Updated - 30 May. The 7 states trip - from Washington DC to New York via Orlando

[The A team]

This trip began with just Florida, plans started properly in early 2018 as we knew wanted to visit WDW in 2019. We debated long and hard over all Villa, all on site or split stay. We switched back and fore many times. Amelia wanted all on site, Niamh all Villa. We settled on all on site and decided to wait out free dining. The closer this got the more unsure I felt. In the end, we decided on a split stay, 1 week on site and 1 in a villa.


We began our villa search, we loved the location of Sunset Lakes where we had stayed before, but as we were planning on spending the Villa week exploring more of Orlando than just the parks, we broadened our search a little further and saw the beautiful Hibiscus Ridge, this is bigger than we need for the 4 of us, but it looks so beautiful, we couldn’t resist. So we contacted the owners and very quickly (and friendly) we had it all booked up.

Now we had to wait for free dining, and decide where to stay. Having stayed in Beach Club in 2016 and having a fantastic time we were unsure whether to repeat this and risk not enjoying it so much, or trying elsewhere. We decided on trying elsewhere, ideally Contemporary. When booking opened, this was way too expensive for the rooms we wanted so we decided on Polynesian at the last minute. I could only get 6 nights originally, but a few weeks later got the remainder.

So all sorted – 7 nights Poly, 7 nights villa. With this all booked, we then squeezed in a last minute 1 week in May 2018.

Here we all are on this trip

While there, we took a trip to Poly, and although lovely, it wasn’t giving us the right feeling. We decided to sit on this for a bit as we were also looking at extending the trip to 3 weeks and adding in a road trip either before or after.

After lots of research, checking on leave etc, we decided that we would do a road trip first before heading to WDW. We also knew we wanted to fly home on a day flight due to Amelia’s travel sickness, we want to see if this will help, with all this in mind, we eventually decided on the following

2 Nights Washington DC (was going to be 3, but decided to leave earlier to split the 8hr drive to Asheville)
1 Night Roanoke, Virginia
3 Nights near Asheville, North Carolina – from here we will also be visiting Tennessee
1 Night Savannah, Georgia – having driven through South Carolina
6 nights WDW at Yacht Club
7 nights Hibiscus Ridge Villa
1 night New York

So in total 7 states (plus Washington DC).

All hotels are booked on a cancellation rate so if anything better comes up I can cancel as needed.

We are booked into the JW Marriott in Washington, nice and close to the White House and Mall as I expect we will be spending a bit of time there.

There is then a 240 mile, 3hrs 45 min drive to our next hotel in Roanoke. This is mainly booked to allow for a slightly shorter journey tomorrow, but looks lovely too.

We are then heading to the most beautiful cabin in Candler, North Carolina, planning to travel via a stop off at Grandfather mountain and travel a bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway as well. This is going to be a long day, around 266 miles and at least 5 hrs of driving, but at least it will be broken up.
We have 3 nights in the cabin, plans for what we do here are still being made, I have some ideas, but need a little more research (and more fitness) before committing to them!

We are then off on route to Florida and WDW, we considered flying, but as we will have the car anyway, thought we’d carry on the road trip a little further so are driving across South Carolina and stopping over night in a hotel in Savannah. This is just over 300 miles and should take around 4.5 hours. We are unsure whether to leave early and stop on route, leave later and see more around the cabin or leave early and just get to Savannah to spend a bit of time there, still researching this bit.

After a short stay here, we will be up and out early (I think) to head to WDW and the Yacht Club. This is another 300 mile drive, taking around 4.5 hours, we might stop for lunch around St Augustine, again this is still in the planning.

We have 6 nights at the Yacht Club, and I think I’ve got a rough itinerary for these days (ADR day is on 28th Jan so getting ready for that) before moving on to 7 nights in the Villa – we will be ready for a bit of relaxation time by then and this looks like the perfect place for that. There will still be some busy days while here, we want to head for a trip to Clearwater and might also look into an airboat ride and / or a state park as well.

We then move for the last time, this time we are flying to New York, it is only a quick visit, we are landing there are around 12 midday and then leave at 8am the following morning. We are hoping to just head into New York and soak up the atmosphere as there won’t really be time for anything else.

Flights are all booked, we have a fly drive with BA from LHR-DUB-IAD going out and JFK-LHR returning. I’ve used points and a bit of cash to upgrade our inbound flight to Club World and we should arrive back in London, well rested around 8:30 pm and as it will only feel like 3:30pm, we will hopefully have an easy drive home, were we will collapse exhausted but hopefully full of amazing memories!

I will be back to update as I fill out our plans for the trip, the plans for Washington are coming along nicely, so hopefully will have an update on them soon.