Famille Du Pentium

Some more tips for multi-day, multi-stop cross-country road trips. 

• Break up your trip into about two hour legs, especially if you have kids.  Don’t forget to include the down time you spend at your rest stops in your daily travel plans.  Allow adequate time for meals.
• For families with kids, stay at hotels that have pools each night.  Your kids are sitting all day – but they have a lot more energy to burn off than you do.  An hour in the pool (and maybe a playground) each evening will get them wound down and ready to go to bed on time
• Save money by staying in hotels that offer a free continental breakfast each morning.  Holiday Inn Express is famous for this.  Hampton Inns also do this.
• Let your kids bring their pillows with them in the car.  This gives them some level of comfort when they take naps in the car
• Know yourself, and allow enough sleep each night to be fully rested.  Driving is a lot more sleep-inducing than your every day schedule, and you will be fighting to stay awake by 7PM if you aren’t well rested
• I like to keep a belly bag in the car with my road stuff in it, like wallet and phone and so forth – rather than in my pockets.  You can put these items into compartments in your car (if you have them) but then you have to keep grabbing them whenever you stop for a meal, get gas, etc.  With a belly bag, you just grab the bag and go
• This depends on you, so "know yourself," but: it’s generally easier to drive in the morning than in the afternoon and evening.  Start earlier if possible, and then wrap up each day earlier rather than starting late and driving into the evening 

As I’ve said before, I’ve taken my share of road trips, with and without family, to destinations that take more than one day to get to.  Planning a multi-day road trips is difficult, because there aren’t many tools that help you do it.  Planning when and where to stop over is difficult with these.

Sure, there are plenty of trip route / mapping services out there, including Google Maps,  Yahoo Maps, and AAA TripTiks.  All of these services (and others) will take a starting address, ending address, and give you a driving route between them.  Most have even added the ability to include intermediate stops in your route – stopovers.  But they don’t give you any help as to when or where you should plan to stop.

To get around this, I start with freetrip.com.  This site gives you basically the same information as other sites, except when you give it a starting and ending location, the route it displays includes elapsed miles, hours, remaining miles, and remaining hours.  <b>None</b> of the other major mapping sites do this, and it’s critical to planning multi-day trips with stopovers.

So you take the route that freetrip.com gives you, and then you start to cut up your trip into legs.  First you need to decide how long you want to drive each day.  Remember that you will need to stop for gas, bio, and meal breaks.  So, depending on how much you stop, eight hours of driving time may end up being twelve hours "on the road" including stops.  So take your actual target driving time per day, and start counting up using the elapsed time on the freetrip.org trip route.  At each daily driving time limit (e.g. every six, eight, or however many hours you want to drive), note from the freetrip.org route what city you are in.  Now you have your stopover cities. 

Next, you’ll need hotels in each stopover city.  Most of the route planning services give you the option of displaying hotels along your route.  But these aren’t terribly helpful to me because (1) you can’t search out amenities at the hotels, and (2) they usually just dump <i>all</i> the hotels along your route, starting from your starting point and ending at your destination.  What I find that works better is, pick a favorite hotel I like based on amenities, reward program, etc. and then  use that hotel chain’s website to locate hotels near the stopover city.  From there, I book the stopover hotel rooms, and get the hotel’s address(es).  

Armed with the hotel addresses, now I go back to Google or Yahoo (not freetrip) and get actual address-to-address driving directions for each day’s leg.  I don’t use freetrip.org for this – I only use freetrip for the rough leg breakdown.  The reason is, in practice I’ve had trouble with freetrip’s actual turn-by-turn directions – inaccuracies, switchbacks, and round-about routes were common.  They work well for roughing out the trip, but for the detailed turn-by-turn directions, I find that Yahoo or Google are better.

So now, you should have directions for each leg of your trip, along with hotels you’re going to say at.   Be sure to read my "Packing Tips" to see how I pack for each stopover in a way that minimizes the luggage you have to carry into and out of your hotel each day. 

