Around 11 hours from south Mississippi...we also stop for lunch
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Around 11 hours from south Mississippi...we also stop for lunch
We drive too. It's 10.5 hours for us and I consider it part of the fun. If we had to pay the price of the airline tickets, we probably couldnt afford to go.
Sorry to hear about the train fare. I probably should've clarified with more details for us though. Sorry!
We booked coach and only for a one-way down. We tend to add stops on our trips when we go on vacation and this one is no different for our trip back with another full week of stops in other states for other interests. SUV is a Traverse which they count as over-sized. We're also taking the train on a Sunday vice Friday or Saturday. Rates also are higher for the weekend days as well. That's what made us decide for a Sunday departure vice a Friday or Saturday departure. Add a Triple A (AAA) discount in there as well for each member...price starts coming down.
Understand about the sleeping car. That usually jacks the price up. Our DS15 and DD9 are older now and sleep through just about anything these days.
Regardless of how you get to Disney though...Hope you and your family have a wonderful time! And a safe trip down and back! :pixie:
On a side note...I really wish they'd speed up those "Trek" inventions and make a transporter! :teleport:
We drive now. We're in Michigan and it's about an 18 hour trip, not counting stops. We get up early one morning and drive as far as we can. Our goal is to make it into GA just past Atlanta. Then the next day it's a shorter trip and we're usually there by early afternoon. There's no way we'd try to drive straight though. We're fatigued enough with just that amount of driving. Stops for lunch and to stretch our legs help a lot.
Driving takes longer, but the amount of money we save actually allows us to stay in WDW longer! We typically stay 10 days now. We also love the freedom of just packing whatever we need and being able to stop and take a break when we want. Even with the overnight stay, we save so much more money than we would if we flew (not counting staying longer in Disney of course :mickey:).
We are in Michigan and we always drive. Sometimes we take a few days to see some sights along the way. One year we drove straight thru (with 4 drivers). We left in the early afternoon and arrived in WDW around 10am. It was a DISASTER!!! The drivers all felt like it was midnight when we got there but the kids were WIDE awake!! We are going to drive straight thru again this year but this time we are leaving super early in the morning in hopes to arrive WDW that night. That way we can just go to sleep and be ready for our vacation the next morning, nice and rested!
We always have our first park day the day after we arrive. It makes a huge difference! On our arrival day after nearly two days on the road, we just hang out by the pool and eat at the resort. By the next morning we're rested and refreshed and ready to hit the parks. :mickey:
The trip for us is around 12 hours. We plan to leave around 5pm the day before our scheduled arrival. We will drive as far as we can, hopefully crossing into FL. We'll get back on the road early the next morning and hope to be at WDW property by noon on arrival day.
We drove when the kids were little and always had a blast. We'd make it past Atlanta the first day (13 hours or so) and then the rest the next morning.
Now that they are teens, we fly :(. Besides, gone are the days when we all are available 10+ days in a row due to work schedules, and XC training.
:mickey:
We live in Kansas City and it would be about a 22-24 hour drive for us. We have considered the drive (have 2 boys ages 21 & 12 who are old enough to know better than to fight in the car! LOL). However - NONE of us can manage to sit in a car longer than 7-8 hours at a time. Even driving to Colorado (a 12 hour drive) is split into 2 days for us.
It would take us 3 days to get there with 2 hotel overnights both there and back (so 4 nights of hotel) as well as the gas, food, snacks, and stocking up on games, movies, etc... for the ride down, not to mention the 6 days driving there and back which eats into the actual vacation time AND being exhausted when we get there. We are simply NOT the family who enjoys being in a car for very long.
We have determined that the cost of the airfare is well worth it to us to have a 3 hour non-stop flight to Orlando. We leave at 7am, get into Orlando at 11am, at the resort by lunchtime and we are well rested, happy, unstressed, and ready for our week of fun.
I wish we loved the road trips because it would make driving to places much easier and affordable, but for US, just not worth it. But KUDOS to those of you who do!!!!
