On the Road Again! Driving vs Flying to Disney World

If you would have ask me a few years ago if I would drive to Disney from Western PA I would have given you a big old NO…but times change and airfare kept climbing!

With that we had a trip scheduled in September 2010 and I had looked at airfare endlessly becoming more and more frustrated and I got that little voice in my head, you know the “what if” voice…what if we drive? Well I put off the idea for a while, but the neighbor that was traveling with us said “did you ever think about driving, I really hate to fly” well that’s where it began I became relentless in finding out about driving from Pittsburgh PA to Florida! How long would it take, how much would gas cost, what was the best route, should we stay half way, where was halfway and of course was it cheaper than flying!

It looked like anywhere from 16 to 20 hours depending on who you asked or what website you went on~

I found a great site to calculate gas prices on AAA as well as a great site to find the cheapest gas prices on the route!

Speaking of that what was the best route? I asked on many web-sites the route most take and we went from there. Plus I mapped it out seen what was half way, but we chose to keep on going!

Well the biggest answer to all of those was yes it was cheaper than flying!

Here is a quick breakdown of that:

• We rented a Van $450
• Gas down & back -$320
• Rented a Room on the way down $60

That was a total of $830 and for when we were going for 6 people I couldn’t get airfare cheaper than $1200 and that was with layovers, switching planes and leaving early in the morning on departure day, we like to stay as long as we can on our last day in Disney!

We took snacks & drinks with us and ordered a pizza when we stopped for the night. On the way back we drove straight through. With the pizza and stopping for breakfast on the way back we spent about another $60 or so bucks.

If renting a van wasn’t necessary we could have saved a lot more, but with six of us it was a must. We also looked at it as not putting the wear and tear on our car, but if you do drive your own vehicle look into getting AAA or some other type of roadside service.

We actually made it to Florida before stopping to stay over and found a coupon book at roadside rest just before the Florida state line and found a great hotel deal in there for 6 people for $60 just minutes from Disney! So check out those rest stop booklets many offer hotel, restaurant , shopping and fun things to do deals! We also seen many BOGO deals plus ads for places to visit or see!

We loved entering each state, just knowing you were somewhere other than home was exciting! The kids had their DS and Games plus we have portable DVD player so they even watched a movie or two.

Just as planning our Disney Vacation, I planned our drive down and back and looked for deals where I could get them, with gas (gasbuddy.com) our hotel (Roadside rest coupon booklets) and even a pizza coupon we got at the hotel (all those coupon & books beside the check in desk) I was on the look out for deals to cut cost. Plus I checked out Chip & Co for tips and hints about Driving to Disney 😉

Some may say “but Dana you only saved $300 by not flying” while that maybe true we could take and bring back as much luggage as we wanted, could leave when we wanted, seen thing we wouldn’t have if we flew plus believe it or not we really liked driving~

We will be driving back to WDW in just a few days and all my plans are in motion for another great road trip!

Dana is a Disney Planner at Heart, she and her peeps will hitting the road to Disney from Pittsburgh PA with her Terrible Towel in Hand! Go Steelers!!

Related articles

• Disney World Quick Tips – Planning your Disney World Budget (chipandco.com)
• Driving to Disney World (theaffordablemouse.com)

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