We drove down again over the weekend for about six weeks with a flight home in the middle for a wedding. We tried something a little different this time - we were wheels rolling at 6 AM on a Saturday which took all of the DC/Virginia drama out and got us into NC before 10 AM. We also decided to push straight through with just gas stops and McD's drive through.
We extended our first day push all the way to Brunswick, then took a little (15 min) detour to the coast to the little gem of Jekyll Island, which is like a little baby Hilton Head before being fully developed. The Residence Inn is one of the two or three nicest I've ever stayted, right on the beach, full restaurant/bar. Only a Category 4 as of now, too. The weather was beautiful for late February, too, but really foggy in the morning. I HIGHLY recommend this location and there's also a Westin if you want to get your fancy on.
We got up Sunday morning and were in Orlando (just over 3 hours) by 11 AM.
Over the 13.5 hours of driving we hit about 5 minutes of traffic near Hardeeville (of course in SC...LOL) so the best experience we've had. Northbound was horrible - we saw about a half dozen accidents that had at least 3- 5 mile backups.