So thi s isn’t purely Disney-planning related, because we like taking road trips to other places.  We also went to Disney by road last time, (pre-Blog) and that time in Marla’s Chevy Corsica.  We had a lot fewer kids then :).  I also moved from Seattle to Chicago by car almost twenty years ago, so I have some experience driving cross country.  So these are my road trip packing tips, in case you ever get the itch to hit the open road.

1. Separate your trip into three sections – getting there, being there, and going home.
2. Break up your "getting there" section into legs (e.g. each stopover)
3. Pack one bag for each stopover on the "Getting There" leg.  Include all changes of clothes.
4. Pack  one small  bag for swim gear and accessories
5. Pack kids toys and comfort items in a separate bag (or one for each of them to carry)
6. Pack all of your "being there" clothes into large bags
7. Get one of those car-top luggage carriers; put the large bags into the car-top
8. Put the stopover small bags into the back of the car or trunk
9. Get one of those hitch-receiver platforms
10. Put a cooler with either (A) food for the road or (B) Extra items onto the hitch-receiver platform

Now, at each "Stopover", you just open the back of your car or trunk, grab one bag (plus your swimgear), and go to your hotel room.  The kids carry their comfort items. 

When you get to your destination, you unload the big bags off the roof.  

This plan assumes that you can do laundry (or pay someone to) during your trip.  Wash your "getting there" clothes, and re-pack them for the return trip.

Whether you wash your "being there" clothes or not depends on the length of your trip, and how much you pack.  But of course, at the end of your "destination" trip, you put everything back on top of the car, and have your "getting home" bags in the bag.  

The rear hitch platform is, of course, optional depending on whether or not you need more storage (the cooler keeps things from getting wet) or food on the road.  

More road trip tips to come… 

One month to go.  You already know how much type-a planning I’ve put into this, but to give you an idea of what a truly type-a personality I am (and you really must be to go to Disneyworld), here’s what’s left:

1. I have to pull the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World apart, almost all 800 pages.  Touring plans, pocket guides, parade viewing spots, fireworks viewing spots, and all manner of tips and tricks will be laminated into folding pocket guides
2. Check  Orlando weather .  June is tricky in Orlando.  We have to know what to pack
3. Reconfirm all resorts and hotel accomodations
4. Shopping for clothes and shoes that we will need
5. Reconfirm drive routes – especially for getting out of Chicago, since both the Dan Ryan and the Tri-State will be under construction when we leave.  We’ll have to take Lake Shore Drive through whatever detour route to the Chicago Skyway they have set up, probably through Blue Island.
6. Charge the iPods
7. Hold mail
8. Packing
9. Haircuts
10. Take out garbage
11. Set thermostat
12. On road by 6:30 AM on our departure day

The good news is that Marla’s aunt and uncle, who live in South Florida, are coming up to Orlando to celebrate Mike and Aaron’s birthday at the character dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern.  Nobody has RSVP’d that they’re coming to Ethan’s birthday party in Savannah, GA.    I guess nobody likes Chuck E Cheese.

Earlier I described the road trip we’ll be taking to Disney later this year.  Our return trip is not quite as interesting, we stay an extra day in Orlando this year so we need to make a direct and quick run home, but the trip still deserves some color.   So open the map in a separate window and follow along.

Keeping with my previously explained practice of treating Orlando as one of our "stopovers", we’ll actually be traveling 11.3 miles / 24 minutes from our Disney Resort to our first stopover, the Royal Pacific Resort near Universal Orlando.   We actually will spend one day at Univeral Orlando park, then that evening we will go watch Blue Man Group (Sssh! It’s a surprise for Aaron…) and then get some sleep.

Starting fresh and early on Friday morning, we first head west on I-4, then north on I-75 to Atlanta, Georgia where we once again stay at a Holiday Inn Express (Hey, what can I say – points, pools, jacuzzis, and free breakfast.)

