Disney

Disney truly is the most magical place on earth… if you’re a kid… not a parent. Exhausting, hot, stressful, hot, crowded…those are a few adjectives that come to mind if you would ask me about Disney World.  But ask my kids and they will light up like the tree at Rockefeller Plaza in December. Their time in Disney was really great, and I am so glad their first experience was a good one.

  When my husband asked me to pick a date we could go to Disney, all I could think was “why Disney? Our kids have never once asked to go, so why take them?” They always want to go to Mexico, because they love the beach. Did I miss something here? 

As soon as we told them we were going, however, my ears were met with screeching  squealing screams- like the audience from Oprah’s Favorite things episode….“You get a car, and you get a car”.. except I wasn’t getting a car. I was getting a trip that was going to require precise planning, execution, and lots of prayers. 

AJ and Blake are super easy at this time in their life. They can walk for hours without complaining, rarely bicker with each other anymore, and will eat from pretty much any food establishment (the cheaper and crappier, the better).  Grayson however, is the one who requires a lot of planning.  He can’t walk for very long but refuses to stay in a stroller. He still needs his goat milk in bottles and baby food. Pretty sure Disney doesn’t sell that! And this may sound stupid, but he has very pale skin and thin hair so I worry about him burning his skin and scalp, and he usually won’t wear a hat. (I’ve had several family members die from skin cancer, so I’m a little paranoid about the issue).

But  I must say, all in all (besides the fact it really isn’t a vacation for the mom) the trip was a huge success. My kids lasted the whole day without crying, complaining, or getting tired. We pretty much were able to do everything in the parks we wanted, we weren’t too hot and the crowds weren’t too bad. I was very pleased and obviously surprised.

Which parks did we visit you ask? This was my toughest dilemma to figure out. We did Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom and Typhoon Lagoon. If your kids are young like mine, DO NOT DO MAGIC KINGDOM first. I believe they will be disappointed by the time they get to Hollywood Studios. Magic Kingdom has way more rides, and way more for kids to experience. Hollywood Studios is more like “an experience for them”. They all loved the “Beauty and the Beast” mini-musical (even the boys), the sing along with Frozen, and Toy Storyland, in Hollywood Studios. Grayson got to see his favorite Disney character Doc Mc Stuffins, but Blake and AJ were not buying the whole “character thing”. By age 5 they can spot a fake, and Blake was giving them the stank eye when they would approach her for a hug. Grayson ate it up though! Hollywood Studios was still great, just not as exciting for them as Magic Kingdom. If your kids are older (10-teens) I would still suggest Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Universal and Epcot (which is my personal favorite). It all depends on your kid’s ages.

 

*Grayson hugged Doc for almost a full minute without letting go. It was so cute to watch and must have meant something for him because he would not let go. Grayson also made friends with the two girls in front of us while we waited an hour for Beauty and the Beast to start.

 

If you have a child with special needs and are concerned about the logistics of taking your child, I hope this blog entry helps a little. I will try to explain the do’s and don’ts from my limited perspective, of taking a special needs child to Disney, keeping in mind every special needs child has so many different needs.

In honor of David Letterman, I will call this my top list of DONT’S when traveling to Disney with a special needs child.

1. Don’t stay offsite.  This was our biggest mistake. We thought we were renting a car, which turned out to be a disaster (rental car place had us waiting for two hours, with a reservation mind you, and we still had another hour to wait. We left and used  Uber). You may pay less to stay offsite like we did, but you will rack up the cost in other ways, whether it’s Uber (because you pay a lot more to have them come with a car seat), or daily parking.

If you are going to be there a decent amount of time, and do not plan on going to a park every day, and prefer to relax a few days then maybe offsite is better. We stayed at the Marriott villa’s, and had a two bedroom apartment. Having space, access to the big kitchen, and privacy was a great thing.  I also was close to Walmart and Whole Foods, which I needed to go to for Graysons things, so that was helpful as well. I do think the restaurant selection was much smaller, and I would have preferred to be closer to Downtown Disney, and be in a hotel on site.

2. Don’t expect your kid to become an adult and do multiple parks for the whole day. Yes, Disney is magical, but it ain’t a magician. Your child is still a child, and will not turn into an adult overnight. Carting them around from place to place in one day,  because you don’t want to miss anything is not realistic.  You will set yourself up for tantrums, crying, and exhaustion by the third day. As tempting as it seems to want to do everything, and have no leaf unturned, resist the urge and make sure the trip is one of quality, not quantity. Kids don’t care about getting it all done, they care more about enjoying and living in the moment. You will likely return at some point in your life and can uncover those areas then. Remember to see the trip through their eye’s- everything they see is so wonderful to them, they will not feel like they missed out on anything.

