We have an 11 hour drive to Disney...

[tink_about_it]

http://www.gameskidsplay.net/games/mental_games/car_games.htm

 

[tink_about_it]

We just got back from an 11 hr(each way) trip to Virginia Beach. We are headed to WDW in Sept. I think it should be about 16 hrs. My girls were awesome! We only stopped twice. The girls had ipods and a DVD player. They also had stuff to draw with. We had a travel "Guess who" game. They kept busy and everything went great!

I just had to comment on your 4 girls..We also have 4 girls! They look to be similar in age. (see my sig)

 

[Princess Tink]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is trying to prevent...the dreaded 'ARE WE THERE YET?' from being said every 30 min. We drove from KC to WDW (20 hrs) with our then 4 yr old (a few years ago) and I made up milage cards for him. I made a card with a picture of a car (clipart) that said 50 miles down, and every 4th card was pixie card with a pic of Tinkerbell (so after 200 miles he would get a prize out of my pixie bag). I punched out a hole and placed the cards on a key-ring type thingy....he kept the cards with him and every so often (mostly when we stopped he'd have to catch up on his milage cards) he'd give me cards. This was awesome, he never once asked 'ARE WE THERE YET?'. I had things in my bag like: small candy, kids map w/stickers to follow your steps, color books, action figues, new movies, new gameboy games, spinning light thingy....mostly stuff I had picked up on sale/clearance over the weeks. It made the trip a lot of fun!

We also kept a cooler with finger foods and heathy snacks: grapes, carrots, pinapple, water, juice box. It was rather funny, we stopped about every 250-300 miles for gas/bathroom break/food/stretch and we litterally had to drag him out of the car to go with us.....he didn't want to leave his new movie!!!

 

[AlyLynn]

We have a 23 hour drive, which we've done just 3 times since last July with 4 kids. We have a ball. We actually flew at Easter, and the kids hated it! It was too stressful with how much you could pack, etc. I always pack a toy bag with travel toys they have never seen before, dvd players, etc. We also drive through the night, so the bulk of their trip is when they are sleeping. Breaking it up into 2 days is rough, because it is 2 long days in the car! Good luck!

 

[Steph9072]

Speaking of kids sleeping- I had mentioned we fold the seats down in and let them lay down. Any other parents still do that nowadays? My husband thought I was crazy- I came from a family of 6 kids once my parents adopted my cousins and my mom is from a family with 8 kids. Anytime we went anywhere with grandma or my parents we always did stuff like that.

Aren't you afraid that w/o your children buckled in that they could be injured or worse in an accident? We allowed our kids to tilt their seats back some. But not lay down and it worked fine! They slept every bit of 8 hours. Call me paranoid I would be too afraid to let them lay down. And I totally know where you are coming from...when I was I slept from Indiana to Yellow Stone.

 

[ChipAndDale2006]

Our trips always take 13-14 hours to get to WDW, depending on traffic. I'd say make sure you bring interesting things for the kids like portable dvd players, mp3 players, ipods things like that. My DD8 is a very fussy traveler if she doesn't have things like this, so I always make sure to have things to entertain her.

Please and I repeat PLEASE DO NOT leave any of these electronic things you bring in your vehicle. 3 years back we had our car broken into and everything stolen.... this was in the AK parking lot. And to make matters worse the police and Disney acted like it was us that were the criminals. So if you decide to bring electronics lock them up in your resort rooms before going to the parks

 

[kydisneyfans]

Make the drive a part of the trip, not just 12 hours to Disney. Take a few minutes to explore exits, look for landmarks, state lines and so forth.

Hearing 12 hours to Disney is worse than 2 hours to Alabama to a young child.

 

[agentpleakley]

We just got back ( yesterday) from a 13 hour drive to Niagara Falls. Our kids do well with the DVD player and other electronic items -- but our favorite is CAR BINGO. We actually bought ours three-four years ago at Epcot. We also play the standard games from my childhood

(1) name game with alphabet -- My name is Albert, my wife's name is Alberta, we live in Atlanta and sell alligators etc

(2) location game -- first person says a location (state, city, country) then the next person has to name a location starting with the last letter of the previous location for example Orlando next person could say Oklahoma.

 

[angipoo]

Our trips always take 13-14 hours to get to WDW, depending on traffic. I'd say make sure you bring interesting things for the kids like portable dvd players, mp3 players, ipods things like that. My DD8 is a very fussy traveler if she doesn't have things like this, so I always make sure to have things to entertain her.

Please and I repeat PLEASE DO NOT leave any of these electronic things you bring in your vehicle. 3 years back we had our car broken into and everything stolen.... this was in the AK parking lot. And to make matters worse the police and Disney acted like it was us that were the criminals. So if you decide to bring electronics lock them up in your resort rooms before going to the parks

Great point!

Hi from a fellow Louisianian

 

[2poohbears]

It takes us about 11 hours to get to WDW, too. We have 3 1/2 y/o twin boys. Leaving very early in the morning, usually 3:00 am, works best for us. I pack a small backpack for each boy with a new stuffed animal, play figures like dinosaurs or one of those small figure playsets from the Disney store, light up toys, travel magna doodles, magnetic playsets, play phones, stickers, viewmasters. I take a new toy out of the bags every so often. I also make sure I have at least 2 new kiddie movies as well as some of their favorites for the dvd player, but I try to hold off on putting those in until the last 4 hours of the trip. So far, they've done well on each drive - we've been 3 times since they turned 2 1/2.

Have fun!

 

[graygables]

I grew up travelling across Europe. We joke that we saw the entire continent and then some on a pack of Juicy Fruit and 6 comic books.

