We drove from Wilm. DE last August. On the way down we left at 5 am and stopped about 10 p.m. It was such an easy trip!! THe next day were only about 1 1/2 hours from Disney. On the way home we drove straight thru, leaving at 11 am, arriving home at 3- 3:30 am.
I never felt we were too tired to drive. We took turns sleeping and it was a very easy trip. We were tired the day after we got home, but did not notice as much as we would have if we would have been at Disney. We would do this trip again in a minute, in fact we plan to drive down once a year in the summer from now on.
The things we did to enjoy this trip included stopping every 2 hours, for a restroom break and to stretch our legs, this is something we would NEVER do on a shorter ( 6 hour ) trip, but worked so great on this trip, especially with the easy on/ easy off on the I-95 route. We have a suburban and each time we stopped we would switch where we sat, this helped keep things fresh. We took car snacks and drinks, we bought a plug in cooler and a tv/vcr. I bought a spliter at Radio Shack and we used head phones to listen to the tv. We played car games and talked. Every hour we would write down where we were- and the time went by so fast sometimes we would have to guess where we were the previous hour. I printed a list with all the states in alphabetical order then when we saw a car from that state, we would write down what state we were in when we saw it. This was fun cause DH would say 'There's Texas!" and DD would say "Dad, we found that back in Virginia".
We adapted the game "My father owns a grocery store" - to "My father/Mother owns Disney World". One person starts the game by saying " My M/F owns DW and he/she has a ride that is fast ( or spins or whatever) then you take turns guessing. This game only works if you have been to Disney. We also say - Restaurant, Hotel, Attraction.....
THe other piece of advice I have is to have the attitude that the trip down/back is part of the vacation. Enjoy this time together - bring surprize videos, decorate the car, bring a ball, frisbee, hool a hoop in a bag for road side rests, bring special snacks, talk about Disney and what the plans are, have the kids write in a journal. etc. We also wrote down every time we saw the word "Dixie" as we left our 6 month old puppy (named after Dixie Landings) home with friends- it was funny to see how many things have the word Dixie in them, especially as we got further south. LOL
Both of my DD also made a surprize bag for the other DD. THis included maps, ideas of a game to play, candy, etc. It was fun getting the bags ready before the trip and even more fun for them to give the bags - they even surprized DH and myself with things - the cut out the crossword puzzle one day my DH missed doing it - and even remembered the answer key. I made Disney word search from Puzzlemaker.com and our own car bingo game.
I got some used videos from half.com, they loved "Mr. Mom" and I also watched garage sales. Each person had their own bag/backpack it was easy to switch seats that way and still have all of your favorite activities. Small clipboards were great for writing on. Pillows and lite blankets worked great for sleeping.
THe hotel we stayed in our the way down was less than $50 with tax and included a continental breakfast.
Sorry I rambled, I kept thinking of stuff as I wrote.
Whatever you decide to do -- Have a GREAT trip!!
