Where and when to stop to sleep from Chicago North suburb

[italiamom]

Hello, 1st time driving to Disney in Nov., can you give your opinion on when to stop to rest overnite, how many hours would that stop be in the travel time? what hotel would you suggest? possibly, one that would offer breakfast. Any other suggestions? we'll most likely leave early evening on Thurs., and will need to arrive on the following Saturday at Kidani. It will be my husband, 11 yr. old grandson, and me, 2 drivers. thanks to all,

 

[4formickey]

ATL is the mid point for driving from Il. When we last drove we stopped right outside of atlanta. It was a long drive but I did it myself. It's not hard to find a hotel with free breakfast,only a few chains do it so just use your search engine. The drive is about 20hrs from chicago.

 

[Scott S]

I'll second the Atlanta post. We've stayed at the Hampton Inn Northwest a couple of times. I'll also add, it's a looong tiring drive.

 

[chicagoshannon]

We like to drive as far as possible. We like to stop in Valdosta. Then the next day we only have a bit over 3 hours to drive.

This year we plan to stay in Tifton which is about 30 minutes north of Valdosta I believe.

If you decide to just stop near Atlanta make sure you stop south of Atlanta so you don't have to worry about Atlanta traffic the next day.

 

[chicagoshannon]

Ok I now see you're planning on leaveing in the evening on Thursday. In that case maybe stay in Kentucky somewhere. You'll want to get through IL and Indiana before stopping because that is the boring part of the drive.

 

[cemeb4dk]

ATL is actually farther than half way.

If you leave early evening, plan on getting to ATL about 12 hours after you leave. SO if you left at 4pm, you would get to ATL about 4 AM. not the time to be checking into a hotel unless you plan on checking out by 11am. If your set on staying around ATL I would leave earlier in the day.

We always do the drive straight thru, but understand that is not an option for everyone. So I would look at your departure time, and add 12 hours to figure ATL arrival. Then plan on about 8 hours from ATL to WDW.

AN option might be leave at midnight, try and drive to the FL state line or Valdosta, get there early evening. Get a good night sleep and then your only a 3 1/2 hour drive or so from WDW Sat Morning.

 

[mastermind307]

This year we plan to stay in Tifton which is about 30 minutes north of Valdosta I believe.

Tifton is 1 hour north of Valdosta. My MIL lives in Tifton and we stopped at her house on our way to Disney last Sept. We will be stopping again when we go in Nov. It is 4 hours to Disney from Tifton.

 

[italiamom]

Thanks everyone for your response. i think i may have to rethink what time we leave on Thurs. my thoughts were to have my grandson put in a full day at school and my husband come home, pick up the rental car, pack it up, and get going. i was thinking to stop in Atlanta, but, may not be able to hold out that long. How is the driving thru the mountains? is it safe to drive thru at nite? i heard it's pretty dark, no lighting.

 

[cruisingkat]

We do the drive from the west burbs to WDW in two days, stopping just south of Atlanta in McDonough, GA. We leave around 9-10 am and arrive at our motel around 9-10 pm - don't forget if you are on Central time, Atlanta is on eastern. We do very few stops - just for gas as we bring sandwiches to eat in the car (we usually stop at Subway and pick up a breakfast sandwich and one for lunch that we put in the cooler) - and hubby does put his foot to the pedal - keeping up with traffic (the fast traffic). By getting past Atlanta at night, we avoid the morning rush hour traffic.
We don't find the mountains that hard to drive - actually find I24 through Nashville to be the worst part of the drive as you have to keep switching lanes from one side to the other as 24 merges and demerges with several different interstates in a relatively short distance - there are 5 different merges/demerges and with trucks it can sometimes be difficult to get over to the correct lane for the next one.
We stop at Holiday Inn Expresses - they do serve breakfast in the morning.
If you are planning on leaving on Thurs - were you planning on stopping two nights or driving through Thurs night and stopping earlier on Friday and then finishing up the drive Sat morning? Without that info, it is hard to suggest a stopping point.

 

[italiamom]

cruisingkat, that's a good question.i'm not really sure, but, even if we drive almost 12 hours and then stop, it would be somewhere around 7:00 or 8:00 am on Friday before we could stop and rest. not a good time to try to get a room. check-in is usually around 3:00pm, and check-out is around 11am. am i leaving way too early on Thursday?

 

[cruisingkat]

I think you might be leaving too early on Thurs if you only want to drive about 12 hours before stopping. If you do want to leave that early, you can make some stops along the way - for example the Atlanta Zoo has the new baby pandas, or the Chattanooga Aquarium (one of the top rated aquariums in the country) -could kill some of the extra time you would have before check-in and give you some stretching time.

 

[HHSTigerFan]

Just leave early Friday morning before rush hour, out the door by 5:00AM, you can easily get to Valdosta or Lakey City, then a quick drive to WDW Saturday morning..