I do scrapbook shows, so we have spent a LOT of time in the car this year. Our trips are routinely 9-18 hours away. The most important thing for us is to stop every 2-2 1/2 hours at a Cracker Barrel (if possible). They have clean restrooms, smell nice, and DDs can choose a couple of those little Dover activity books. They look forward to having a new maze or "stained glass" to color. We take a laptop and have movies, a video iPod, computer games, etc, but they get more mileage from those little Dover books. They usually bring along some Littlest Pet Shop and play that. We used to have colorforms that they could play with on the windows, but I haven't freshened those up in awhile (and they haven't missed them). Klutz makes a roadtrip book called Kids Travel that is fun, actually MANY of their books are good in the car. For us, the key has been those frequent stops.

We also eat breakfast and lunch in the car (unless we're at Holiday Inn Express and we eat before leaving) to save time. My brain goes into "roadtrip mode" so stopping for a leisurely meal messes me up and I get tired.

ETA: my kids have quit telling me they are bored. They got tired of hearing, "GREAT! Boredom is an opportunity for you to create ways to entertain yourself!"

 

[jenrein]

Aren't you afraid that w/o your children buckled in that they could be injured or worse in an accident? We allowed our kids to tilt their seats back some. But not lay down and it worked fine! They slept every bit of 8 hours. Call me paranoid I would be too afraid to let them lay down. And I totally know where you are coming from...when I was I slept from Indiana to Yellow Stone.

Well this time around we will have my husband and son in the moving truck- so that means me and my 2 daughters in the SUV. I figured the older could be up front and lay her seat back and the younger can buckle sideways and lay across the seat. You see...I am one of those terrible moms- when my kids turned 4 there was no more car seat. You wanna sit up front? Sure....as long as your 7. Our front seat disables the airbag unless you weigh 70 pounds or more. I dunno...Like I said, back in the good ol days you laid down and slept. You could fit 10 people in a volvo.

 

[sumrmist]

We always pack a cooler for lunch on a long roadtrip. We stop at a rest area and eat lunch and let the kids run around a little bit.
Driving to Disney this past Feb. My 3yo really loved her leap pad, coloring books with colored pencils, and her own cd player. Im sorry but 10 hours of her kind of music makes me wanna scream. She also gave a very interesting narrative about what she was seeing out the windows.

 

[SqueakyMouse]

I was just about to pose this same question! We have a 15+ hour drive. Usually, we leave in the late afternoon or early evening. For dinner, we either stop at a Cracker Barrel or eat in the car (Heavenly Ham or something like that). The kids pack lots of toys to "entertain" themselves in the car but rarely use any of it. It all just junks-up their space. Instead, the kids usually watch Disney movies for a little while then fall asleep. By the time they awaken, we have either arrived at WDW or we are nearly there.

This trip will be very different. We are leaving at noon. Thus, the kids will be awake for a looooonnnnngggg time. I really, really hate the mess they make with all their toys; so I want to limit what they bring to only toys my 4 yo dd and 7 yo dds will use. (Older ds is easy. He'll talk on his cell, IM his buddies, and play video games the entire trip -- even while at WDW. ) Of course, 4 yo dd will be convinced that she will use every toy from her bedroom, including items from the many tubs shoved waaayyy under her bed that have not seen the light of day in 2 years.

I need suggestions!!!

 

[tink_about_it]

We have a 14 hour drive. We drive at night mostly. Sleeping kids makes for a pretty peaceful trip. We are stopping this time to stay overnight and get up early and go again.

 

[bjscheel]

Crayola Model Magic is always my suggestion for flights and long drives. It is the clean version of play dough- no smudges or crumbs. Then toss it when they're done (unless you want to keep their dried masterpiece). They can mix and mix the colors also to make a new color.

Otherwise, my DDs have a couple of car games- one is find a semi in every color of the rainbow- yellow and purple are tough. Of course the alphabet game where you find each letter in order. We also take license plate letters (around here most have a set of 3 letters) and make a sentence or phrase out of it, i.e. "AAG" can be Allison Ate Grapes. Or try to think of a word that has those three letters in it, possibly make it have to be in the same order, i.e. "AAG"'s answer could be AnAGram.

We also play Guess the Princess or Disney Character..."I'm thinking of a princess who....". Or guess the person 20 questions style. Finally, the latest game we came up with is a guessing game by category. Start with a broad category- "I'm thinking of an animal". If the others don't get it in three guesses, you have to narrow it down to "I'm thinking of a FARM animal" and so on until it is guessed correctly. This is good for learning the skill of categorizing too!

 

[angipoo]

The most important thing for us is to stop every 2-2 1/2 hours at a Cracker Barrel (if possible).

Oh yeah, we pack the "Cracker Barrel" map so we can plot our stops!

 

[always_learning]

Pray Our drive was approx 16 and it about did us in! I don't see how old your daughter is but we brought along handheld games like yahtzee. We also bought travel bingo where the kids just slide over the cover of semi's...trains...etc. I purchased some children's books on tape and bought all kinds of new children's music. We brought along our dvd player but our 4 year old got car sick so we had to avoid him seeing the screen. We watched every disney movie out there...even the planning dvd! lol

DD is 7 and is a good traveler (we live "in the country" and a trip to Walmart is a 72 mile excursion). We have the portable DVD player, but I was kind of looking for other ideas to pass the time. Thanks!

I didn't mean to imply your daughter wouldn't be a good traveler And I know the dvd player can get old that is why I suggested the other items too. I forgot we also had the playfoam (the small beaded stuff) like playdough and we had contests on who could create the most disney like character.