If it's just the wife and I for a quick trip, then no. We fly from Roanoke to Sanford ($120 round trip per person) and rent a car there.
If we're taking the family, then we always drive. It's about 12 hours for us. I-81, I-77, I-26, I-95 (spending the night in SC), and finally I-4. Love having a car there, and it's cheaper than flying everyone.
For the drive home, we usually spend the morning in a park, have a nice lunch, and then leave in the afternoon, driving to S.C. and stopping for the night. Then, get up in the morning and head home, usually get there mid-afternoon. If you break it up over two days, it's not bad *at all*.
We drive all the time. We are in Minnesota and it is around 1600 miles.
We usually leave around 4 or 5 pm on a Friday night and stop for dinner around an hour into the drive. We drive all night and the whole day Saturday only stopping for gas, potty, stretch our legs. We will stop for breakfast Saturday morning and eat supper at the hotel. We get a place to stay Saturday night, usually right in Valdosta, GA. Then Sunday morning we get up have the free breakfast where we are staying and hit the road again, making it to Disney around 11 am Sunday.
We have 3 kids right now, and have taken the 2 older ones since the middle child was 15 months. We will do this again next October when our youngest will be 2 1/2.
When the kids are little like that we do spend a bit more time on stops to let them run for 10 extra min or so. My kids travel very well in the van.
I don't think unless we won a trip we would fly, too much money, and I like the not being tied down to schedules and packing what I want and as much as I want.
With plane ticket prices, it is much cheaper for the 3 of us to drive. It will be about $100 each way driving (gas and tolls). With flights being ~$250 each, that is $500 in savings. I simply cannot see spending an extra $500.
It is about a 10 hour drive each way.
This will be our first time driving to WDW. We will be coming from Twin Cities, MN, does anyone know if there is a lot of toll roads along the way or is there a place we can find that out? Just want to prepare for bringing change.
From Iowa. We start off heading to St. Louis.
The only tolls we hit are the Florida ones near WDW. They are cheap for the 20 + miles we are on them. It is worth the money to avoid the interstate I-4.
We have four kids ages 10, 9, 3 and 2 and we have driven our 19 hour drive every time we've gone since our kids were little. The cost is so much better than air fares. Plus we have made traditions on the way out.
One thing we did on our second drive out in 2007 was we left at 8:00 at night and drove twelve hours. When our kids woke up, we were in Destin and spent a day and night at the beach then drove the last 7 hours the next day. We've done that a few times and other times, we just drove during the day and stopped at night.
We love taking our car, we can head out to the parks and not wait for buses on late nights. We stop at the Target outside of WDW and stock up on groceries. Plus we can bring extra items and have room for the extra goodies we buy without worrying about checking it at the airport or security problems with liquids and all.
We've made it in 19 hrs from Chgo - leaving at 2am and stopping in Macon, GA for the night, the continuing in the am, arriving at 3. The drive was always fun until on the way homewe hit the dreaded I65 into 80/94 and the never ending horrible Chgo metropolitan traffic!:mad:
We always flew down, that is , until we both retired. I always wantd to drive, but while still working, time was too precious.
Now, both of us are over 300# and would need a third seat to fit.
I am the only driver, and not in great health, so we pace ourselves to take 2 1/2 days driving each way.
Our first road trip , we made the most of it. We stopped at Kings Dominion for a day, and then a day at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg. Then on to WDW for ten days, then another four days in Kissimmee to visit the non Disney places.
We had a cooler with drinks and sandwiches, and stopped whenever we wantd to.
Our last trip my husband and I drove from NJ, but stopped in SC on the way there (10hrs) and NC on the way back (10hrs). This time however we are giving a straight thru drive a try, so it should take us about 18hrs. We like it, because this way we have control of everything from how long it takes to get there and back, plus we don't always have to rely on property transportation or a rental.
If we were to drive straight through, it would be about 9 hrs. But we choose to spend the night in Ocala and then a leisurely drive the next day will put us at our resort by noon. We can drive and stay the night on the way down and back for around $400. If we were to fly, our cost would be over $1200 for the 3 of us.