Disney Part 1: Road Trip!

I will return to my regularly scheduled blog updates shortly (including Easter & other fun events), however I am interrupting to give an EXCITING UPDATE!

Monday, April 13, 2009 --
It was the day after Easter and my wonderful husband returned home after being gone on a trip for almost 2 weeks. Tim got a call from work Monday morning stating that his week off would start immediately, rather than Thursday, which was originally expected. The girls and I were already off work & school for the week for Spring Break, so we were excited to have this unexpected week together!

Tim woke me with his 'brilliant' idea to make an impromptu trip to Disney World in Florida to celebrate our special family time! My response? WHAT?!?! Are you crazy?! But then we did some research online and made a few phone calls and I quickly realized it was actually a pretty cool idea! Those who know me, know I am NOT a spontaneous person. I am a planner and want to have all my info gathered and examined before making any final decisions. Therefore, this was completely out of character for me! I decided to put all my trust in Tim's hands and there began our Disney Adventure!

We booked our hotel (more detailed info on that in next post) and began packing around 2pm. We all got showers, ate an early dinner, loaded up the car and we were on the road by 5:30pm - just a few hours after making the decision to go!

I had a special bag packed to help the girls enjoy the car ride, including tons of DVDs, coloring stuff, books, lots of yummy snacks as well as candy of course!

ON OUR WAY:


It took us a total of 16 hours & 15 minutes door to door. With four potty breaks totaling one hour (15 min each), our actual drive time was only 15 hours & 15 minutes! Tim and I alternated driving through the night so we could make the trip in one long shot instead of stopping halfway. We left home at 5:30pm on Monday and arrived at our hotel at 9:15am Tuesday morning!

A FEW STOPS ALONG THE WAY:




To make the trip more fun for Tim & I, we tried to find all 50 state license plates and also counted how many yellow cars we saw. Including our trip down & back, we saw a total of 49 yellow cars (mostly spotted by Eagle Eye Tim!) and we saw only 32 different state license plates (plus 3 different Canadian plates).

The girls watched 3 movies on the way down - The Parent Trap, Max & Ruby and Bedtime Stories. On the way home (Sat April 18) they watched 5 movies - Bolt, Enchanted, Barbie Rapunzel, Max & Ruby and High School Musical 3.

We stopped for gas two times on way down, one time while in Florida and two times on the way home. Gas is definitely cheaper in NJ than anywhere down South!

Unfortunately, it rained most of the way to Florida, sometimes very heavy. It made the drive not as much fun, but we made it. And I have to say, the girls did GREAT! They travel very well and honestly, other than maybe one or two times of bickering, they got along nicely for the drive both ways. They really were troopers!

If you travel from the Northeast down to Florida, the majority of your trip will take place on Route 95 South. We drove through New Jersey (approx 1.5hr), Delaware (approx 15 mins), Maryland (approx 1.5hr), Virginia (2hrs 45 mins), North Carolina (approx 2.5hrs), South Carolina (2.5hrs), Georgia (approx 2hrs)and Florida (approx 2.5hrs). Times are approximate of course due to traffic & weather variances each way, plus the day of the week. We definitely noticed more traffic coming home (Saturday night 4/18) compared to the way down (Monday night 4/13). On the way home, there was awful traffic in South Carolina due to construction - at one point we literally sat still for one hour - ugh!

One interesting thing that we look forward to each time we drive to Disney (we've made this trip probably three times in the last 10 years) is the South of the Border signs. South of the Border is a place located in South Carolina which includes apparently many fun things (we've never actually stopped there) and bright lights. But they have humorous signs along the way, starting several hundred miles before you get there!

For the way down, we had printed Mapquest directions, but I forgot to print the reverse directions for the way home. Luckily, Tim & I have awesome new Blackberry Storm phones (update on that coming soon as well!) so we were able to use free GPS apps and also Google Maps, which worked out very well!

Overall, the road trip in both directions went very smoothly. The girls did great. Tim & I had many hours to talk and together as a family, it turned out to be part of our awesome bonding experience!