Disney – before you go

We just got back from Orlando, Florida with Penny and Rory. They are 9f and 7m. They are autistic with ADHD. Penny is a wanderer and thrill seeker, Rory is a runner, and they’re both escape artists. They’re both fairly anxious kiddos.

We travelled for 10 days – from May 1 to May 11^th. This was their first time on a plane. We had a stopover in Toronto on the way there and back, and we travelled from St. John’s, NL – so total there were four 3-hour flights.

While we were in Florida we went to the four main Disney parks: Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, and Epcot. We also did Universal’s Islands of Adventure (and I did a second Universal park) and we went to Seaworld (mostly for Sesame Street Land).

We travelled as a group of ten: our family of four, my sister’s family of four (two neurotypical kids aged 6 and 9), and my mom and stepdad.

I decided to write all about our trip in an effort to give tips, advice, and most importantly HOPE to any other families who are considering a Disney Trip (or really any vacation) but who have kiddos with exceptional needs like ours and are unsure if they can make it work. This is going to be lengthy and over several posts. Literally on the first day of our trip I had about 3 pages of tips written down between me, my sister, and mom.

I’ll give you my reasoning for choosing what we did too because I hate articles that say “don’t do this” with no reasons why. Like, when I looked up about travelling to San Francisco and almost every article said “don’t stay by Fisherman’s Wharf” and I was searching like, “Why? Is it unsafe? Is it far away from things? Is the crime rate high?” The reason was because that’s where tourists stay. Mam, I am a tourist – your reason does not apply.

So, I’ll cover through this “series”:

• Things to do before you go
• Airplane Travel (and a Toronto day trip)
• Airports
  • St. John’s
  • Toronto
  • Orlando (there’s a train to get to the baggage area?!)
• The theme parks themselves that we went to:
  • Magic Kingdom
  • Hollywood Studios
  • Epcot
  • Animal Kingdom
  • SeaWorld
  • Universal Studios
• How we scheduled our time for breaks
• Parking
• And things about:
  • Food for picky eaters (did you know McDonalds isn’t the same everywhere?!)
  • Automatic Toilets (why do these still exist?!)
  • Lack of automatic hand dryers (Woohoo!)

I feel like it’s important to note that I am in no way an expert. Just going off of my experiences, what I wish I knew, and what worked for our family. Others might have other suggestions, and I would love to hear them!!

We got a lot of our Information from Go Travel with Jo. She was a fantastic travel agent working with neurodiverse families, however she’s since put her business on hold. I would have highly recommended her otherwise!

So, FIRST UP!

Things to do before you go/Pre-planning

• Book accommodations that work for your family
• Book a car, if needed
• Put some thought into your flights
• Get passport photos
• Book an airport tour
• Set up Disney’s Disability pass (DAS Pass)
• Call Universal about Disability Pass
• Book a stroller (if you’re so inclined)

Accommodations

The first thing we booked was a house to stay. We booked through VRBO and we chose a one-level house so that our talented climbers could not climb over a balcony either inside or outside. Yes, this is a valid concern for my kids. (I’ve heard many times that climbing runs in Shamus’ family – god love all the parents before me too).

We stayed at a place called Fairytale Villa, which I would highly recommend.

We looked into staying actually on the Disney property, and there were several options – hotels, cabins, villas – but we wanted to be together as a family of 10 and none of the options which were even mildly affordable kept us altogether under one roof. I don’t know much about staying on the resort, but to my knowledge you can travel directly to the parks. We had to rent a van (see below).

I ended up really enjoying being off-site. I felt like we got a lot of time to decompress, and Rory was able to swim in our pool sans clothes, the way he prefers. We would have been very stressed if he did that in a pool shared outside of our family. As it were, we just kept hearing my 6 year old niece saying, “Auntie, Rory’s naked…again.”

My advice:

• Make sure the place you stay works for your family – the house we stayed had alarms on the doors leading to the pool, and a really high fence surrounding the pool when not in use. I highly recommend this if any of your kids are drawn to water like mine!
• Buy groceries – even if it costs about $600 american… Take-out can really add up
• Our house was open concept and that worked really well to keep an eye on the kids – we could almost always see the front door

Car Rental:

Because we were travelling as a large group, we booked a 12 seater van instead of a car or several cars. It was nice to have the time together in the morning and evenings. We’re a group that tends to split up and come back together instead of spending every waking hour together.

I am a Costco member so we booked our rental car/van through Costco Travel online. This was the cheapest I could find, and also it doesn’t charge your card right away. So, while most 12-seater vans I saw were about $3000-5000 to rent directly from the companies, the one from Costco ended up being $1026. I booked and rebooked until we got the cheapest rate with Budget the day before we arrived. In saying that, there are a lot of extra fees on the rental car that I wasn’t expecting – so although online it said our price was $1026 (US), it ended up being about $2600 (can) at the airport when we arrived (more on this later).

My advice:

• If you book through Costco, keep checking back to see if the prices have gone down. You can rebook and then cancel your previous booking without any issue. Especially the week before your trip, prices tend to drop

Flights

We booked our flights through Air Canada with a stopover. We could have done direct flights (I believe they’re offered through WestJet), but from what I heard, they’re more likely to get delayed so I thought it would be best to at least get to Toronto so that we could minimize any delays in St. John’s.

