"For 2,000+ Mile Round-Trip Drivers Only!" (Part V)

Thank you for sharing your time stamps.
How did you prep yourself, physically, for the drive?? We always leave around 6-7am. My husband and I could never get a good night sleep prior to leaving.
There was a post (I think on this thread), from a marathon runner. They said the night before (so Sunday if your leaving Tuesday) is the day to make sure you get great sleep. As mostly everyone is in excitement mode the night before.
 
The founder of this thread and his wife just bought a house in FL, about 1 hour northwest of WDW. It appears that our ongoing 2,000+ mile round trips will be coming to an end next year. However, we plan on driving back to NJ each summer, so we will always be a part of this thread...and the wonderful folks who have made it one of the DISBoards most important locations!

All the best! :thumbsup2

Congratulations! I've always found your driving reports helpful.
 
We head out for our first ever drive to Disney from near Toronto Ontario a week from tomorrow! :yay:

I'll keep track of our times. We're crossing in Buffalo and going through PA, VA, WV, NC and stopping in Charlotte for the night. Then NC, SC, GA, FL the next day. I just hope my kids don't kill each other...
 


We head out for our first ever drive to Disney from near Toronto Ontario a week from tomorrow! :yay:

I'll keep track of our times. We're crossing in Buffalo and going through PA, VA, WV, NC and stopping in Charlotte for the night. Then NC, SC, GA, FL the next day. I just hope my kids don't kill each other...
Will watch your progress, we're heading out from Oshawa in April.
 
How did this end up on page 3? :mad:

Anyway, good news for those travelling I-75 through Ohio. Starting at 5 AM this Monday morning, all four lanes of the I-75 bridge going from Cincinnati to Kentucky will be open. And starting Monday morning the following week, all four lanes going north from Kentucky to Cincinnati will open.

The bridge was down to two, and sometimes one lane both ways since early summer, causing backups and delays.

BTW, if you're travelling this weekend, I would seriously consider an alternative route. The bridge is down to one lane so they can meet their 5 AM Monday deadline.
 


Not sure if this is the correct spot for this post or not so please point me in the right direction if not.

We will be driving down to Disney from NJ next August 2018. This will be hubby and I 2nd time driving. Last time we drove was 2007 and it was horrible! We hit monsoon rain basically all the way down. We didn't make it to our hotel until 2am, when we were supposed to arrive by at least 11. We were exhausted and miserable. I am not a fan of long drives, but hubby hates to fly and the only way we can go to Disney is if we drive so I'm making the sacrifice! Lol! Anyway. This time we will have our two kids with us, will be 8 & 6 then. So looking for tips for the drive, best stopping point, best hotels that are affordable, any roads to avoid, things of that nature? We look to be going on I95 I'm assuming. Coming from NJ, Camden County, right over he bridge from Philadelphia! TIA!
 
Never again!
We're driving home (close to Montreal, Canada) today and I had the brilliant idea of suggesting we try I-95 all the way back since we usually do the inland route. We did 81-77-26-95-4 on the way down on August 5-6 (we stay in VA overnight) and I so wish we used that route to come back home! Yesterday was actually great, although we arrived in Richmond/Glen Allen (where we spent the night) in a MAJOR storm but weather is weather, right? Today is another story. We keep getting stuck in traffic here and there, and the GPS is sending us all over the place to avoid this. We've just reached NJ now so I hope we'll be ok for the rest of the road but a word to the wise : keep using the inland itinerary! It might seem a little longer (an hour for us) but it's so much simpler and much less stress (for me!).
 
Never again!
We're driving home (close to Montreal, Canada) today and I had the brilliant idea of suggesting we try I-95 all the way back since we usually do the inland route. We did 81-77-26-95-4 on the way down on August 5-6 (we stay in VA overnight) and I so wish we used that route to come back home! Yesterday was actually great, although we arrived in Richmond/Glen Allen (where we spent the night) in a MAJOR storm but weather is weather, right? Today is another story. We keep getting stuck in traffic here and there, and the GPS is sending us all over the place to avoid this. We've just reached NJ now so I hope we'll be ok for the rest of the road but a word to the wise : keep using the inland itinerary! It might seem a little longer (an hour for us) but it's so much simpler and much less stress (for me!).

I sure hope the rest of your trip is smooth sailing!
I want to print out your words and hang them from my dashboard so I see them whenever I am driving to/from WDW. The Inland route is about an extra hour on paper for me but in real life it is sooooo much better! More courteous drivers, much less stressful, more attractive surroundings, all whichmakes for a much better drive. When I'm driving home, I get a false sense that 95 will be ok and get stuck in terrible stop and go traffic from Richmond untill after Baltimore. Very frustrating.
Thanks for the reminder to always take the inland route!
 
