Traveling 95S to WDW

[mickeyluv]

We will be driving from PA to WDW for the first time this summer. Does anyone have any suggestions for the drive? We will be leaving home on a Sunday, how is the traffic in the DC area on the weekend? Any tips would be appreciated.

[doombuggygal]

If you can, leave in the afternoon and drive straight through the night. That is what we do when we drive and it always works out well, no traffic @ night. We drive from Southern Delaware and it takes us about 16 hours.

[DizneyFreak2002]

I drive all the time, from NJ... I take 95 down the entire way... Never hit traffic in DC on the weekends.. However, Virginia can be a mess with traffic any time of the day...

[chefmickey3]

This will be our third summer driving from Philly to Disney. We travel with three young children so it works best for us to leave at 5am. We are in Savannah, GA (great Best Western off exit 93) by dinnertime. We then get up again around 5am and are in the parks by noon. The boys often go back to sleep once we are on the road. Coming home we stay at a Best Western in Fayetteville, NC, so it is not too far to home. We do not hit any traffic in DC leaving at that time and on the weekend.

I prefer driving to flying anytime. I keep the control of our schedule not surrendering it to the airlines. Plus, we pack tons of water and snacks to save money in Disney. You send me a PM if you want more tips.

[dizneefan67]

I have driven this route MANY time when I worked at WDW. Here is what I did...I left at midnight of the day i was planning to leave and drive 81S to 64EStaunton, VA, then pick up 95S at Richmond and head straight to I4W to SR 535 exit. The traffic is very sparse suring the night driving and picks up a little in the daytime, but by then you are so far away from PA that you really don' mind or care!:thumbsup:
I usually drive thru the night and day and get to the hotel around 6pm the next day. Another thing that I started to do is to drive 4 hours at a time then stop, gas up, get a snack or eat, walk around for 30 minutes to revive for the next 4 hour leg of the trip. I have the places that I stop at memorized to a T and it works better than driving withut stopping at all.
I have not driven to DC YET to pick up 95S, but I would imagine it wouldn't be much different.

The places I stop are:
-Route 64E, Mcdonalds/exxon on right on hill
-After Richmond, VA
-Emporia, VA
-South of the Border, SC/NC border
-Savannah, GA exit truckstop
-Jacksonville/Daytona, FL befoer I get on to
I4W
-After I get to motel, then I go gas up eat
Then on the way home I stop at the same locations or as nearest as I can get!

Hope this helps, have a great trip! Whwere in PA are you leaving from? I am in Chambersburg.

Will:mickey:

[imjoyful2]

Great to see this thread as we are most likely considering driving from Pa in Sept! :thumbsup: We are in Lancaster County. Being that there are 6 of us, flying isn't cheap. I will keep my eye on this thread as we could use any tips possible. We've done lots of traveling (including cruising) but never drove this far.

[wjrhw]

We've been driving from eastern PA for years now. The first couple of trips we took 95S and I thought the traffic was too stressful.

I read a suggestion to take 81S to 77S to 26W to 95S. It may sound sound more complicated, but it only added 30 miles to our trip and the places to stop and traffic congestion are much, much better. We will be taking this route for the 3rd time this year alone in August.

The past January we took 95N to go home. I wanted to see if it was as bad as I remember and I decided that I won't be doing that again.

Check out the route on google maps and you can see the difference in distance. For the person from Lancaster, this is definitely a better route.

[wdwfansince75]

Everytime this comes up, I pop in there with the suggestion of 78-81-77-26-95-4.....DW and I are from Bangor and Saylorsburg, and have relatives in that area...DD#1 and family live in Harleysville....and DDiL#1 is originally from Wind Gap....When any of us visit, we use 85-77-81-78....Never have delays, much prettier views....and usually average well over 60, even with frequent stops at Cracker Barrel and Sheetz. My usual advise is anyone north of I-78 will save time using 81.

[wjrhw]

Everytime this comes up, I pop in there with the suggestion of 78-81-77-26-95-4.....DW and I are from Bangor and Saylorsburg, and have relatives in that area...DD#1 and family live in Harleysville....and DDiL#1 is originally from Wind Gap....When any of us visit, we use 85-77-81-78....Never have delays, much prettier views....and usually average well over 60, even with frequent stops at Cracker Barrel and Sheetz. My usual advise is anyone north of I-78 will save time using 81.

I think your post is what had me try this way the first time. Thank you so much.

[wdwfansince75]

wjrhw....Glad my tip helped....Still have great memories of Easton....DD#2 was born at Easton Hosp while I was flying in Southeast Asia....Before that, DW worked at Easton Hospital...our dates included days and evenings at Bushkill Park...And we used to go the the fast food place across 115 from Easton Airport, to get Pizza Burgers....
Even further back, in the 1890's, my grandfather traveled from Brooklyn, NY to work with Edison as a lineman when they first ran electricity up the Deleware and Lehigh Rivers, all the way up to Mauch Chunk...well before anyone heard of Jim Thorpe.

[mickeyluv]

Thanks so much for all the help! I can't believe people are talking about Easton, our hometown, on Intercot. It really is a small world!

[imaprincess!]

I have never driven, so please let me know how it goes. I'm thinking of trying it one day. We are in Maryland (about 1/2 hour south of Lancaster, PA), so we would take 95 as well. We are going to the OBX in July and will be driving on 95 on a weekend. Last year, we left at 5am to avoid traffic. I don't think D.C. is the problem on a weekend -- as another post wrote, it's Virginia that gets tangled. We once went to Williamsburg and one of the tour guides there told us that apparently they lumped many of the exits together so traffic gets bottled up from people entering/exiting, then traffic opens up and you're left wondering what the jam was from when there was no accident or lane closings. Don't know for sure if that's true, but that was the explanation from a VA resident!