Driving to Disney! :)

[16laura]

I will be driving to Disney World from New Jersey. I will be doing all of the driving and will be traveling with my mother and my 4 year old. We are planning to stop to sleep twice on the way. The second night I would like to be very near Orlando. We'd like to have the whole first day at the resort. Where would you stop, if you were stopping twice? Bonus points if it has a fun pool or splash pad for the LO. TIA!

 

[Newsies]

Hey there! My family drives down from Jersey every year, but we only stop once along the way. We stop at Kingsland, GA, so we've never stayed anywhere in Florida outside of Orlando. Sorry that I can't help you on the second night!

Can you give us an estimate of how long you'd like to be on the road that first day? I'm tempted to recommend stopping at South Carolina on that first night, which would be about 12 hours away from where I'm located in northern NJ (union county.) We've never stopped there overnight, but I hear really great things about Walterboro, Exit 57. I would give the Sleep Inn there a shot. From there, it's just under a 7 hour drive to Orlando-- you should have no problem finding a hotel in the area with a great splash pad to spend some time at!

 

[16laura]

That sounds great! I could drive 12 hours the first day and 7 the second. I know it may seem silly to stop twice, but we have the time and I think it'll be less stressful. We will only stop once on the way home. My mom is older and my LO will need breaks. Thanks for responding.

 

[Tappen93]

I second Walterboro. We live in VA and have made the drive to Florida a number of times. We will usually leave late afternoon and stay somewhere in South Carolina and then finish the drive the next day. We have stayed at Holiday Inn Express in Walterboro and Florence SC on different trips. We’ve always gotten the hotel room the day of once we knew how far we’d be able to make it.

 

[starousse]

I drove down with my kids from New York back in February. We left around 6am and arrived in Florence SC around 5pm and stopped for the night. The next morning we left around 7:30 in the morning, got breakfast and got to Disney around 2. We made two or three stops for drinks and bathroom along the way. It was a great drive down.