Drive 17 hours straight or stop over night?

[donac]

We always drive during the day. I am so afraid of one of us falling asleep durig the night that we never do it. My sister and her family do but we can't do it.

The traffic around DC always kills us. Last time we left jersey at 5:30 in the morning. We got to Baltimore by 9 am but it took us until 3 in the afternoon to get to NC. We were determined to get some distance so we drove until 9:30 to get to the GA/Fl border. It was annoying because there was nothing we could do about it. The next morning we were up early and it wasn't too bad of a ride to DW.

Good luck. I agree with stopping at a rest area and picking up one of those books with all the discounts. With a cell phone you could calll from the car when you decide how far you want to drive that day.

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

We drive straight through from Rochester, NY, however thast is taking turns driving/sleeping and if at any point we don't feel awake, we will stop and sleep at a rest area. DH and I do get in feeling a little icky, but we spend that first day at the pool, have dinner and get everyone showered and to bed early and ready to go early the next day. We would be too cranky to do a park that first day. But, I like to unpack and the kids think of the pool as much fun as going into the parks (well, close anyway) so it gets us enjoying our vacation early and relaxing.

 

[Disney Princess Jenn]

We are in Central Ohio and are planning on driving the 15 or so hours when we take our trip next September. The Grand Plan is to leave our house around 4 pm, drive for about 2 hours, stop and have dinner, drive 3-4 more hours, stop somewhere so everyone can pee and put on jammies. When we get back in the car, it's bedtime! Everyone will have their own pillow and blanket, everyone will have their own space--time to sleep! Then my husband and I will trade off driving and sleeping (hopefully not doing both at the same time ) until we get there the next morning.

 

[GrumpyDad1974]

If you can safely drive at night, I highly recommend it. I work 3rd shift, so its a little easier everyone sleeps, no bathroom breaks and little traffic. Our trips to Disney is 9 hrs, we leave at midnight, get there 1st thing, I'm a little grumpy but everyone else is ok. Our trips back to New England our 14+- hours, we leave at 6pm and get there 1st thing in the morning. I would power through the 17 hour ride.

 

[Debbie7452]

We have done it both ways...

Short story...drove straight through, 18 hours(from Houston,TX)= tired grouchy parents, bad Disney trip

2nd Disney trip...stop in Destin on the way= Happy, happy Disney trip

It made a HUGE difference for us in how our trip went and I'm not exagerating. DH drives big trucks for his job sometimes so it wasn't just the driver. Nobody really "rests" well when their in a car and moving.

If you have to do it, the first day has to be a rest day, so it is wasted anyway.

 

[Maliki2]

We did a drive from Vermont to Disney. Was about 26 hours with the stops. On the way down we stopped once which was tough enough. But since wifey ended up mooching me into staying two more nights than planned I drove straight through on the way back with a 2 year old! NEVER again! We plan on driving this year but splitting it up 8 hours a day or so. Id never do a long drive like that again!

 

[MyPeanut&Bug]

OP, we also drove from Northeast Ohio last year. I was so worried about how bad the drive would be but it worked out wonderfully. Our kids were 4.5 years old and a month away from 3 years old at the time. We left about 12:30am and drove to Savannah, GA. (With stops for meals/bathroom/traffic/etc, we got into Savannah about 3-4pm, if memory serves. Stayed overnight, hit the road by 9am the next morning and were to Disney around 1pm or so. It was wonderful - kids were awesome travelers. I woke them up to get into the car and they stayed awake for an hour or so and then fell back to sleep for probably 6-7 hours. From that point on, awake times were fine with the big activity bags I had packed them, portable DVD player, stopping for meals or 15 minutes to just run around, etc. I hope your drive goes as smoothly! I wouldn't hesitate to drive again but would most definitely break it up with an overnight stay - we woke up nice and rested the next morning and ready for a short drive to Disney!

 

[Ariel8676]

I haven't read the other responses..but we are in NJ and we drive to WDW a lot and with 4 kids it can be tricky..lol. We always leave around 9pm, we get most of the ride done while the kids are asleep and less traffic. Oh and we drive straight through, stopping for gas/bathroom/food obviously

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We drive about 18 hours too. I've done both. Our kids are excellent travelers. I highly, highly


HIGHLY

recommend stopping. Did I say STOP!! yet?


Ahem. Well.
We start at 4 am. The kids sleep the night before in cozy clothes, and trundle sleepily into the van with their blankies and pillows.

Around 8 am we stop for doughnuts and coffee.

Around 12 noon we get go to a grocery store and buy some sandwich stuff. We play hide and seek and jump rope at a handy park or rest stop.

Around 3 pm we start to stop at the welcome centers, picking up the hotel flyers to see who has a pool, wi-fi and a decent price. Complimentary bfast is a plus too.

DH decides to stop around 5 to 6 pm. We swim. We eat. We chortle madly about Disney. We sleep. We get up about 7 am. Have breakfast, maybe swim again, and head out.

The advantages of this system is that DH doesn't get into a driving obsession and feel the need to keep going. We're allowed out every couple hours to pee. Our knees don't feel like they'll never straighten again. No one threatens to kill the children within their earshot. We're all still feeling happy about Disney and going together the next day. No one cries.

However, my experience with traveling straight through...

Kids are too excited to sleep much on the way down.
Kids are so excited they are bored and bouncy, shrill and shreeky.
Kids are given snacks and drinks to shut them up.
Kids have to pee.
Driver becomes exasperated with amount of stopping.
Driver needs to stop in unfamiliar places in the middle of the night for peeing.
Driver gets on wrong road, or the right road going the wrong way. Or the right road going the right way, but it's so blasted DARK in North Carolina at night, who KNOWS where you are anyway!!! Ahem.