The next day we continue north on I-75 to about Chattanooga, where we turn northwest on I-24 toward Nashville, and then it’s back on I-65 northbound, where we’ll stay until we complete most of our journey.  We want to make tracks on our trip, so rather than stopping over in Louisville, we’ll keep going north on our second day until we reach Scottsville, IN, where we stay at our last Holiday Inn Express. 

Then we make the four hour trip back to Chicago via I-65 to I-90/94/80 where we’ll be staying overnight at Chez Humphries-Dolnick’s, and going back to work :(.

Some people think I’m crazy.  I like taking family road trips.  We’ve conditioned our kids from an early age to be fairly good road trip-ers.  This started as they were barely weeks old, and we would load them up in the car and take them to Lake Camelot in Wisconsin, four hours (at 80 MPH) from our house.  So, they like road trips too. 

Getting there is, indeed, half the fun.  So I’m going to share some of that fun with you now.  Here is a Google map of our entire outbound trip – you can open this in a separate window and play along as I narrate.  You might have to use the Google "grabber hand" to reposition the map so that the entire trip is visible.

First, there’s the route.  Outbound, we’re going due south until we hit Louisville, Kentucky.  On our last trip, that was our first stopover.  But that was barely 5 hours into our first day, and we had hit the road at 6AM, so we actually got the hotel about 2 or 3 PM.  Too early.  So this time, we’re still hitting the road early (6:30 AM) but stopping later.  Anyway, at Louisville, we turn east for a while, then south again toward Knoxville.  But the first day, we stop short of Knoxville, in London Kentucky.  We stay overnight at a Holiday Inn Express in London.

Day two, we continue south to Knoxville and then head somewhat southeast toward the Atlantic coast.  We go through North Carolina and South Carolina and then turn south toward Savannah, Georgia… where we stay overnight for the second night (again, a Holiday Inn Express). 

Day three is a real easy one.  Day one and two were eight hour drives (according to Google), now we’re driving about 4.5 hours from Savannah to Orlando, strait down I-95 and the Atlantic coast until we hit Daytona Beach, then I-4 back inland to Orlando.

We always treat our destination as a "stopover" – I.e. we get there one day earlier and get settled.  So we are actually staying in a different hotel on Day three PM than our Disney resort.  This time, we decided to try out the Nickelodeon Hotel in Orlando.   This looks like a lot of fun for the kids, albeit expensive.  Hey, it’s also a Holiday Inn, I get Priority Club points for it!

Finally after Nick Hotel, we make our way across town (if you use the zoom tool in Google maps, you can see our last leg) from Orlando to Lake Buena Vista, the official city name (well, one of them) for Disney World.  We’re staying at the Port Orleans Riverside resort, near Downtown Disney.

I’ll cover the road trip home in a separate entry.

Yeah, I’m done.  For sure.  This time.

Well you can’t blame me.  I inadvertently scheduled a character breakfast in Epcot on one day at 10:00 AM, and later a character lunch (at least at the same park) at 11:30 AM.  Normally I’d say "big deal, so we’ll eat lighter at one" but Char meals are somewhat one-price-gets-all sort of affairs, with no "light eater" discount.  So it doesn’t make sense.  So the Garden Grill char lunch has been moved to 2:50 PM.  Later that day, we’ll go to Nascar Cafe in Universal’s City Walk.  Great stuff.  Maybe Aaron will meet Jeff Gordon. 

I’ve been forever tweaking my dining reservations at Disney.  Today, I thought about adding the Mickey character meal at Restaurantasaurus in Animal Kingdom, but (A) we’ve been there, and it’s basically a McDonald’s, and (B) the character:guest ratio is 1:112, one of the highest in Disney.

So, we’ll skip it.

But I did replace 1900 Park Fare on June 11 with Liberty Tree, which is a 1:26 that includes Minnie, Pluto, Chip and Dale.  The 1900 Park Fare character meal was "Mary Popins and Friends".  I don’t know who Mary Poppins’ friends are, except maybe Dick Van Dyke, and I doubt he’ll show up.

