Yes, we decided to drive down to Disney World. A little bit to save money (by the time we booked, it was like $700 a ticket to fly), and a little bit because we just like to drive. The girls are kept entertained with MP3 players, Nintendo DS, texting and DVD movies, while the wife enjoys following along on the map and via the in dash navigation system (who we have dubbed Casandra). We weren't going to kill ourselves though, especially for the drive down. As we weren't planning on leaving until lunchtime (ha!) on Friday, we figured we would stop after in Virginia, to make it to Savannah Georgia sometime mid-afternoon on Saturday. This would leave us with a relatively short 5 hour drive to Disney World, in plenty of time for a 3pm checkin, after about 20 hours on the road.
But of course we got started late, not leaving the house until almost 4pm. This got us caught up in local rush hour traffic. Then the DVD player broke - yikes! With over 40 hours planned in the car, a new DVD player was a priority. So before we even got to Sturbridge on the Mass Turnpike, we got off at a local mall, bought a new DVD player at Best Buy and stayed for dinner, as traffic was still a mess.This helped a little and we moved along smartly. Unfortunately, I deviated from my plan and listened to Casandra, as my navigator wife was dozing in the front seat and I didn't want to disturb her. Our original plan had us following 84 across the Tappan Zee bridge, giving NYC a wide berth, but I figured, how bad could New York City be at 11pm on a Friday night?
The answer was "Pretty bad.". It was stop and go down thru the city and across the George Washington Bridge and so we barely made it to New Jersey by midnight, well short of our goal of Richmond Virginia. Even a New Jersey rest stop was confusing, as it was one of the those between the north & south bound highways and the signage was incomplete, as it wasn't clear that the "Thruway" was the same as Interstate 95. So we pulled into a Ramada in New Jersey about 8 hours after leaving home, checked in and crashed for the night.
As I was riding vicariously with you, I was sad. No one should have to end up in New Jersey -- and I should know -- I was born there.
Believe you me, it wasn't our idea either! As you'll see (hopefully!) we skipped NJ entirely on the way back - made for a much nicer journey :)