maybe no hoppers. Maybe less souviners. Or no rental car. Or we use our AMEX points for 1 of the tickets. Something...anything...to not have to drive!

I hear ya! Car trips as a kid is probably why I hate them now. My grandparents had a house upstate and we used to go there at least once a week and sometimes just for the day. We live on Long Island so it was a few hours each way. Then my first trip to WDW was when I was 4 and I drove down with my grandparents and 2 aunts. I got carsick and barfed all over the car. Then we drove to Niagra Falls one time. Countless cartrips later and I never want to be in a car again!!!! Yes, I have great memories of being with my family and feel so blessed that they took us wherever they could but I personally would fly to the grocery store if there was a plane that would take me!

 

[nboicepardee]

Thank you for all of your thoughts! I didn't mean to sound like a drama queen about MCO security. They were lovely and fairly efficient, however, we still waited in line for 90 minutes. Double stroller, carry-ons with my 2 girls things they must sleep with every night (cannot check those!), shoes off, coats and sweatshirts off, etc. We took the only direct flights each way. We had to leave our house by 6:30am in Rochester, and we didn't return to our house until 9:30pm on the return flight. I would rather take a later or earlier flight than have to change planes. It adds so much time to your day to have a stop. My oldest daughter got sick on the plane, my youngest peed out of her diaper when we were about to board, then she split her pants (I swear none of these things has ever happened before! Our oldest has flown many times). On the flight back our youngest cried for the first hour of the flight. Magical Express was great. No complaints. I didn't mind not having a car...we had groceries delivered. A car would be nice occasionally, but we probably wouldn't use it every day. We paid a bit over $800 for our 4 flights. I don't think we could have gotten them much cheaper than that. Oh, I loved checking in at our hotel for the flight back but while we were in line for security, we realized that they sat my husband and i together and the girls together far away from us on the plane. I should have checked right away, but I missed it. That was a bit stressful because we were waiting in line for such a long time.

I think for me, part of it is control. I feel like I have more control when I drive. We can stop and eat, go to the bathroom, etc. when we want. My husband thinks I am a little nuts for even considering it! His thought is when the girls get older, MAYBE! They are great travelers. We have done many, many 6 hour trips, a couple of 8 or 10 hour. I was thinking maybe we could stop twice on the way down and visit a friend one night and then do it in 2 days on the way back. We have a 2 screen DVD for the car. We only use it on trips, so it is a treat for the girls. I would also plan lots of activities...thank you for all of tips! I actually like to drive!

Keep the thoughts coming!

 

[dis75ney]

I was all for flying until I saw the airfare. It would cost me more to fly to Orlando than it did for me to fly to California last October? I don't think so!!!

So we're opting to drive. DS is a great traveler...my MIL lives about eight hours away from us and we make the drive to visit her at least four-five times per year. He makes it through fine, so I'm not worried about him. Plus, we'll have our car available for our day trip to Kennedy Space Center and the world's coolest McDonald's...

 

[nboicepardee]

I forgot to add that the reason for driving is less about the money, although saving a few hundred dollars would be nice. Who knows how much it will be to fly next year....yikes!

 

[TinaLala]

I think this answer lies in the type of family you have!! My girls have no problem driving the 24 hours (over 2 days) down to FLA (we live in MA!) nor do they mind the flying. This year we're driving next time we'll fly - if it's not expensive. My BF is coming with us and her dd probably won't do so good with the drive nor will my BF because she gets motion sickness very easily - but flying isn't an option for her either.

I have friends who drove two years ago and it destroyed their entire trip. They were miserable in the car and even more miserable at Disney - hello it was in July!!

We bring a map with us so once we cross into another state I take the map out and show them where we started in MA and where we are now and then where we are going to FL. We play the car games we did when we were kids - A my name is Allyn my husband's name is Art we come from Arkansa and we sell Apples. Then we play guess what Disney character I am? or name that Disney tune. This time we have a DVD player so that should make it a little more entertaining.

 

[mousebymarriage]

We live in Northern N.J. and drove down in April 2007, we usually fly and that was our 1st and most likely our last time driving. We are a family of 4 (Dh, me , DD was 10 at the time, DS was 5 at the time). We left at 2:30am and stopped exactly 12 hours later in Santee S.C., which is where we had hotel ressies for the night. Both kids fell back to sleep for a little while when we first got in the car, then DD woke up and proceeded to vomit and then dry heeve ( that was nice). we stopped for breakfast and I had to practically hold her down to get a Dramamine into her because she WILL NOT take pills ever. On the road again and both kids are fighting ( who is sitting too close to who, what should we watch on the DVD player, "mom, Michael is breathing in my face", "mom, Emily just licked her finger and wiped it on my forehead", etc.). Then We move Michael to the back row of the minivan, all is quiet for an hour then I hear the sound of vomit, I think it's DD again and wrong it's DS, he just puked all over himself , his pillow and part of the car. We pull over on the side of the road to clean it all up while trucks are whizzing by so fast the car is shaking. Ah, family time! The rest of the road trip was pretty much the same with some quiet parts mixed in. The ride home DD threw up in South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland (oh, and dry heeves in a few states in between). She usually doesn't vomit unless she sits in the 3rd row of the minivan but, this trip was the exception. DS never vomits in the car which is why he didn't have a small garbage bag handy like we gave DD before we pulled out of the drive way. We flew down in Jan. and it was a quiet uneventful flight both ways!