Drive or fly

[adamkat]

Hey all. We are in the pre planning stage for our 15th anniversary next October (ya I know)
Trying to figure out if we can afford it so question :
Fly to MCO or
Drive down
Pros?
Cons?

TIA. Kat

 

[DisLiss]

For me a lot of that has to do with how long you'll be driving, where you'll be driving (I personally hate all of the major beltways on the East Coast headed down from the northern states to Florida. ) and how many hours you'll clock behind the wheel each day.

On the flying side, it depends on how long you'll drive to get to the airport, how busy is your chosen departure airport, how you feel about going through security, etc.

 

[mickeymum13]

Hi there! We are big fans of flying out of Buffalo to MCO. Only drive when we have our three teens with us as paying for five to fly is costly, even out of Buffalo. But when just hubs and I, we fly. Always becomes less than the cost of driving would and of course less stress and time wasted getting there. Southwest is our go to airline followed by Jetblue. Happy planning

 

[Mikey15]

Hey all. We are in the pre planning stage for our 15th anniversary next October (ya I know)
Trying to figure out if we can afford it so question :
Fly to MCO or
Drive down
Pros?
Cons?

TIA. Kat

Well, I wouldn't drive if I lived in Tuktoyaktuk. I might from where I live.

Guessing you're from GTA? Most Canadians who don't mention where they live seem to be

Is it just the two of you or kids involved too? Time savings flying is nice, but where it starts to get significantly more expensive than driving is 3+ plane tickets. A ~$300 US roundtrip flight out of your nearest US airport plus some cost for airport parking isn't really bad for two or three people for the convenience factor, but beyond that, the money-saver in me would start to come out. Helps if you have a close US airport available (we non-stop from Syracuse, which is closer than YYZ or YUL for us and not much farther than YOW).

 

[Brett Wyman]

8 hours is our max in the car. After that we fly.

 

[jcourtney]

Guessing you're from GTA? Most Canadians who don't mention where they live seem to be

 

[adamkat]

Hahaha. Yes

 

[adamkat]

Well, I wouldn't drive if I lived in Tuktoyaktuk. I might from where I live.

Guessing you're from GTA? Most Canadians who don't mention where they live seem to be

Is it just the two of you or kids involved too? Time savings flying is nice, but where it starts to get significantly more expensive than driving is 3+ plane tickets. A ~$300 US roundtrip flight out of your nearest US airport plus some cost for airport parking isn't really bad for two or three people for the convenience factor, but beyond that, the money-saver in me would start to come out. Helps if you have a close US airport available (we non-stop from Syracuse, which is closer than YYZ or YUL for us and not much farther than YOW).

Hahaha. Yes. There’s 4 of us. Depends what the prices are like when we book I guess.

 

[bankr63]

There is a fair bit more to this than just the cost. It will probably be more economical to drive for 4 people, but there are a lot of caveats because it is a loonnng drive. Note: we drive it regularly so I have a bias toward driving.
- Is EVERYONE in the party good with long drives? You will be in your vehicle for 24 hours. I love driving and could (and have) done the whole drive myself. DW isn't a good passenger, but is okay if I give her a fair share of the driving duties. I do have to stay in tune to her mood as well though - she has a breaking point after which we just have to be out of the car.
- Do you have the time to spare? Very few people will drive this in one shot, so you need to plan for at least 2 days with one overnight. Many people plan for 2 overnights. That is BOTH ways remember. Eats a fair bit out of your time in Orlando. Not too bad for a two week trip, but if you are giving up 4 days of a usual 9 day vacation that is a lot. Personally we generally leave right after work Friday, and then a very long Saturday drive to arrive around midnight. We depart Saturday at the crack of dawn for a mid-afternoon Sunday arrival. That gives us 6 full days on the ground in Orlando.
- Do you consider yourselves adventurers who live by "the trip is as much fun as the destination"? There is a lot of good exploring to be done as you work your way across the US. That does cut further into the Florida time, but can add a whole new dimension if you have the time to spare.
- How familiar are you with Orlando and Disney? If this is a first trip, I would fly. We flew our first few trips until we had the lay of the land and taste of everything that Central Florida offers (and that is a LOT). By the time we started driving, we had a manageable list of Orlando "must dos" for each trip, and the new discoveries were along the way (Shenandoah National Park, Luray Caverns, St Augustine FL, Savannah GA, etc.)

 

[Chickinvic]

Too long of a drive IMO and too much of my vacation time wasted. If I had weeks then I'd consider it, but I'm not spending that much of my time off driving to get there at this point in my life. Also, if something happens to the car on the way down that would totally derail things. Just too much to go wrong (from my point of view).

 

[mshanson3121]

We have done both, and there are pros/cons to both. We drove from New Brunswick, so about 28 hrs vs your 19 hours. Kids were 5 and 8. Driving saved us a LOT of money.

We took 3 days, got phenomenal hotel deals using hotelcoupons.com (didn't pay more than $65 US and the hotels were clean, comfy, had full hot breakfasts included and pools), packed lunches and just ate out for supper.