When we booked, we booked for 7am in the morning, however, by the end of the airline rescheduling, we ended up leaving at 5 am so it was a very early morning and a 9 hour stopover in Toronto. I think direct flights would have been nice, honestly, but I also know my anxiety wouldn’t have been able to handle it wondering if it would be cancelled!

We purposely booked for the back of the plane so we wouldn’t feel so watched, and we seated Rory behind Penny on the flights because he kicks the seat incessantly. Just something to keep in mind if you have a seat kicker too. (I’ll delve more into the actual flights later).

Passport Photos

The first stress with air travel was how to get passports for the kids. My kids are not ones to sit for photos and look at a camera – hello, eye contact.

I found the experience a lot less stressful than it could have been. When I inquired about passport photos at Staples, they told me that they take one photo and if it doesn’t work then we have to pay anyways, even if the kids are having a bad day. Not exactly accommodating.

So, I reached out to Celebrity Photo Studios in Downtown St. John’s (beneath where the old passport office was) and we booked a time to go in early before they opened. One of the owners sent me photos of the space and a brief explanation of what would be required from the kids.

When we got there it was quiet and there was no waiting. For some reason my kids thought they were getting a needle (not even sure why) so there was a mild panic when we first arrived but she patiently waited for them to calm. She took several photos and looked through to find the ones that would fit the requirements. One thing that worked for Penny to keep her mouth closed was to ask her to hum. Made for some pretty cute photos too.

Shamus brought in the photos to the passport office and explained to the workers that our kids are autistic and it’s hard to get photos that fit the requirements, and they allowed the ones we had.

Airport tour

Before we left, I e-mailed the St. John’s airport and booked a tour of the airport with them. They were really great.  You’re not allowed to get on the plane, but they bring you through security and show you what to expect and also supply you with a social story.

I liked that the people who brought us around talked directly to the kids and not Shamus and I. I find that a lot of people tend to ignore the kids, but it was great that they attempted to involve the kids in it – they even gave them a squishy plane toy. The only part which was a bit of a wait was waiting for security clearance before we could begin the tour – Rory was not a fan. It was about 10 minutes of waiting for a door to open.

When we were leaving after the tour was over, Penny yelled out, “see you again soon!” And she seemed fairly confident which was sweet.

DAS Pass – Disability Access Pass with Disney

Once your tickets for Disney are booked (we booked ours during a black Friday sale with Undercover Tourist) and linked to your Disney App, you can apply for the DAS Pass with Disney no more than 30 days ahead of your trip.

The DAS Pass basically will give you a time that you can return to the ride with your child. Usually about 20-30 minutes after you book it, and then you can go through the Lightening Lane within an hour of that time to go straight onto the ride. It works out really well as long you know what rides you want to go on. (I’ll delve more into this later). You can link 5 people to one DAS Pass, and it’s only valid if the person with the disability is going to do the ride.

To apply for the DAS Pass, the best way to do it is through a video chat because they’ll book 2 rides a day ahead of time for you (when you can usually only get one at a time). The person who you are signing up needs to be present, so in our case, Penny and Rory needed to be available. I video called first thing in the morning (8:30am our time, 7am their time) and it took about 45 minutes to get a response. All they needed to do was take a picture of the kids (I laid the phone in front of them while they played on their tablets) and then I was able to talk to them myself.

I just explained their needs, why it would be difficult for them to stand in line, and the person said, “Okay”. It wasn’t a fight like most places so that was nice. We booked 2 rides a day for four of the Disney parks we were attending. Some of them we didn’t actually use after (but, again, I’ll get back to that later).

Universal Disability Pass

I have to be honest, I didn’t find Universal to be particularly organized, and it started with the Disability pass. Shamus had to call the Universal number a few days before our trip and they gave him a registration number. When we got into Universal, we had to stand in line at Guest Services for about 20 minutes before they gave us paper copies of the disability pass.

It turned out that we didn’t have to use it once anyways. So in terms of how well it works, I have no idea. We went on many, many rides throughout the day (some with my kids, some without) and there was never a wait – not even in Harry Potter World. My sister and I did several rides multiple times. I know the premise of theirs is something like, if it’s less than a 10 minute wait, you can skip the line. If it’s more than 10 minutes, they’ll give you a return time. It’s similar to Disney’s DAS Pass but it’s a paper copy, not linked to an app.

Strollers

This is something we didn’t do ahead of time which I wish we had in some instances. We didn’t rent a stroller to take with us from park to park. My reasoning was because I wanted a double stroller and I couldn’t find one with the weight limit we needed at private companies. The ones at Disney are fantastic and literally almost every kid there uses them or a wheelchair. However, this means that the kids had to walk (or hitch a ride on a back) to get to the parks every morning and back to the van in the evenings. The parking lots are fairly large and some days it would have worked much better to have been able to keep them in a contained area. (More on parking tips and Disney stroller advice later – surprise!)

One that kept coming up as suggestion was Stroller Bug. I have no experience with them though.

So, I realize this seems like a lot, but I’m trying to be thorough! My overall advice is:

1. Plan!!!
2. Don’t worry if your plans have to change
3. Your trip might not look exactly like everyone else’s seems to, but it can absolutely be done (I assure you, most families were not smiling the whole time)
4. At the end of the day, the most fun thing is spending time together and making memories.
5. Stressful situations can absolutely be made into funny stories – trust me. Just wait until I tell you about nearly tackling Rory to the floor on the plane.