Up coming trip

[Bill K]

I hope this is the correct board for this question, here it is.

We are planning to drive to Disney for the first time. The party includes 2 adults and 3 children. The childrens ages are 10,5, and 5. We live in NJ and the trip is planned for August.
Our ressies @ the BW are from 8/19 to 8/28. We plan a leisurely drive with 1 or 2 stops along the way.
I,ve never driven down to Florida before so any helpful advice would be appreciated. Any suggestions on Hotels along the way, where to eat and best routes to Disney Boardwalk would be deeply appreciated.
I know with all your experiance out there will make this a very enjoyable vacation. Thanks in advance for all your suggestions!!!

 

[LtlTee]

Hi Bill,
You sound like our family! We live in Southern New Jersey and usually take take our trips in August driving with 2 adults and 3 kids. We have driven 4 times and I think we have a pretty good system.
We leave around 3:30 AM. This puts up past Washington, D.C. and the beltway traffic before rush hour. We drive until approximately 3 or 4 in the afternoon, taking breaks along the way for lunch and whatever else (with 3 kids, we have quite a few bathroom breaks! ). This puts us in Brunswick, GA. The last 2 trips I have reserved a room ahead of time. We get to our hotel, get dinner nearby and let the kids swim and work off some energy. We get to bed early and are on the road by 8:00 in the morning. This puts us in WDW by 12:00 or 1:00, so we still have pretty much the whole day ahead of us and are not dead tired.
I really enjoy the drive -- I love how the anticipation builds up as we get closer! Also, it is just so much cheaper for us to drive than for 5 of us to fly.
Hope this helps!

 

[Bill K]

Thanks for the info!

 

[mothergoose]

Hi we have made the trip to Florida several times. We ususally leave about midnight ( the trip takes us about 14 hours from S. IL. ) On our first trip my kids were 5 and 9. To help with the "are we there yet " problem, we brought along two rolls of quarters,one for each child. If they whined or squabbled with each other they would lose a quarter. They were allowed to use all of the quarters that they had left in any way they wanted (even arcades lol). This worked great when they were small. Now, if only someone could help me with the teenage attitudes

 

[tkd lisa]

If you do the timeframe mentioned above, a nice place to stay is the Country Inn & Suites in Kingsland GA. It's just north of the FL line. We stayed there in Xmas 2000. It has a nice indoor pool with a waterfall. It was relatively cheap, clean, and they gave you a good breakfast.