Heading to Foxwoods/Mohegan Sun from Philly

I'm going to be taking a quick weekend trip up to the Connecticut casinos from Philadelphia and had a couple questions.

1. Am I better off leaving Friday night after rush hour (say leave Philly area around 7pm), or leaving Saturday morning (say leave around 8am)? I'm concerned about traffic thru the city and when getting into Conn.

2. Does anyone have any suggestions for an affordable hotel in the area? I'd prefer not to go north of the casinos, as I also want to eat at Abbot's Lobster-in-the-rough, which is about 30 mins south.

Thanks!

I assume "the city" you're referring to is NYC. First of all, avoid the city all together. Take 95 / NJ Tpke to GSP to NY Thruway to Tappan Zee Bridge and finally rejoin 95 near the CT border.

No suggestions on the hotel.

The routing suggested is probably the best one -- avoid NYC -- go through North New Jersey and turn right over the TPZ. Even if you left PHL at 2pm you'd be alright.

I've never had a bad experience using Priceline to find a hotel in this area. It's a pretty reliable way to find very good hotels for about half price (still $80-110).

The Econolodge in Mystic is the nicest Econolodge I've ever stayed in. That'd be more like $60/night. It's nowhere near as "nice" as the places you can Priceline for $90, but it's definitely worth $60.

And check out the Mystic Zoo and Seaport while you're there...

No matter which bridge you choose it's a crap shoot. I drive into NYC often as well as AC every couple of months and I've had clear sailing and traffic jams taking either bridge. Tune to radio station 1010 WINS for frequent and detailed traffic reports. Of course something could happen once you've committed to a bridge but it has helped.

I saw this on Twitter and took a screen shot of it for you (when I was formatting it on tinypic.com the jcaptcha was "construction ahead" lol)

Thank you everyone for your suggestions!!