East Coast road trip - advice needed

I’m taking a road trip down the East Coast, leaving from CT on Dec 26. A friend of mine is flying from Wisconsin to DC and the two of us are going to a Washington Wizards game that night. We have a hotel already booked for the night.

For Dec 27, we are thinking of driving to Charlotte, having a meal there, and continuing on towards Atlanta. We would spend the night in Georgia before finishing the drive to Florida on the 28th.

Do you think it’s worth it to see Charlotte and Atlanta since we only have time to spend a few hours in each city? Taking this route adds ~3 hours of driving to the trip. The alternative is driving straight down the coast, stopping when we get tired, and finishing the journey the next day. Either way, we will arrive to Florida on the 28th. I’m just not sure if it’s worth a longer route to only see those cities briefly.