Driving Expenses from our trip in Dec.

C

Csaks

Member
I got bored today and went through our bills for driving. I thought I would share them with everyone in case they are thinking of driving. We live in Oshawa and took the I90, I79, I77, I26, I 95, I4 route. The trip gas calculator( http://www.fuelcostcalculator.com/TripGasPrice.aspx ) was very accurate for my truck starting from Buffalo.

Day 1- Our house to Washington, Penn ; 613 klm, 23gl, $71
; ; ; ; - Wash. to Elkin NC ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 617 klm, 20gl, $62.5
; ; ; ; - Elkin to Hardeeville, SC ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 494 klm, 16gl, $47
Day 2- Hardeeville to Disney ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 490 klm
; ; ; ; - Driving around Disney ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
; ; ; ; ; for two weeks ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 165 klm, 22gl, $66

Coming home,
Day 1- Disney to Hardeeville, SC ; ; ; ; ; ; 490 klm, 16gl, $45
; ; ; ; - Hardeeville to Elkin NC ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 494 klm, 16gl, $45
; ; ; ; - Elkin to Bridgeport WV ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 442 klm, 16gl, $49
Day 2 - BP to Oakville Ont. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 635 klm, 82l, $81

; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Totals,
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 4441 klm And $466

Hotel on the way down, Comfort Inn, Hardeeville SC just under $70 with interstate coupon.

Hotel on the way back, Days Inn, Bridgeport WV around $55 dollars with interstate coupon and the lady felt bad for us soaking wet after our tire blowout and took off a few bucks to get to that price.

Our truck is an '05 Chevy Pick-up with the 5.3l motor, so the gas usage is on the high side. I'm sure a mini van or family car would be much cheaper.

Any questions? Fire away.
 
I just priced it out for our van which would have been around 390.00 plus our hotel fees. ; It is cheaper for us to fly (thank goodness) because I hate spending two days in the car! ; ; ;D
 
That is a wonderful website! I know my DH will make use of it since we are driving on our next trip in November. That is the same route we take. Are you a CAA member? Did you use any CAA/AAA discounts?
 
Donna,
We are members and booked our trip through CAA ,saved 800 dollars compared to rack rates and a bunch of coupons that we could have used but forgot about. We also received all those "novels" on the different states, triptik and regular map.

We drove because Amy hasn't been alot of places and for me it was a cool way to kind of relive my family road trips. I was lucky that way. I have been to a pretty good amount of North America on those family trips, plus it was a nice amount of us time, no distractions. The added freedom of having our truck was a bonus and with two weeks we were in no hurry to get there or home.

The other nice thing about driving was not having to worry about how we were going to get all our loot home on the plane. My aunt flew in the first week and needed me to bring home those Mickey lawn lights. ;D ;D
 
"mini-canadian" said:
I just priced it out for our van which would have been around 390.00 plus our hotel fees. ; It is cheaper for us to fly (thank goodness) because I hate spending two days in the car! ; ; ;D
Click to expand...

How many of you are there?

Driving our mini-van when all is said and done, fuel, food hotels, tolls, etc...is around $600
If we are going to be down for a quick trip the DW & DD's prefer to fly & staying on site we don't rent a car. If we're going to be there 10 days or more driving is more economical as there is no car rental required and we can sight see on the way.

The drive down is much easier than the drive back.
 
I used to drive my own car down to save a few bucks. But all you need is to have one thing go wrong with the car and it could ruin your whole trip. Our alternator died on a Saturday night after our first stopover we were supposed to drive to Orlando the next day. Needless to say the repair cost us $1500 when all was said and done. We were milked for an alternator and battery as there was only one shop open on Sunday. They didn't have any in stock so I had to leave the car and rent one for the rest of our trip then return to pickup our car. Now I always fly, usually out of Buffalo, if I do need to drive I rent. For me a vacation should be worry free and transportation can be one big worry.
 
In May of '02 we were in Myrtle Beach. We had arrived that Saturday Morning and checked into the condo we had rented.

My sister was flying down that evening to join us with here 8 month old.

I went to the airport to pick up my sister with my 7 year old DD. My DW & 3 year old DD stayed at the condo.

My sister arrived at 8:30PM. We loaded up the van, I installed my niece's car seat and we headed off back to the condo.

Heading south on US 17 (kind of like 535) I was approaching a traffic light in our 2001 Ford Windstar, the light was green. A north bound Nissan Sentra turned into the path of my car, natural instinct is to hit the brakes, if I had I would have hit the Sentra head on, I gunned it and headed off off the right, the Sentra hit, t-boned, me on the drivers side wheel well then the drivers door, and all the way down the drivers side. It knock me over towards the ditch and I was able to control my mini van not to go into the ditch or hit the utility poles.

The kids were crying. I quickly looked around, made sure everybody was OK and told my sister to take the kids and move away from the road.

Then I headed over to the Sentra which had disintegrated. The drive a woman in here 60's was stumbling around I directed her to the side of the road"
She informed me she was going to "sue my tourist ass" I ignored he went to the other side of her car where her granddaughter was trapped and screaming. Since there was no fire or smoke I thought it was best to leave her in place. Within minutes police, fire and EMS we there.

The driver of the other vehicle and her granddaughter went to the hospital. A state trooper asked me what happened and told me not to leave the scene.

After being there almost 2 hours the police office gave me a copy of the report and informed me I was not at fault due to statements from impartial witnesses. The trooper was on his was to the hospital to charge the other driver.

We emptied my van out crammed everything into a taxi took the business card of the tow truck that was taking away our van that was not drivable.

Too make it brief. We rented a van for the rest of our stay in Myrtle Beach, then rented a car for our drive home.

The insurance company sent a flatbed down to pick up the van and bring it back to Mississauga. It took an additional 6 weeks to repair the car.

During my first trip to WDW in Jan of '88 my car was broken into in Goofy row 20 parking.
 
Wow quite the story I'm glad everyone was ok. Did you ever find out who the witness was could have been a sticky situation if they weren't around the woman seemed quite hostile when she should have been worried about her granddaughter..
 
The woman who hit me was kind enough to run around herding up the witnesses. I'm putting her behaviour down to the woman was in some kind of shock.

Only injury in our mini van was bruise on the outside of my left calf caused by the drivers side door collapsing in.
o said that if she had hit the door first instead of the wheel I ; may have wound up in hospital with serious injuries.
 
Wow!!! ; I can't believe how much it costs to drive to WDW. ; We just priced flights from Buffalo to MCO for August 08 through JetBlue. ; 2 Adults. 1 child and 1 infant was just over $700 return. ; Disney picks us up at the airport for free sine were DVC members.
Its a no brainer..... flying is definately the better way!
 
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