The long ride there, Mi. to Mickey

[rae]

Hello all, we are driving from Upper Michigan to WDW in Dec. It is my DH, myself, and our 3 teens. My husband wants to drive straight through with the 2 of us trading off so the other can sleep.
We are planning to drive as far as his aunt’s house in Georgia spend the night and then the last 4 hours or so late in the afternoon the next day.

My questions are. Is it better to leave at 10pmish or 6amish? Has this driving all the way gone well for others or do you wish you had stayed half way?

Any words of advice would be great.

[ANG]

I think this depends on a few things. I'm terrible driving at night. The road reflections, lights, etc play tricks on my eyes and I'm not comfortable driving very far at night.

Also we have 2 very young kids. We've tried driving thru the night once and it was miserable the next day. You don't get a great night sleep in the car like you do in a bed. The kids were awake and ready to go the next day and we both felt exhausted. Having teens, this may not be a problem for you since they are self sufficient.

We live 14-15 hr from Orlando and will be stopped 2/3 of the way thru.

[MargaretMessler]

[QUOTE=rae;2313245]Is it better to leave at 10pmish or 6amish? Has this driving all the way gone well for others or do you wish you had stayed half way?
QUOTE]

I would say it depends on which timeframe has you going through any mayor cities at non rush hours. Map it out both ways to check and then make your decision.

As for being exhausted that first day with kids ready to run (if you drive overnight), plan for something low key like DTD or resort playgrounds/pools.

[eeyoremom]

We also live in Mi, near Kalamazoo. We;ve been to WDW about 20 times,(father use to have winter home in that area). We drove straight thru 2 or 3 times, and always ended up regretting it. You arrive very tired and lose a day anyway. Kentucky and Tenn have some very inexpensive motels to crash for just a few hours, bet a shower and just plain get out of the vehicle. As far as when to leave-it never works to wait around to leave, We have left at various times of day. We also have driven with 4 kids, various ages, now with grandkids. Have a great time no matter how you get there!!!

[figgie]

I agree, it doesn't work for everyone to get there tired and cranky. When in Dec are you coming? Because the closer you get to Christmas week, the worse the traffic can get. My kids drove down a couple of times and really hit bumper to bumper traffic, even in the normal off hours, that added hours to their trip. Not a good way to start off their visit for sure! There is a lot of road construction going on in Florida right now that will make the trip better in the future with extra added lanes but most will not be done this year. Good luck! I don't envy you this drive, I would always rather fly myself, just my choice...:plane:

[Jeri]

We have driven from Minnesota a few times, and we always leave around 4 or 5 in the evening on a Friday, drive all night and through the next day. We stop to eat & stretch our legs, and then around 4 or so on Saturday we are in Valdosta, GA and stay over night, eat breakfast and are on the road again by 8 at the latest. We usually arrive at Disney by 11 or noon on Sunday.
That day we just hang out at the resort, explore, take pictures, eat and go to bed early.

I think if you have older kids your plan sounds fine.
I should add, our kids have been 15 months & 7, and 4 &10, and 7 & 13 the 3 times we have done these trips. We are about to do it again next October with a 2 1/2 yr old, 10 yr old and 16 yr old.

[mommaoftwins+1]

We are going to be driving as well in Aug 2013 with 3 kids....they will be 7,4, and 4. We are planning to leave early on Friday morning and drive through to Valdosta, stop over and sleep/shower and head back out Sat morning by 8. Where are the cleanest hotels on the way, budget friendly please? Also any suggestions for activities in the car to help pass the time? I'm starting to put together goodie bags for each child as I find things on clearance. Any specific things that worked really well for you? This is our first trip ever to meet the mouse, so we are SO excited!!:mickey:

[goofygonewild]

We will be driving straight through from Iowa in May and are planning on leaving right after work at 6:00. My wife & I will switch off driving and the kids can sleep as needed. The return trip which I absolutely dread will include 2 overnight stays to break up the trip. We will be so excited on the way down that we probably wouldn't sleep much anyway if we were to stop. I say hit the road as soon as possible and go. You can always adjust on the fly if needed.

[Aurora]

We are going to be driving as well in Aug 2013 with 3 kids....they will be 7,4, and 4. We are planning to leave early on Friday morning and drive through to Valdosta, stop over and sleep/shower and head back out Sat morning by 8. Where are the cleanest hotels on the way, budget friendly please? Also any suggestions for activities in the car to help pass the time? I'm starting to put together goodie bags for each child as I find things on clearance. Any specific things that worked really well for you? This is our first trip ever to meet the mouse, so we are SO excited!!:mickey:


Hello all, we are driving from Upper Michigan to WDW in Dec. It is my DH, myself, and our 3 teens. My husband wants to drive straight through with the 2 of us trading off so the other can sleep.
We are planning to drive as far as his aunt’s house in Georgia spend the night and then the last 4 hours or so late in the afternoon the next day.

My questions are. Is it better to leave at 10pmish or 6amish? Has this driving all the way gone well for others or do you wish you had stayed half way?