We all LOVED the drive down. We did the route 81/77 through the Virginia mountains. It was beautiful, and we stopped to tour the Shenandoah Caverns. Honestly it was just so neat to see everything as we drove down.

However, the drive home was a LOT harder. We were all tired, the anticipation was gone, and it was more of a "I just want to be home" feeling.

In hindsight, DH and I have said that if we were to do it again, we'd push it on the way there and get there in 2 days. Then on the way home, plan 3-4 days, and probably do some sight seeing, something to a) break it up so you're not driving so hard when tired and b) something to just keep the interest alive.

Since then I have flown down with the kids, and I have to say, we LOVED it so much more. Sooooo much easier, though I personally just love flying (take off is so fun ) That said - we had an easy flight experience without any hiccups or delays. So that colors our judgement. If I had to deal with the hassles of delays, cancelations etc... I might be telling you I enjoyed driving more. You definitely have more control driving. What I didn't like about flying was not having our own vehicle - I far prefer having my own transportation, and it was too much money to fly, and rent a car.

 

[michelb]

As has been mentioned, there's a lot of factors to consider :

1) How far are you from the nearest airport? How far are you from a US Airport with cheap flights to Orlando? How many people are flying? During the fall, you can often fly return from under $100USD/person
2) How long are you planning on staying in Florida and how much time do you have and how valuable is your time? Although it can be done from most cities in the Eastern half of Canada in 24 hours, for most people it's a 2 day trip there and back (although by the time you check-in, go through security, get your luggage, you're probably looking at 6-8 hours or more to fly direct - easily 12 if you have a connection) so that might be most of a day. Adding 2 days at both ends of your trip makes a 6 day trip into a 10 day trip. For us this is a small but not negligible issue as I don't have tons of time off.
3) Does anyone in your party have issues flying? Does anyone in your party mind spending 2 days in the car? Since we typically make the trip in our motor home, I do all the driving. I have no problems being on the road 12+ hours / day and driving 2 or 3 days straight. Our kids are okay with it (our youngest kind of hates it but they play video games and watch movies the whole time so he doesn't really mind it. our oldest loves it and will usually be perfectly happy looking out the window (even on the Interstate) and if he's not looking out the window, will gladly play video games. My wife hates it and is annoying the whole drive! If it wasn't for the convenience of having her on with her during the drive, I'd have her fly and pick her up at the airport.
4) Factor in all the costs? Driving means gas, hotels (can be quite cheap) and meals (likely significantly more than the hotel) but you have to factor in some long term maintenance cost as well (you'll be driving 5000 kms in all). But you might want to drive around Florida so if you drive, you don't need a rental car (probably $50-100USD per day).
5) Do you want to stop anywhere else along the way? For many tourists, Florida is the destination but there are tons of sights to see along the way. We typically really only care about Florida but we've stopped many times at many places (Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head, museums, aquariums and air shows along the way, we've often thought about stopping at amusement parks along the way but it's only happened once (Diggerland USA in NJ which our kids loved)


Our situation is someone unique in that we have a motor home and rather than leave it in Canada during the winter we drive it to Florida in the fall, leave it in storage there so that we can use it a few times during the winter (on oldest is in grade 9, our youngest is in grade 4 and we're not close to retirement). We typically make 3 or 4 trips to Florida between the Fall when we drive it there and the Spring when we drive it back. Our costs are also kind of different since 1) we are travelling in a motor home so we usually just stop overnight at Walmart along the way (this is actually a convenience thing since we have a campground membership so can often stop overnight for free but it's just more convenient to stop at Walmart) and we eat all our meals in the RV so no extra cost. The fuel costs are significant though (about $500-700 each way) which is more than we usually pay for flights. In all, we'll usually spend 6+ weeks per year in Florida so having the RV and our car there is very convenient (enough that we actually have a 3rd car that we leave in Florida over the winter simply because long term, it's cheaper than renting for 6 weeks.

 

[Pinkgurlshubby]

Like other poster mentioned, we have also done both the flying and driving. By the way all people have to do is put the curser over the person's icon and where they are from pops up. IF you are driving from Milton you have a lot of options other than flying out of Toronto. You can go to Hamilton, London, Detroit, Buffalo, all easy drive.
If you decide to drive, we check out the drive on Google maps first, open a word file and put a screen shot any point of interest like on ramps, exits, hotels, etc. We use hotel sites and book ahead so we know where we are stopping. For example from home we drive to Beckley and sleep then the next day drive the rest of the way.
Either flying or driving are both great experiences if you have a bit of time and decide to explore it a bit.

 

[adamkat]

Thank you for your thoughts!!!
Yes there are 4 of us going. We are used to being in a car as we drove to BC when we moved there 6 years ago and then again when we moved back to Ontario, so we do cars.
However I'm looking more so at the time, hubby wants to drive straight down from GTA area, which wouldn't be so bad, however I tend to fall asleep on car rides so not the best "co-pilot". Factor cost of gas, food, mechanical maintenance.