So we’re up to: 11 reservations, 4 character meals (2 dinner, 1 lunch, 1 breakfast) and definate plans to visit two counter service joints (Toy Story Pizza Planet in Disney Studios and Flame Tree BBQ in Animal Kingdom.)  Also, we’re going to Nascar Cafe in the Universal City Walk area. 

Yes, 77 days to go before Disney-O-Rama 2007 begins.  I just got the park hours, and the Unofficial Guide’s updated crowd levels for those days, and based on that, decided which parks we’re going to on which days.  You need to do this if you want to eat at anything better than counter service restaurants during your visit, because all table service restaurants require advance reservations, some as early as now.  So here’s our tentative plan:

Sun 3: Leave Skokie, drive to London, KY.  Overnight stay.
Mon 4: London, KY to Savannah, GA. Overnight stay.
Tue 5: Savannah, GA to Orlando, FL.  Stay overnight at the Nick Toons Hotel
Wed 6: Disney Studios.  Dinner / Show package: Hollywood & Vine + Fantasmic (laser show)
Thu 7: Animal Kingdom.  Lunch at Flame Tree BBQ, dinner at Rainforest Cafe
Fri 8: Epcot.  Lunch at Les Chefs De Paris, dinner at Rose & Crown and then Illuminations! (fireworks show)
Sat 9: Magic Kingdom.  Ah, the king of all kingdoms :).  Lunch at Cosmic Rays, dinner at Tony’s Town Square (think Lady and the Tramp), followed by the parade.
Sun 10: Rest day.  Breakfast at the hotel restaurant (Boatwrights), lunch at the 50’s Prime Time Cafe at Disney Studios.  So far, no Character Meals, but that will change soon.
Mon 11: Magic Kingdom again.  Character Dinner at 1900 Park Fare.
Tue 12: Magic Kingdom.  Again.  Character Dinner (Winnie the Pooh) at Crystal Palace.
Wed 13: Epcot.  Character breakfast at Akershus, Character lunch at Garden Grill, and then on to Universal Studios City Walk and dinner at Nascar Cafe
Thu 14: Day at Universal Studios.  Dinner: something quick, followed by Blue Man Group.
Fri 15: Orlando to overnight stay at Marietta, GA
Sat 16: Marietta, GA to Scottsburg, IN
Sun 17: Scottsburg, IN to Skokie

Touring plans will follow later.

First order of business: 100th POST!

I stayed three days at the Sheraton Suites Weehawken at 500 Harbor Blvd.  Having heard from co-workers that I should set my expectations of my room rather low, I was somewhat surprised.  The room was clean, roomy and had a good view of the New York Harbor.  

There were a few things I noticed however:

• They only offer wireless internet access, no wired.  But my WiFi adapter couldn’t pick up their signal until I got one of their WiFi bridges from the front desk.  Also, you can’t charge the WiFi to your room, you have to use a credit card.
• They seem to have a governor in their water spigot in the baths, limiting how hot you can turn the knob.  So I wasn’t happy about the water tempurature in the bath/shower.
• Room service was inconsistent.  Day one I ordered chicken sausage (among other things) and got three links.  Next day, same order, and I got two.  Monday I ordered decaff with cream and sugar and got only sugar, Tuesday I ordered decaff with cream and sugar and got only cream.  Tuesday they forgot to deliver my orange juice.
• The front desk / check-in process wasn’t smooth.  When I arrived, nobody was at the front desk at all.  It took a little while for someone to realize I was waiting to check in.  Later, a hoard of airline crew arrived, and there was only one person at the front desk to deal with them, leaving everyone standing around in the already cramped lobby, blocking most of the access between the elevators and the front doors.

These were all minor annoyances.  The room was big and comfortable, which was my main interest since I was working the whole time I was in town. 

Also I’ve heard that the hotel restaurant was at one time under construction and thus their menu was limited.  That wasn’t the case when I was there, apparently the construction was over.  Still, they’re expensive and there’s a Houlihans and a deli down the street from the hotel.