What time do you leave the New York Area to avoid rush hours when driving to Disney?

[MR.MIKE]

What day of the week and what time?

Last time i left at 11pm... now i want to leave during the day but dont want to hit rush hour in nyc, washington dc, virginia, and all.

any help?

[mickey98]

mr. mike..
we do this all the time..we have tried all times to leave to avoid traffic..try this..leave nyc about 7:00 p.m...get a good drive under your belt until about 3-4 a.m. find a rest stop..get a few hrs sleep..get up get going.makes trip seem faster..
graemlins/muscles.gif

[KristenNatalya]

Hahaha....I live on Long Island and go to school in Virginia, so I understand how hard it is to avoid rush hour traffic. :rolleyes: I think your best bet is to get out of the New York area around 4:30 or 5am, any time after that and you'll hit traffic in New York and New Jersey. I don't know how you'd avoid rush hour around Washington D.C. though, unless you found some way to avoid I-95. Good luck!

[Mickey for President]

My family lives in NJ and frequently drives to visit us here in FL. My Dad is a truck driver and will only leave at night 7pm being the earliest as to avoid traffic in all of the above mentioned places. They drive straight thru and it usually takes 19 hours which includes gas/restroom/food breaks. He doesn't know of a morning time to leave to miss traffic or he would do it. smile.gif

[BelleCiavo]

Hi Mike,

We live in NJ outside of Philadelphia (exit 3 NJ Turnpike) and it takes us 16 1/2 hours to get to WDW including breaks. We leave at 3:00 AM, get through Washington at 5:30 AM and then Richmond by 7AM. We keep going until we get into traffic/8:30 and then take a break. We've even left as late as 4:30 AM. Wash DC was starting to build up but not too bad (7 AM).
You are about 1 1/2 - 2 hrs behind us I think. I wouldn't leave any later than 3 - 3:30 AM.

As far as the best day goes, that depends. Summer travel is easier during the week IMHO because no school, vacations (including politicians!) so 95 isn't as bad. I think 95 is a nightmare in Maryland on weekends in the summer. :eek:

Have Fun! graemlins/mickey.gif

[MR.MIKE]

Thanks, everyone

Before considering traffic, my ideal was to leave around 10 am, drive for 12 hours, include 2 more hours for breaks and stop around midnight. The next day i'd have about 6 hours left to drive.


Now i dont know...

I drove straight last time for about 17 hours if i left at 3am i wouldnt want to stop knowing i could be there by 10 pm

Maybe i'll stop somewhere around Atlanta.. i hear that is a very nice city and we could spen the evening seeing it .

Thanks again. smile.gif

[jefftm]

Hi are you driving straight through or stopping overnight? We drove last year and left Sunday at 6:00 am from Long Island so that we could avoid the traffic both in N.Y. and Washington. It worked O.K. then we stopped in South Carolina and finished up the next day. Have Fun

[shecky66]

Besides NYC, the biggest hurdle is DC. Ideally, you should try to get past there by 7:30 am and you'll have smooth sailing. Another problem area most people overlook is the section of the Jersey turnpike where 6 lanes converge into 3 (I think around Exit 9 or 8). We've been stuck there countless times. We've done the drive three times from Staten Island. Our best trip time was when we left at 4:00 am and were in northern Virginia past DC by 8:45 am. There was traffic around DC but it moved. If you plan on one overnight, Savannah, is a very nice stop, plenty of nice newer hotels and restaurents right at the exit. Plus your trip is 3/4 done on the first day. I don't like to split it up evenly. My theory is to push yourself the first day and have a shorter ride the second day. We've reached Savannah by 6:00 pm which is a nice time to stop because it leaves plenty of time to eat, to take a jump in the hotel pool and still get to bed at a reasonable hour so that you can get up early the next morning. From there, the drive to WDW is just under 5 hours. We drove straight home once, left WDW at 6:30 am and made it home by 1:30 am. One suggestion if you plan on driving straight through is to plan your trip so that you reach your final destination around dinner time. If your last few driving hours are later when its dark, you may feel like you should be in bed already. Good luck. We actually had fun. PS - Do yourself a favor. If you're driving with kids, hook up a TV in your car. The time will pass much quicker for them and there will be less complaining.

[princess jasmine's sis]

My family and I always left around 5am leaving from the Smithtown/Hauppauge area on Long Island. We would miss most of the traffic. (the Belt Parkway is the worst!!) We would stop either in South Carolina or Georgia (I'm remembering Dillon as being one of the places we've stopped but I can't remember if that was going down or coming back up) and get to Orlando around 2-3pm the next day.

[ May 29, 2003, 04:17 PM: Message edited by: princess jasmine's sis ]

[MR.MIKE]

Okay...looks like 3:30am it is..

Thanks for all the advice..

And i meant to say savannah...didn't realize until i reread my post that i wrote atlanta.

mike

[BBN11]

We live in Jackson, NJ (Ocean County) and Map Quest came up with 17 1/2 hours to Orlando. We are doing it in 2 days. My plan is to leave about 4am drive about 12 hours the first day.
Crash for the night by 7pm (have dinner etc.) and leave the next morning early hopefully gettin us to WDW (w/stop for lunch etc.) no later than 3pm. I would say for L.I. about 3am and you can follow about the same plan as us if you want to do it in 2 days.
We have small children and I would rather arrive to WDW fresh and ready to have fun then punch drunk from driving and being in the car so long.

Have a great trip graemlins/thumbsup.gif