I am for flying within 5 hours (security, check-in, magic Express) we will be at our favorite place on earth. Boys love to fly and the price isn't too bad from what I have seen I may have convinced hubby to fly. So appreciate all your feedback.

 

[flyingjay]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but we are considering driving to Anaheim from Winnipeg. Has anyone ever done that? We are now a family of six (DW, DD9, DS7, DS4, DS1), so flying is getting more expensive. We've gone to Disneyland six times over the last five years and have flown each time. We absolutely love it there but want to try to get the costs down a bit by bringing our own vehicle. The older three kids are used to longer drives as we've driven to Jasper a few times during the summer.

Some specific questions I have:
Length of the drive
Route you take
Go straight or break it up between 2 or 3 days
Where you stop overnight
Sights to see on the drive

Any feedback on that drive would be appreciated.

 

[Chickinvic]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but we are considering driving to Anaheim from Winnipeg. Has anyone ever done that? We are now a family of six (DW, DD9, DS7, DS4, DS1), so flying is getting more expensive. We've gone to Disneyland six times over the last five years and have flown each time. We absolutely love it there but want to try to get the costs down a bit by bringing our own vehicle. The older three kids are used to longer drives as we've driven to Jasper a few times during the summer.

Some specific questions I have:
Length of the drive
Route you take
Go straight or break it up between 2 or 3 days
Where you stop overnight
Sights to see on the drive

Any feedback on that drive would be appreciated.

Long drive. I'd be exhausted by the time I got there. I'd honestly do anything in my power to fly instead. DL rocks, and I love it there. So much more than WDW. If I still lived in Victoria I would be there every year. Being in Ottawa makes it a bit more difficult to get there.

One thing nobody talks about, is what if something happens to your vehicle during the drive? That could also ruin your whole vacation. I would probably use a rental vehicle from a major company if I were even considering putting that kind of miles on. That way if something goes wrong, you can get a different car and be on your way a lot quicker (plus it isn't your own car being ruined and racking up the mileage).

 

[bankr63]

Personally, I've never worried about wear and tear. Highway miles are very gentle miles, and are very good for your car from time-to-time. My last SUV had oil-life, and the entire trip down and back would use less than 5% of the oil life for a 5,000km trip. We generally take our newest vehicle, and have it inspected prior to leaving, but if something were to go wrong with the car, we have CAA. If there was a major breakdown on the way down, we would probably make arrangements to have it fixed and rent a car for the remainder, picking up on the way back through. Just guessing here though, because in all our trips this has never happened. I suspect in reality it happens less than major flight delays or missed connections that can also cost you a day of your vacation time.

I buy cars that I enjoy driving; can't imagine leaving them at home to suffer some cheapo rental car. Heck we can't decide which one of ours to take this year; big and comfortable (and thirsty), or small and sporty (and sippy).

 

[Chickinvic]

Personally, I've never worried about wear and tear. Highway miles are very gentle miles, and are very good for your car from time-to-time. My last SUV had oil-life, and the entire trip down and back would use less than 5% of the oil life for a 5,000km trip. We generally take our newest vehicle, and have it inspected prior to leaving, but if something were to go wrong with the car, we have CAA. If there was a major breakdown on the way down, we would probably make arrangements to have it fixed and rent a car for the remainder, picking up on the way back through. Just guessing here though, because in all our trips this has never happened. I suspect in reality it happens less than major flight delays or missed connections that can also cost you a day of your vacation time.

I buy cars that I enjoy driving; can't imagine leaving them at home to suffer some cheapo rental car. Heck we can't decide which one of ours to take this year; big and comfortable (and thirsty), or small and sporty (and sippy).

I am the opposite. I rented a car when I drove from Ottawa to Halifax. I don't want to use my own car for long road trips if possible. My sister and her husband were stuck in the states for about a week once on a road trip waiting on a repair for her car. Money and time they had not planned on.

 

[mshanson3121]

One thing nobody talks about, is what if something happens to your vehicle during the drive? That could also ruin your whole vacation. I would probably use a rental vehicle from a major company if I were even considering putting that kind of miles on. That way if something goes wrong, you can get a different car and be on your way a lot quicker (plus it isn't your own car being ruined and racking up the mileage).

This is a good point. For us, we had CAA, so we figured we would just get a tow, and then rent a car for the rest of our trip, and we still had full warranty, too. So, repairs wouldn't really have set us back any.

 

[Juventus]

I've driven from Windsor to Kissimmee 5 years in a row during March Break...love it. There are 5 of us so that's $2500-$3000 in airfare vs. under $500 in gas: I look at it as someone paying me $2000+ to drive and I do all the driving: 1400km day 1 on the way down, and all in one day on the way home (though I plan on 2 days). Also I stay off site so I love having my own vehicle down there.

That being said, I have been going for 10-14 days each year: if I had a week or less I don't think I'd drive: that's a lot of driving for 5 days or less of actual vacation time.