Driving from South Texas!!

[Vallie]

Ok, so my husband and I will be booking our Thanksgiving trip this week. We've priced and priced and priced some more when it came to vacation packages and seemed to find the same results each time... airfare is just crazy expensive right now!! My son and I have flown our previous two times to Disney and now that I've remarried and have 3 step children... finding airfare at a reasonable price just doesn't seem like it's going to happen!

So we talked about the one thing that scares me the most when traveling with so many kids... a ROAD TRIP We've mapped it out and it seems like we will be in the car for about 19 hours!!

My questions to all of you wonderful people are... have any of you driven this far and long to get to Disney? The kids will be 13, 12 and 8 (his youngest child won't be coming because her mother will not let her); and would you recommend driving straight through or stopping?

[Tink#64]

Vallie! I completely understand your concerns! We flew our first 4 trips to WDW and due to the huge increase in airfare, I can't justify the expense, so we've driven our last 3 trips. It's about 14+ hours including pit stops for us and I would NEVER drive straight through! My DS's are now 15 & 17 & they are way better car riders than I! While I enjoy our road trips, I get restless if I'm in the car more than about 9 hours! We try to drive more than half way on the first leg of the trip, preferably leaving only 4 - 5 hours for arrival day so we can arrive and still enjoy some of our day.

DS's have always been great travelers, and in our van they have always kept themselves occupied with movies on the dvd players, I usually buy a couple of new movies before leaving home! Handheld video games are great as are Ipods! I pack lots of snacks & drinks for the trip & we usually stop about every 2 hours so everyone can get out & stretch their legs! I'm always on a mission - I look for rest stops & declare a 5 minute break for whatever the needs are & then back in & away we go! Doesn't eat into our travel time too much, but the breaks & stretches seem to help us all not to get too restless! Also we take pics of DS's with the state signs at the rest stops near the State lines - great for the photo albums!

Plan for what you know will occupy & entertain your kiddos & you'll do fine!

[BuddyL4]

Our last trip in 2009 we drove from Niagara Falls, approx. 19 hours as well. We made it as far as Savanah and decided to pull over for the night. This left us about 5 hours left when we got up and were more refreshed. I also set up a hotel in Orlando outside Disney for 1 night so we had a day to recharge and build up the excitement. In August the family is going again but the new twist will be traveling with my 2 year old Grandson as well. He travels well so far and we just came back from a trip to see his Great Grandparents (only 2.5 hours). I guess the key is leave yourself some flexability with time and allow for stretch breaks along the way.

[MNNHFLTX]

We drove the same route you would be taking last week (not to WDW though, but over to the central east coast of Florida). If the traffic is running well it could take you as little as 16 hours. That said, we hit stop-and-go traffic quite a bit between Lafayette and Baton Rouge--not sure why, since we didn't see any car wrecks or even construction until we got to Baton Rouge. We chose to stop midway in the Mobile area, Daphne to be exact. There's a La Quinta there that is quite nice and relatively inexpensive.

If you do want to drive straight through, I would suggest starting out in the evening, around 7 pm and then driving through the night. That way the kids could sleep part of the trip and you would arrive early afternoon.

[Ms. Mode]

We have driven all except one trip to WDW; it takes us about 14 hours from home. We have tried stopping for the night and driving straight through; both work.

On our first trip our DD was 13 years old; she took her iPod and portable DVD player and we didn't hear a peep out of her. That set the course for every trip thereafter. Actually, she loves the road trip so much that we do it just because she wants too! The only time we flew was when she wasn't with us.

[Vallie]

Luckily our SUV has a nice entertainment system in it with tv and dvd player and wireless headphones so my husband and I don't have to listen to what the kids decide to watch.

I think I'm liking the stopping to sleep. We are probably going to leave when the kids get out of school on Friday sometime around 7pm, drive through the night so they can sleep. My husband was saying he'd like to get to Florida and stop somewhere about 5 hours away from Disney.

We'll get a little taste of half the drive when we have to drive to Baton Rouge this summer for my son's World Series. I guess that'll be something to look forward to!

Thank you all for your responses. I guess we have planning to do now!!