Driving from Bay Area for Labor Day weekend

[mcm574]

Hello, all! We are planning a trip to celebrate our 9/5 anniversary over Labor Day weekend. My husband prefers to drive from the Bay Area, while I think sometimes it makes more sense to fly - and this might be one of those times. It generally takes us about 7 hours to drive between home and Anaheim, but I'm inclined to think that if we're driving down the Friday before Labor Day, and driving back on Labor Day itself, it might take WAY longer than that. Has anyone had experience with doing the drive with that timing in years past?

 

[UnpokemonMom]

I like to drive as well, but am opting to fly due to this construction work: https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/grapevine-lane-reductions-19375695.php

Will only affect you on your way back north, so maybe just plan to leave super super early?

 

[ParkHopper1]

Where from in Bay Area?...if you are taking 101 south to 152 east to 5 Pacheco Pass outside Gilroy is typically stacked on Friday heading down and Sunday returning and can be downright miserable on Holiday weekends....let alone LA traffic.

680>580>205>5 is also a miserable drive Friday afternoons.

Me?...I would be flying.

 

[mcm574]

@ParkHopper1 we do, indeed, do 101S to 152E to 5S, and have done it on regular weekends - in fact, we just did the trip from Thu 5/2-Sun 5/5 and found that the trip back on Sunday wasn't bad at all (we left around 3 and got back around 10) but, again, I'm just really hesitant about the holiday factor, which is why I'm hoping to hear from someone who maybe did it (against their better judgment, I suppose!) last year, or maybe at Memorial Day, etc
....

Where from in Bay Area?...if you are taking 101 south to 152 east to 5 Pacheco Pass outside Gilroy is typically stacked on Friday heading down and Sunday returning and can be downright miserable on Holiday weekends....let alone LA traffic.

680>580>205>5 is also a miserable drive Friday afternoons.

Me?...I would be flying.

 

[mcm574]

I like to drive as well, but am opting to fly due to this construction work: https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/grapevine-lane-reductions-19375695.php

Will only affect you on your way back north, so maybe just plan to leave super super early?

Ooooh, good to know, thank you! (We don't want to leave super super early!)

 

[ParkHopper1]

@ParkHopper1 we do, indeed, do 101S to 152E to 5S, and have done it on regular weekends - in fact, we just did the trip from Thu 5/2-Sun 5/5
....

I grew up in the South Bay area and know that southbound traffic through 152 on Friday is dramatically more crazy than a Thursday cuz in addition to regular commuters that is the main conduit for Bay Area driver headed to SoCal of the weekend as well which cause big delays.

 

[LKing]

Have you check the price of flights? I took a glance at SWA from OAK<->SNA and it looks pretty steep.

 

[mel2014]

We drove down from Sacramento on the Friday before Labor Day last year. I was presently surprised at how quickly we made the drive. We left around 4, made one strictly potty stop and one for potty, food and gas along the way and arrived around 10 going straight down I-5.

We considered flying, but the flight times were either too early (would have required pulling the kids out of school) or much later. By driving we were able to leave immediately after they got out of school and arrived at our hotel around the same time we would have by flying for a much lower cost (and we were able to more easily bring loads of park snacks for our teenagers). We did a one-way car rental, so we drove down Friday and flew back Monday (It was $175 to do a one-way minivan rental through Enterprise, doing after hours drop off at the Enterprise on Harbor near Orangewood).

 

[mcm574]

We drove down from Sacramento on the Friday before Labor Day last year. I was presently surprised at how quickly we made the drive. We left around 4, made one strictly potty stop and one for potty, food and gas along the way and arrived around 10 going straight down I-5.

We considered flying, but the flight times were either too early (would have required pulling the kids out of school) or much later. By driving we were able to leave immediately after they got out of school and arrived at our hotel around the same time we would have by flying for a much lower cost (and we were able to more easily bring loads of park snacks for our teenagers). We did a one-way car rental, so we drove down Friday and flew back Monday (It was $175 to do a one-way minivan rental through Enterprise, doing after hours drop off at the Enterprise on Harbor near Orangewood).

Good to know for future reference, mel2014, thank you! That article about the Grapevine construction made us decide to revisit the possibility of flying... at which time I discovered a) we had SW credits that I'd forgotten about (I think from the debacle around the holidays a couple of years ago when their whole system went to heck) and b) there's a flight that's timed perfectly for us to pick the kids up at the end of the school day and head straight to the airport... so that's what we're doing! (Per LKing's note above, it's more than we'd normally have wanted to pay for a SW flight, but the credits made it much more palatable... and I've already been able to rebook for $10/ticket less than I originally paid, so I'll keep checking on that as well!)

Thanks to all of you for the input, much appreciated! Now, to contemplate Fantasmic dining packages (so much more fun!)....