So, after escaping the military school grounds, you get back on the interstate. Only to keep going. And going. And going.


Children begin to moan uncontrollably with despair. Oh wait, that was me.


By the time you get to Disney, you are fried. Beyond exhausted. I was awake the one time we did it for over 38 hours. Our shirts all read "We're too excited to sleep!" I was. I was not a nice woman, however.

We drove straight through with two drivers, two elementary school kids, and 9 high school seniors. And me. I was shotgun the whole time. I kept the drivers awake. I plugged the various ipods in to the cassette adaptor, navigated, and interpreted the various shrieks and moans into intelligible commands for the driver, "I need to pee." "I need to get out NOW." "If we don't stop right NOW I'm going to puke." "Even if we do stop NOW, I'll puke, so stop NOW so I can do it outside."

Did I mention that my daughter and son developed strep while in Disney on that trip? On the way home I sat behind the drivers, on a short bench seat. My knees never unbent. Everytime I started to drift off, my head would sag, causing my neck to spasm and snap me back to wakefulness. DS just leaned on me and was sad. DD puked in every state on the way home except Maryland and Pennsylvania. In the middle of the night. In the dark on I95. Stumbling onto the shoulder of the highway in the dark. Puking helplessly. Couple times she tumbled down the side of the road into the ditch. Only once did I step on a fire ant hill in my sandals while trying to help her.

DH offered to stop for the night with only 4 hours to go, but we were all so numb with despair, illness, and exhaustion that we just stared at him in horror. Prolong this agony? PLEASE just get us HOME!

I do not recommend driving straight through with children. Trust me when I say that if you decide to do so anyway, I'll pray for you.

Thanks! This reminds me again why I'd rather pay more to fly. Any drive more than 6 hrs is torture for us. ymmv.

 

[Indiana Rose Lee]

Unless you are a lover of all things Southern California, I'd head to WDW. I love a so cal vacation, but can only do a couple of days at DL, and a day at Universal. The rest is spent on the beach, with maybe a trip to San Diego to Sea World and the Zoo.

Either direction is a winner, though!

 

[Juliee8]

We drive straight thru, and wouldn't do it any other way. I will say that is does depend on the kids and how you plan the drive, which has taken some planning and changing around a little over our trips. We usually leave around 8PM. We feed the kids dinner at home like normal and do bathtime and then have them dress in comfy traveling clothes. Once we get in the car, they usually watch a movie and then they are asleep by 10PM. When they wake up in the morning we always stop someplace for a nice breakfast and let them get out of the car to stretch. Dh & I also take turns driving. Dh works the day we leave, and I take the day off. While the kids are at school I sleep, then dh starts out driving and when he gets tired then I take over. I know that it's not for everyone, but it works great for us.

 

[Ariel8676]

Driving isn't that bad..i actually love to drive and so do my kids..they would rather drive 18 hours to WDW than fly. I love the extra family time we get and yes its not for everyone, but its not the end of the world, most horrible experience either if you have to or want to. My kids do not need food and snacks to "shut them up", they get what they need because they are hungry or need to snack. They bring movies and books and their DSI's and we like to play games. When we drive, like i said in my last post, we leave around 9pm (about an hour after their bedtime) and they fall asleep shortly after we begin...throughout the night when we stop for gas i will wake them to use the restroom, and stretch. Then we will stop for a nice breakfast when they wake up around 8ish (usually Cracker Barrel, their favorite)and stetch for a bit and keep going.
My DH and i take turns driving and we are not fried when we get to WDW, tired yes, but not enough to keep us from the parks..lol If the kids are up to it we go, if not we hang in the pool.
I think the main thing is not to stress about the little things..be thankful that you can take your family on a nice trip and cherish the time you have to spend as a family!

 

[RH22]

When we went in May of 2008, our daughter was almost 4. We left from the in-law's house at about 8PM and drove straight through, arriving at WDW at about 1PM. She was a trooper, falling asleep somewhere in Delaware and waking up in South Carolina. She moaned and groaned a little bit though...not sure if she was sore or if she was having dreams. She didn't complain about anything once she woke up though. We plan to do the drive again sometime in 2011 with our then-to-be 7 year old and our 4 year old son.

I'm what you would probably call an "idiot". I planned to drive through the night and after breakfast, sleep while my wife drove. Once we stopped for breakfast though, I felt recharged and wound up driving the whole way myself. Would I recommend to any right minded person? No. But it worked for me.

 

[stsomewhere]

If we decide to drive straight thru , we leave at 3am. The kids will sleep for a while in the morning. Otherwise, we will stop and spend the night.

 

[kimsuenew]

I need some advice from veteran travelers!! Here's my "issue" do we leave (we live in Northeast Ohio) for our FIRST FAMILY DISNEY TRIP at 6:00 AM and drive till 7:00pm and sleep overnight somewhere OR do we leave at 4:00pm and drive straight thru?????

I'm thinking the best way to travel with 3 kids (7, 6, 2) is to leave at 4pm and hopefully they will sleep most of the way there (or at least a big chunk of the time). DH is a police officer who works midnights so the driving during the night isn't an issue.

Although he prefers to leave in the morning, travel all day get a hotel and sleep, then get up and travel MORE. My thinking is then thats two days of traveling with little ones vs. getting it all done in one shot.

HELP! Any suggestions or advice about good or bad experiences would be very much appreciated!!!

Hi! We are in Ohio as well!

We always drive straight through there and "just about" straight through home (by that I mean on our last day, we check out of our Disney Resort, load the car, close a park, drive just into Georgia from Florida that night, get a good nights sleep at an affordable hotel with breakfast included, and drive straight back home)!

It's a long ride but it's primarily I-75 straight and it is not a tough, mountainess trek.

Enjoy yourself!