Where are all my drivers?

[Goofy'slady]

In all but a few of my 20+ trips to the world we have driven the 14+hours from Maryland to Orlando. My family actually enjoys the drive even tho it's long and tedious. For us it streaches out the vacation since it takes two days to get there, 9 days in the house of the mouse and then two more days to get home. So we have a total of 11 nights away in all. We love stopping at various places along the way and seeing new things, eating at different places and trying out different hotels along the way and back.

Where are you driving from?
How long of a drive is it?
What are some of the things you like to do while traveling back "home" that makes your vacation special?

T.

 

[spiceycat]

it isn't long - 8 to 11 hours - depending upon how often I stop.

so don't do alot of extras.... need to get there!!!

 

[sumrmist]

Its usually around 9 hours with us. We try not to stop much either direction.

 

[disneysnob]

This August will be our 5th time driving down from Boston.....It is long and tedious, but for some reason, it's not so bad. We have a dvd player in the car, and with all the hand held video games and stuff, the kids find ways to keep busy. We do it in 2 days. We leave around 7:00am and stop in VA the first night...usually by 7pm. Then we eat, swim and sleep...up and out by 7am and into Orlando by 6pm.....not too bad. Like the Op said, it makes our trip seem that much longer, and we use it as an excuse to stay in WDW for a longer time(9-11 days), because "we're driving ALL that way.." It also allows us to bring extra things in the van, that we probably wouldn't bring on a plane (coolers, water bottles, airbed...) My family thinks we're crazy, but to each their own.....

 

[WDWRocksMySocks]

We drove in December from Indiana. It was about a 16 hour drive. Overall, it wasn't bad but I enjoy flying more! When we do drive, I love to stop at any of the Indian River orange stands. I also love driving through southern Tennessee. I just love Chattanooga!! We also stop at a welcome center in Florida but I can't remember the name of it.

 

[sandym718]

My DH doesn't fly, so we drive everywhere. We're in Cleveland and our longest drive so far was Miami in 2001 (pre-kids) to catch a cruise. We do Myrtle Beach (12 or so hours) nearly every summer, so the kids are quite used to that. We drove to Disney (19 or so hours - this is total time, incl. stops) in May 2007. We drove straight through on the way down and back. Down was not bad at all (midnight to 7 PM), kids watched the DVD and slept, we sang songs, etc. Way back was awful. We left at noon (a little before naptime), intending to stop for the night, but DH kept driving. we got home at 6:30 AM. Kids had slept, we hadn't. VERY bad.

We're going again in May 2009. We will drive straight through on the way down again, we may have DH take a 1/2 day and sleep in the afternoon, then leave around 6 PM so we get in earlier. On the way back, we will DEFINITELY do 2 days. It's just hard b/c DH doesn't get a lot of vacation time - only 2 weeks for the whole year, no rolling over. We already use 6 days this way, leaving only 4 (he gets no sick or personal time either) for the whole rest of the year. But, we do Friday, then the whole week, so taking 2 days to drive back will still get us home sometime Saturday, leaving Sunday to recoup. Neither of us can stand to come back on a Sunday. If DH does take the 1/2 day off the Thurs before, he'll take that unpaid so as not to use up another day.

Sorry for all the rambling!! I would much prefer to fly, unless we had weeks and could stop and explore along the way. But it is what it is!! I'm just glad to go!

 

[zickig]

This will be our first trip and we are driving from Pittsburgh PA so I'm not sure how long it's going to take. I know it will be a 2 day trip, maybe 20-22hrs?

 

[nurseboy]

We've made the drive from southern Delaware about a dozen times. The vehichle you are driving makes a big difference. I always pull out one of the middle captain's chairs from our minivan for extra room. We take a large cooler full of drinks and a box full of various snacks (or as my bride says "shnacks").

We always stay at the same Best Western in southern South Carolina. It has a Denny's connected to it and an indoor pool. That first leg takes about 9hours with a couple of brief stops, so if we leave around 9am we're in the pool by about 7:30pm.

From there WDW is less than 6hours away with stops. Since you can't check in before 3 or 4pm, we seldom leave before 9am after a hearty breakfast.
A stop for half an hour at the Florida Welcome Center to ritually collect the latest Florida brosures and some free orange juice, and just a hop, skip and a fast piece of road away from WDW.

In addition to the feeling of childhood nastalgia for the road trip I enjoy, it isn't very practical for us to fly since the closest airports are Philly or Baltimore. So, to fly for us is an 8 hour day after driving to the airport, parking, checkin, flight, rent-a-car, and drive from Orlando Int. to WDW.
Plus, it is a heck of a lot cheaper for a family of four to drive.

I always drive straight through on the way home, about 15.5 hours with stops.

 

[bethie]

we much rather drive than fly. About 10 hours or so. It's fun.

 

[kydisneyfans]

Pittsburgh to Disney would be about 16 hours via 79/77/26/95/4

Really nothing special to stop at except the Florida Welcome Center, if it is open. People travel outside of the hours from 8 to 5, but that is another story.

We stopped in Atlanta on the way back 1 year, but ended up not doing much. Sometimes we will stop at an outlet mall. Usually Chick Fil A is another stop.

