Toll roads

Local here, I stay off of I-4 which is actively under construction, my friend was coming from Lakeland to Orlando( last Wednesday) which is on the other side of Winter Haven (LEGOLAND) and got stuck in traffic ( sitting still) for over a hour, and it took her almost 2+ hours to get home. My family lives in Lakeland and it use to take around a hour, now at least a hour and 45 minutes.

I would stay off of I-4 as much as possible, so I would purchase the Sunpass, that you can move from car to car. If you are staying at Bonnet Creek, you can go out the back and get on the 429 which will take you out and around the WDW theme park traffic, back gate exit off the 429 is exit 8 and put you on I-4 almost at Champions Gate, and depending on how your maps route takes you should be just a few exit up, please be mindful of your speed, in these smaller communities. They are quite creative on clocking your speed.

As far as purchasing the Sunpass, Publix carry's it, and a lot of gas stations. You can use your Sunpass in Georgia, and the Peach Pass ( Georgia version here). Our youngest daughter lives in Georgia, we use it all the time going back and forth.

Mackenzie Click-Mickelson said:

Silly question but are the tolls around the Orlando area exact change or are the attendants able to make change for you?

Click to expand...

I have run into some of the unmanned, SunPass or exact change required toll booths around Orlando before. If you don't have a SunPass, I would still carry some quarters with you.

The problem I can see my family and me having with unmanned toll booths is that when we drive to WDW, we rent a car out of state and drive to Orlando. There's no provision when we pick up the car for getting a transponder or any automated toll system. If they go all unmanned toll booths, it looks like i'll have to buy a transponder at Publix or 7-11 or set Garmin to avoid the toll roads.

dreiwhit said:

I have run into some of the unmanned, SunPass or exact change required toll booths around Orlando before. If you don't have a SunPass, I would still carry some quarters with you.

The problem I can see my family and me having with unmanned toll booths is that when we drive to WDW, we rent a car out of state and drive to Orlando. There's no provision when we pick up the car for getting a transponder or any automated toll system. If they go all unmanned toll booths, it looks like i'll have to buy a transponder at Publix or 7-11 or set Garmin to avoid the toll roads.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that information! I knew I wanted to have some actual change (rather than no quaters and whatnot) just to be on the safe side.

dreiwhit said:

Where are they? I'm not arguing, just asking for future reference.

We don't travel around Orlando after we get to WDW, so our experience with tolls is on the way in and the way out of Orlando. We have experienced a toll bridge and toll road north of Destin, but they either have a manned cash booth or a setup where they take a picture of your tag and send you a bill in the mail.

Click to expand...

Ours here in VA don't take cash.
i remember one in Orlando that didn't take cash

Peachpasses in GA work on SunPass toll roads.

dreiwhit said:

I have run into some of the unmanned, SunPass or exact change required toll booths around Orlando before. If you don't have a SunPass, I would still carry some quarters with you.

The problem I can see my family and me having with unmanned toll booths is that when we drive to WDW, we rent a car out of state and drive to Orlando. There's no provision when we pick up the car for getting a transponder or any automated toll system. If they go all unmanned toll booths, it looks like i'll have to buy a transponder at Publix or 7-11 or set Garmin to avoid the toll roads.

Click to expand...

With the unmanned toll booth they would still just take a picture of the plate and charge the rental company and then the rental company would in turn charge you the toll plus whatever the agreement is for using that "service" which is typically a daily charge even if you only hit a toll once like that during your trip. That's why people recommend going through the effort of getting the sun pass. It really has been one of the best investments I made several years ago... And of course if we could just act like one country and have interoperability between all of our various toll pass transponders that would be, well, apparently a novel concept...

Tink_83 said:

With the unmanned toll booth they would still just take a picture of the plate and charge the rental company and then the rental company would in turn charge you the toll plus whatever the agreement is for using that "service" which is typically a daily charge even if you only hit a toll once like that during your trip. That's why people recommend going through the effort of getting the sun pass. It really has been one of the best investments I made several years ago... And of course if we could just act like one country and have interoperability between all of our various toll pass transponders that would be, well, apparently a novel concept...

Click to expand...

Most states are ezpass friendly.
It can be used all over the east coast, which is a blessing if you have to take the jersey pike. Or those darn HOT lanes in northern Virginia..
thought I had read they were working on some sort of agreement.

here757 said:

Most states are ezpass friendly.
It can be used all over the east coast, which is a blessing if you have to take the jersey pike. Or those darn HOT lanes in northern Virginia..
thought I had read they were working on some sort of agreement.

Click to expand...

They are but they've been working on it for years... here is a recent article related to the sunpass and ez-pass compatibility... essentially as there is no end in sight people should just get the sun pass especially if they plan to go to Florida again within the next couple of years

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-sunpass-ezpass-interoperability-20170114-story.html