Any words of advice would be great.

Good luck to both of you on your journeys! We've done it a couple of times with kids of all ages.

We never drive straight through, for the reasons others have mentioned. We might try it when our oldest kids are able to help with the driving, but not until we have more than two drivers. We also build in some time for sightseeing along the way -- since we stay over each way, we like to take a few hours to explore an interesting spot on the route.

When I took family trips with my parents, and my sister and I were old enough to drive, it went a lot easier. Having those extra drivers makes a big difference, even if it's just for a couple of hours at a time.

Momma of twins, with your kids being so young, I would add on lots of time for bathroom breaks and leg stretches.

When my big kids were 7 and 5, we had books on tape to listen to in the car, individual CD players with headphones for each of them to listen to their own music choices, activity books, car games, color wonder markers and paper, etch-a-sketches, etc. We had all their activity books and art stuff in a tote bag for each of them.

On that trip, we brought along a screen to watch movies in the car, but we didn't use it either way!

On our last trip, our kids were 15, 12 and 6. They still had activity books and books to read, but we also had a screen that we could watch movies together, and they had iPods.

For both car rides we had "family" time and "alone" time. Alone time was the only time they could use their headphones. Family time we either played music, watched a movie, played car games or just talked.

Re: hotels, we always had good luck with the Hampton Inn chain. The hotels are clean and inexpensive, and a full breakfast is included in the morning.

We love road trips!

[Scott C]

We are going to be driving as well in Aug 2013 with 3 kids....they will be 7,4, and 4. We are planning to leave early on Friday morning and drive through to Valdosta, stop over and sleep/shower and head back out Sat morning by 8. Where are the cleanest hotels on the way, budget friendly please? Also any suggestions for activities in the car to help pass the time? I'm starting to put together goodie bags for each child as I find things on clearance. Any specific things that worked really well for you? This is our first trip ever to meet the mouse, so we are SO excited!!:mickey:

I have really enjoyed my stay at the Hampton Inn at Valdosta/Lake Park -- I think it is at exit 5

Thanks
Scott C

[Janmac]

I think it's important to consider whether you are morning people or night owls. I'm a morning person, my brain pretty well turns to mush about 5 pm. When we drive to Disney, we leave early - maybe even as early as 4 am. We drive as far as Auburn, Alabama, which is about a 14 hour drive. We get going again in the morning by 5 am and are usually at our resort about 2 pm. We don't feel tired but we usually only plan non-park stuff for our first evening at Disney.

When we leave Disney, we reverse the trip, departing about 1 or 2 pm, driving to Auburn for overnight, leaving about 5 am the next morning and arriving home that evening.

This plan allows us to miss rush hour traffic in both Memphis and Birmingham.

We also drive long days to DD's house (near Duluth) and to relatives in either Texas or Louisiana. We have noticed that there is a certain time after which we're just all tired of being in the vehicle - that time is between 6 pm and 8 pm. And it doesn't seem to matter whether we started our trip at 4 am or noon. We're just done.

Jan

[rae]

Thanks for the help. I (with your help) got the DH to agree to do it in 2 days!!!!!!

[CuteAsMinnie]

When we drive from Chgo, we would leave at 2am ish, drive to Macon, GA, at 7:00pm ish and then leave after bkfst to reach WDW by around 1:00pm.

This worked well for us.

Good luck!:party:

[BigRedDad]

It depends on what is comfortable for you. I prefer driving while my DW and DD are asleep. I hate to ride in a car and I am usually the only driver. The last time we drove we left about midnight. DD decided not to sleep and spent the entire night talking to me for 6 hours. We got to Universal at about 7AM, checked in and at the park at 8AM. We were done at the park at about 1PM. DW and DD fell asleep at the pool while we waited for the room to get ready. I had a few drinks at the bar and we took a big nap when the room was ready.

The one main word of advice is not to drive at night unless you are comfortable with it and not tired. If you are tired, you will doze off. It only takes 1s to be done. Yes, there are no cars, but there are turns, deer, and boredom that can cause you to lose focus quickly.

[MyDisneyworld]

We are also from Michigan and always stop over night in Kennessaw, GA just north of Atlanta on the way down. I like to be well rested when I get there and not a zombie from lack of sleep. On the return trip we have been driving straight through with a few hour nap at a rest area but think we will switch to spending the night again.

[Chaos]

I'm a little late, but we've made a lot of long drives from NC to Michigan (I'm from Holland and DH is from the thumb).

We usually make the trip in one day (we are closer than Disney but it still takes about 13 hours). We start out at 5 or 6 am - we usually get breakfast on the way out of town. DD is usually great about amusing herself and sleeping a lot. We just make sure she has toys and books.

If we are traveling in the summer, we stop for food at rest stops. We got a cooler that plugs into a cigerratte outlet (we have one in the bad of our SUV) so we just bring sandwich fixings. It's much cheaper and it gives DD a chance to run around the rest area.