 

[dolPhinlovEr83]

We drive from NY every time we go to WDW. It's about 20 hours (of course depending upon traffic). We have 5 in the family: 2 parents and 3 kids all in very early 20's. Now we have also taken on a 6th, my sis's fiancee. We all prefer driving instead of flying. We have a minivan so it's 2 per section. We bring pillows and blankets, laptops, dvd players, etc. Since we are all adults, we can all drive and don't really stop much to sleep anywhere. We always stop on the NJ turnpike and Maryland House for bathroom, and always a Denny's to eat. After that, we just make whatever quixk stops we need to but are on our way. Drive by South of the Borer and look (used to stay there when we were younger). And stop at the Florida welcome center. We just go all of the way through.

On the way back, it's the same way. Once, my mom did mess up the ressies and forgot to reserve our last night in FL. So we packed up and headed to Myrtle Beach. We drive through night and as the sun was coming up, we arrived at the beach. We spent the day there and then back to NY.

Even though it wasn't planned, it definitely was fun!

I preferably don't like mapping out every stop. Just stop where you want, as long as it's not too often or for too long or your time at WDW decreases!

 

[nessz79]

We've driven to Northern VA from SW Florida with one small child (age 3) once. We left at 3 AM and got there at 9 PM, including stopping every 2-3 hours, sometimes for 45 minutes or more. The way up was GREAT.

The way back, we had 2 little ones (3 and 1.5 yrs) and it was AWFUL. We left at 4 PM and drove as far as we could until about 2 AM. We drove again the next day, leaving around 9 and getting home around 4. The 1.5 year old cried quite a bit.

I definitely recommend leaving very early (like 3 AM) when you've had at least a little sleep. This way the kids sleep for the first couple hours and they're not too cranky.

 

[ALnRYSmom]

We will be driving from Texas. GoogleMaps says 17 hours, I say at least 20-24 depending on how many times the kids need to stop once they wake up, if I remember the boys Dramamine, how much Starbucks is needed, etc. LOL The plan is to leave at around 3 or 4 AM and get as far as we can before needing to stop. Once the kids wake up we will take our time, stop at the air museum in Pensacola, will most likely stay here for a night, and then make our way to Orlando. We can't check into our condo until 4:00, so we will most likely be hitting the super walmart as soon as we get to town.

 

[crazelion]

I only stop for bathroom , food and gas breaks other then that I don't stop at all. Unless it's occasion outlet mall.

 

[powellrj]

we just got back from driving and I swore I would never do it again. We ran into every type of bad weather short of a hurricane on the way down and back. We had rain, sleet, snow, ice, fog and tornado's. It took 9 hours to get from Indy to Knoxville and that was only stopping once for gas.

On the way home it took 17 hours and that was stopping twice for gas and once to eat.

I am just glad it was just DH and I. I can't imagine taking the kids through all that. DS went down a couple of days after we did with his show choir on a bus. While they missed all the bad weather, it was still a long trip and most of the kids said they will do extra fundraising if they could fly the next time!

 

[Funwith4kids]

Always drive (16 hrs)....love the flexibility...leave tomorrow night... woohoo

 

[DWeaver]

We always drive -- it's only about 8 hours for us and that's with a few pit-stops for gas/food. We always stop at the Florida welcome center for the O.J. and the Disney pamphlets.

 

[MarthaJr.]

We leave tomorrown night too!

We go to Florida nearly every year at spring break. I work for the school district and by this time of year....I need the break! The last time we drove was 6 years ago. We have driven down about 4 times. Our kids were pretty good on the long 20 hour drive. The last time we drove we had a mini van and a portable DVD player, game boy and CD players. We always have the kids pack a "busy bag". They pack legos, paper, colored pencils, book, modeling clay. I usually bring a couple surprises for when the boredom hits. We try not to stop too often--gas and rest stops for a little exercise and we pack a picnic. We try to stay flexible about stopping to sleep along the way. If we encounter bad weather, we'll stop to rest. My DH and I love driving in general---so this is kind of an adventure for us. This time our DS 13will have no sibling to argue with or (keep him entertained) in the back seat so.....I think it should go pretty well. Our DD20 is in college and is flying down for a few days to join us. I can't wait to see her!

On the way back we are planning on stopping at a couple hot dog places in Georgia that my husband has heard about. Somehow he got hooked on hot dog programs on the Food Network and now he is on a quest to try them all. Go figure!

I'll post when we return about anything else that might be worth stopping for!

 

[CSI007]

We leave in just a few short weeks from Maryland. Gonna try to do most of the drive in one day (starting from about 4am) We have booked a place in Daytona Beach for the night then the next morning we will drive the remaining 1 to 2 hours to the MK. Getting really excited about it!!!

 

[krisceeg]

I am originally from MD (Kensington near DC) . . . we used to make the drive from there to SE Georgia all the time. I live in Memphis, TN now and we plan to make the drive to Orlando the end of May. I think it's around 14 hours or so, so we plan to drive to Birmingham one evening and then the rest of the way the following day We had thought about going to Clearwater for a couple of days beforehand, so we may do that.

Kristina