The first day we were at Hollywood Studios, my kids were asking when they were going back to the hotel to go swimming…I mean really? Of course, I explained they were not coming back to this park, and needed to make the most of it. But it did reinforce the decision my husband and I made to not do more than two parks. Well, we did three parks, but I will cover that later.

3. Don’t’ make your child stay at the park the whole day. We let the kids sleep in, and strolled into the park around  noon both days, and stayed until the fireworks were over at Magic Kingdom. Grayson napped both days in the stroller, and we took a few breaks and just sat with water, a snack, or took silly pictures. I also packed snacks, which I recommend to help save on cost.

4. Don’t’ forget to load your kids up with Vitamin C, or airborne. One of Disney’s slogans should be ”  the most germ infested place on earth!” Load up on these things a week before, and the whole time you are there.  I give my kids ascorbic acid and add Stevia to it with a little water, Sambucol and Onguard oil on their feet.  AJ still was sick for a few days after we returned, but I can’t imagine how much sicker he would have been had I not done this.

5. Don’t forget to pack their bathing suits for Magic Kingdom. It gets really hot, especially if you’re a Yankee like me and used to weather up north. There is a small area that has fountains and water shooting out for your kid to get wet. It was so hot we let them stay in their clothes, but it would have been nice to have at least one towel, and or flip flops. The ground is super hot!

6. Don’t forget to pack reusable water bottles. Put them in their backpacks empty, so they get through security. Trust me, you will need this. Water at the park is $3.50 per bottle, and there was 5 of us… you do the math. I filled their water bottles up with ice, and only had to buy one bottle for the kids and split it up into their cups. It gets really hot and the kids need to stay hydrated. We would refill their bottles with water about every three hours. The ice in the cup just makes the water stretch and stay cold longer.

7. Don’t forget to pack sunscreen. You need to reapply sunscreen every 2-3  hours out in that hot sun. Their skin is very delicate when they are young, and exposing your child to sunburn when they are younger, is what causes Melanoma to develop when they are adults. I kept mine in our mini ice chest so it was nice and cool. Also, hats protect their scalps.

8. Don’t forget a small cooler. This is especially true if your child has specific needs for eating. I had to cart Grayson’s goat milk around all day…it was such a pain but SO necessary. I had to keep finding places that would refill my ice so his milk wouldn’t go bad but it worked. We brought a medium size cooler with straps and just hung it from the stroller.

9. Don’t forget an umbrella. The relief we got from blocking the sun was SO needed. Grayson won’t keep his hat on all day, so this helped block the sun for him and us.

10. Don’t forget to schedule a day at one of the water parks. I know it seems initially like a waste of time because you can go to a water park anytime, but trust me… you can’t go to ones like Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach. They are amazing, and you can sit and relax a little. They had an amazing “kiddie water park” within the park that was perfect for my little scaredy cat Blake and Grayson. Small inner tubes with mini water slides, mini waterfalls, slides, and fountains. It was perfect for them, and Andrew and AJ could do all the adult water park activities.

11. Last and most important, DO NOT FORGET to get a disability pass for your special needs child! Disney, as genius as they are, realized that not all kids can stand in line around a bunch of strangers, for long periods of time, for varied different reasons. You have the ability to forego the lines, kind of like having a “Fast pass”, and do the rides much quicker. This is an unlimited pass, only limiting you to one experience at a time! In other words, you cannot go sign up at three different rides at once, you get a blocked set of time for each experience. You get this from Quest Services before you enter the park. It’s not something you can sign up for beforehand. You also only have to do it one time, and you will be set for your entire visit. It is also valid for your whole family.  After you have it, you go to the ride you want to go on,  and they will give you a time to come back, which is usually what the wait time is. No long waiting in lines, with all the crowds. It was one of the main reasons our trip was actually enjoyable. We could just sit in the shade, eat our snacks and let Grayson watch his nursery rhymes on a phone, or go meet a character, while we waited for our appointed time to go back to get on a ride.

12. Okay this is a bonus…and I have to add this in, but DON’T go in December..ha ha! I was told it is a nightmare. If crowds are not your thing then you can’t come for Christmas. We took the kids out of school for a few days, and it seemed pretty tolerable. I can’t imagine being there with more crowds, but I was told it gets way more crowded when school is not in session.

So, there you have it. Traveling with kids, and special needs kids can be super stressful, but it can be done. You definitely have to lower your expectations for the trip, so you will enjoy yourself more. I have found that when my expectations are too high, I end up disappointed. I had very awful  low expectations for this trip, and stress aside, I think it turned out perfect!