What’s It Like Traveling on I-95?

For many people, the Memorial Day weekend is the start of the summer traveling season. With concerns about air travel, many people may be taking to the roads to head to Walt Disney World. I-95 is a popular interstate for travel from the northeast, and recently I had the opportunity to travel on I-95 between Walt Disney World and the Washington DC area.

How’s the Fuel Situation?

The week before we left to go from Florida to Maryland, there was the massive pipeline shutdown and fuel shortage in the mid-Atlantic. From my experience, there still were some gas stations that were without fuel, or had certain pumps without fuel, but overall it wasn’t difficult at all to find gasoline. If you’re concerned, I recommend the GasBuddy app and web site to help locate fuel and check prices.

What Are Hotel Stays Like?

We stayed at many different hotels throughout our stay, and found that all hotels required masks in common areas, had staff wear masks, and limited the number of people on an elevator at any given time. Even though signs were posted that masks were required, around 1/3 of guests that I saw walking through the hotel lobby were not wearing masks, and hotel staff did not approach guests to have them wear masks. All had a huge focus on cleanliness, and mentioned often all of the things they were doing to keep customers safe, from sanitized remote controls for TVs (or even the ability to use a QR code to control the TV so you don’t have to touch the remote) to a “sanitized for your protection” seal on the door.

For our multi-day stay, housekeeping was available only upon request. If you were interested in the hotel breakfast, there was a huge range of differences even among hotels in the same chain. At one stay, the complete hotel buffet experience was there — chafing dishes full of scrambled eggs and sausages and the typical hotel waffle station, all self-serve (by both guests with and without masks). They also had pre-packaged grab and go items. At another, only prepackaged food was available. At yet another, breakfast was all prepackaged items with a limited selection of fruit, prepackaged juice cups, and prepackaged pastries, plus a coffee station with shorter than normal hours of about 2 hours/day.

Expect that most hotel amenities on the road — things like fitness centers, business centers, hotel restaurant/bar, and the pool — will not be available or have limited hours. Also expect that things are changing quickly–amenities may open up overnight. In general, be flexible and pack your patience.

Any Thoughts on Food?

Because my daughter is still too young to be vaccinated, we are not yet comfortable eating in restaurants, and so we exclusively did drive-through/picnic, curbside dining (like our first trip to Sonic), and carry-out (to eat in the hotel room), and we brought a cooler with drinks and some snacks. One thing we found is that some places that were there the last time we made a trip (in March, 2019) were now out of business. If you have a place that is your “old reliable” dining establishment, check to make sure it is still in business before you go. Also expect that some restaurants may still have reduced menus, and so what you find on their web site may not be accurate. Finally, we did notice that even on a non-peak dining day, carryout orders were a bit slower than normal, with 40 minutes to one hour being the norm in some areas. We did place orders for pickup in advance and then take them to rest areas for a picnic lunch.

What about Rest Areas and Businesses?

And speaking of picnic lunches at rest areas, if you are looking to do a picnic meal anywhere from parts of Virginia northward, cicada season is in full force and you’ll find picnic areas pretty heavily occupied. They don’t bite and don’t sting, so we just brushed them away, but our daughter decided she’d rather stand for the meal than sit at the table.

In terms of other experiences, rules about mask usage at rest areas (and other businesses) can be tricky to figure out. Some places had signs firmly requiring masks when indoors. Others had signs about the dangers of COVID and releasing the location from liability. Still others had no signs at all. You’d see quite a few confused travelers approach with masks in hand and try to figure out whether or not they were supposed to wear a mask. When there was no sign, most erred on the side of caution and wore one.

At businesses (convenience stores and the like), it truly was a mixed bag for mask usage with customers and employees alike. At the new Buc-ee’s in Daytona Beach, about 2/3 of the staff wore masks, and closer to 3/4 of the customers. My personal advice is to have a mask handy because some places will require it. (And it goes without saying, if you aren’t vaccinated, wear a mask.)

For rest areas, vending machines were available, but some areas did have water fountains turned off. Some rest areas had brochures out, and others did not. Again, flexibility is key.

Have any other questions about driving on I-95 to or from Walt Disney World? Let us know in the comments.