Getting past Orlando Rush Hour

[starflyer59]

I am hoping that some of the local Orlando intercot members can help me on this?

We are driving down from the St. Augustine area in the morning to take my son to Magic Kingdom for his B-day.

We will leave around 5:30-6:00am and most likely will arrive in orlando around 8:00am or so depending on traffic driving down there.

I am worried about sitting in traffic for hours trying to get through the downtown area.

Is there any shortcuts or ways around the downtown rush hour traffic?

[MNNHFLTX]

I used to live just east of Orlando. If I were in your shoes, I would just stay on I-95 until you got to the SR 528 exit ( in between Titusville and Cocoa). This is called the Beachline Toll Road (or the Beeline, as it used to be called). Take this west and then pick up the Greenway South (SR 417--also a toll road). This will take you right to the WDW area. Yes, you will drive extra miles and pay a few tolls. But you will bypass all the traffic on I-4 going through Orlando and will probably get there earlier.

One of INTERCOT's staff members, Piglet822, knows the Orlando roads extensively, so hopefully she will chime here eventually if there are any other good alternatives.

[Piglet822]

That will work, what Beth suggested. Or you can just catch the 417 off of I-4.
6 of one, half dozen of another. Ultimately you're going to end up on 417, no argument there. I-95 might actually be a little bit better, traffic wise.

[brownie]

You'll probably be okay if you avoid I-4. It's been a while but I've driven both I-4 and the tollways to get to and from the airport, and I'll take the tollways.

[starflyer59]

Thanks for all the tips. I was just looking at Mapquest and see that 417 circles around the city and drops you right off in Celebration.

How much are the tolls?

[Ed]

If you take 417 from its beginning at I-4 (exit # 101 on I-4) down to 417's exit # 6, it will cost you $6.00. Exit 6 is marked "International Drive"; don't let that throw you. At the end of the exit, just continue straight ahead and you'll end up on 536, which will take you directly into WDW.

[starflyer59]

Thanks to everyone for the tips. I will file these away for future trips.

We decided to just go straight through I-4 and really did not many problems at all. I guess we got lucky.

Traffic was awesome until we reached the I-4 Rest Area and then it was bumper to bumper until we got to the Altamonte exit and then the traffic just magiclly cleared up and it was free moving until we say the Disney signs.

My GPS origianlly had us arriving at MK at 8:25am. We lost 15 minutes due to the traffic between the rest area and altamonte but then we picked up some time after that.

We arrived at the MK parking lot at 8:34am and was on the monorail by 8:50am.

We had a awesome day at MK and Disney really did make it a magical day for a 4 year old on his B-day.