I sure hope the rest of your trip is smooth sailing!
I want to print out your words and hang them from my dashboard so I see them whenever I am driving to/from WDW. The Inland route is about an extra hour on paper for me but in real life it is sooooo much better! More courteous drivers, much less stressful, more attractive surroundings, all whichmakes for a much better drive. When I'm driving home, I get a false sense that 95 will be ok and get stuck in terrible stop and go traffic from Richmond untill after Baltimore. Very frustrating.
Thanks for the reminder to always take the inland route!

We finally made it but it was not smooth sailing until we hit NY (although NJ was not that bad but still...). All in all, we lost about 3 hours in traffic and detours so we will definitely stick with the inland route from now on!
 
Not sure if this is the correct spot for this post or not so please point me in the right direction if not.

We will be driving down to Disney from NJ next August 2018. This will be hubby and I 2nd time driving. Last time we drove was 2007 and it was horrible! We hit monsoon rain basically all the way down. We didn't make it to our hotel until 2am, when we were supposed to arrive by at least 11. We were exhausted and miserable. I am not a fan of long drives, but hubby hates to fly and the only way we can go to Disney is if we drive so I'm making the sacrifice! Lol! Anyway. This time we will have our two kids with us, will be 8 & 6 then. So looking for tips for the drive, best stopping point, best hotels that are affordable, any roads to avoid, things of that nature? We look to be going on I95 I'm assuming. Coming from NJ, Camden County, right over he bridge from Philadelphia! TIA!

It depends on so many things. We've done the overnight in one shot. We've done the get up super-early and make it most the way to finish up the next morning. For awhile, when our kids were about your children's age, we would leave about 4 pm on the ferry (we are very close to the Cape May - Lewes Ferry) and have a late dinner in the VA Beach area before crashing early. As someone alluded to recently, not all of us sleep well the night before travel, so this always got us on the road between 4-5 a.m. and we'd be in WDW 12 hours later. Now, we take the 2:30 p.m. ferry and drive overnight, arriving in Orlando around 8 a.m. with one 30-45 min sleep break in GA. We take turns overnight driving and sleeping (or else that wouldn't work very well :scared:)

The biggest things is to not put yourself under the gun as in: we have a dream ADR the day of arrival so we must push on, etc. That just sets you up to make a potentially bad decision on the road.

Happy Travels!:car::car::car:
 
What is a good area to stop for the night when taking home the 95-26-77-81 route? Last time we had a terrible time finding a place to stay. Thanks.
 
What is a good area to stop for the night when taking home the 95-26-77-81 route? Last time we had a terrible time finding a place to stay. Thanks.

Depending on where you are driving to- we have stopped in Rock Hill SC (tons of hotels) or Mooresville/Lake Norman area ranging from 8-9 hours from disney.
 
My only suggestion is plan ahead if you're stopping on a Saturday night during college football season. Don't wait until you're on the road and getting sleepy to try and find a hotel. It took us over 2 hours once.
 
My only suggestion is plan ahead if you're stopping on a Saturday night during college football season. Don't wait until you're on the road and getting sleepy to try and find a hotel. It took us over 2 hours once.

That's true for any southern route. We go down I-75 from Cincinnati. On our last trip to Disney during the college football season, we wanted to spend the night in Lake City. We made it, but ended up paying overpriced rates at a motel east on I-10 (20 miles out of our way), because motels were all booked in town. For a Florida State game. And Florida State is in Talahassee, 100 miles away.
 
Not sure if this is the correct spot for this post or not so please point me in the right direction if not.

We will be driving down to Disney from NJ next August 2018. This will be hubby and I 2nd time driving. Last time we drove was 2007 and it was horrible! We hit monsoon rain basically all the way down. We didn't make it to our hotel until 2am, when we were supposed to arrive by at least 11. We were exhausted and miserable. I am not a fan of long drives, but hubby hates to fly and the only way we can go to Disney is if we drive so I'm making the sacrifice! Lol! Anyway. This time we will have our two kids with us, will be 8 & 6 then. So looking for tips for the drive, best stopping point, best hotels that are affordable, any roads to avoid, things of that nature? We look to be going on I95 I'm assuming. Coming from NJ, Camden County, right over he bridge from Philadelphia! TIA!


We drive every year. Our kids have always been very good in the car, so truly we are blessed. When they were your kids' ages, we made certain they had plenty to do: coloring books, snacks, car games (pre-electronics). We would leave RI at 2-3am and drive until at least South Carolina which was usually around dinner time. We would just pick an exit that had a sign for a place to stay, and never had to worry about a reservation. There are tons of hotels along 95 in the Carolinas. We would leave the hotel by 9 and would be at Disney by the afternoon check in time. We would only stop for gas breaks and go into the gas stations for the bathroom. We bring a cooler with food, so we don't stop at the fast food joints.

Now they are 12 and 16 with tablets/phones and plenty to do so we do not stop. We leave at 1am and are in Disney by 8-9pm depending upon traffic. My husband prefers 95 south, even though I told him to try the other path that the others here on this thread have suggested. We have been lucky on the way down, it is usually on the way home we suffer the 95 north blues! LOL

Have a great trip.
 
Not sure if this is the correct spot for this post or not so please point me in the right direction if not.

We will be driving down to Disney from NJ next August 2018. This will be hubby and I 2nd time driving. Last time we drove was 2007 and it was horrible! We hit monsoon rain basically all the way down. We didn't make it to our hotel until 2am, when we were supposed to arrive by at least 11. We were exhausted and miserable. I am not a fan of long drives, but hubby hates to fly and the only way we can go to Disney is if we drive so I'm making the sacrifice! Lol! Anyway. This time we will have our two kids with us, will be 8 & 6 then. So looking for tips for the drive, best stopping point, best hotels that are affordable, any roads to avoid, things of that nature? We look to be going on I95 I'm assuming. Coming from NJ, Camden County, right over he bridge from Philadelphia! TIA!


Figure out what day of the week you are leaving and then what works best for your family so far as departure times and how long you can take it in the car for one day! If a weekday, you want to avoid the DC area between 6 and 10 AM and 3-7PM. I am about an hour and ten minutes from the DE Memorial Bridge, and my preferred plan is to leave by 2:30 AM, passing DC by 5:30 AM, driving straight through and arriving that evening at WDW. Everyone else slept in the car till somewhere in NC. A couple of weeks ago though I had to pick someone up at a DC metro stop first, so altered my plans. I picked them up at 12:30 PM on a Friday, then drove to Henderson GA, so only had another 4 hours to go the second day. We arrived at the hotel in GA around 11 pm. There was some congestion in VA and a little more volume here and there, which added a total of maybe 60 minutes compared to my usual early morning drives, but otherwise nothing else was noticeably different. There are lots of good places to spend the night if you feel you cannot do it all in one day. If you determine the number of hours you think you can drive that first day, and thus the general area you will reach, then people here can help with the places they have stopped. The drive home we did a straight through, leaving WDW at 7 AM and arriving home a little after midnight. Again there was a little congestion in VA (it was a Sunday and maybe around 8 pm or so) which caused a delay of around 30 minutes.
 
Figure out what day of the week you are leaving and then what works best for your family so far as departure times and how long you can take it in the car for one day! If a weekday, you want to avoid the DC area between 6 and 10 AM and 3-7PM. I am about an hour and ten minutes from the DE Memorial Bridge, and my preferred plan is to leave by 2:30 AM, passing DC by 5:30 AM, driving straight through and arriving that evening at WDW. Everyone else slept in the car till somewhere in NC. A couple of weeks ago though I had to pick someone up at a DC metro stop first, so altered my plans. I picked them up at 12:30 PM on a Friday, then drove to Henderson GA, so only had another 4 hours to go the second day. We arrived at the hotel in GA around 11 pm. There was some congestion in VA and a little more volume here and there, which added a total of maybe 60 minutes compared to my usual early morning drives, but otherwise nothing else was noticeably different. There are lots of good places to spend the night if you feel you cannot do it all in one day. If you determine the number of hours you think you can drive that first day, and thus the general area you will reach, then people here can help with the places they have stopped. The drive home we did a straight through, leaving WDW at 7 AM and arriving home a little after midnight. Again there was a little congestion in VA (it was a Sunday and maybe around 8 pm or so) which caused a delay of around 30 minutes.

Thank you! I'm only about a half hr from the DE Memorial Bridge! I definitely want to beat the traffic around DC for sure! Hubby more than likely will do most of the driving. I definitely can't sleep in the car, but the kids should be able to and hubby definitely can! Lol! Even if we got as far as FL that first day I will be happy! Lol! We check in on a Tuesday.
 
It depends on so many things. We've done the overnight in one shot. We've done the get up super-early and make it most the way to finish up the next morning. For awhile, when our kids were about your children's age, we would leave about 4 pm on the ferry (we are very close to the Cape May - Lewes Ferry) and have a late dinner in the VA Beach area before crashing early. As someone alluded to recently, not all of us sleep well the night before travel, so this always got us on the road between 4-5 a.m. and we'd be in WDW 12 hours later. Now, we take the 2:30 p.m. ferry and drive overnight, arriving in Orlando around 8 a.m. with one 30-45 min sleep break in GA. We take turns overnight driving and sleeping (or else that wouldn't work very well :scared:)

The biggest things is to not put yourself under the gun as in: we have a dream ADR the day of arrival so we must push on, etc. That just sets you up to make a potentially bad decision on the road.

Happy Travels!:car::car::car:

It's been many years since I've driven the Ferry to Bridge Tunnel route.
Two questions:

Is hwy 13 through MD more user friendly. Less 25/35 MPH zones?

What is the best route from the Bridge Tunnel to I95 South?

Thanks In Advance
 

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