Hello everyone again! I'm finally ready to start our trip report for June 20th-June 30th. My pre trip report can be found here.
Just a quick recap my name is Davita and this will be my DH's and my fourth trip to the World. DH is an orchestra teacher who did a mostly Disney concert and we Disney Bounded as Donald and Daisy Duck.
This will be my brother's and my mother's second trip to Disney World but only the first time with us. So this is technically their first trip they do Disney World properly. My brothers are twins who are 22 and on the spectrum. Nathan is much more severe than Matthew, with bipolar disorder and OCD.
Nathan hasn't been on a plane since he was a little boy, pre 9/11, so we were worried about how he'd handle TSA. He doesn't like taking his shoes off in public, or people going though his backpack so you can understand our hesitation.
In preparation about a week before the trip we went over to their house to stage a fake TSA screening. At first, Nathan seemed super happy talking about the trip but once we asked him to take off his shoes and put his backpack through the "x-ray machine" he became very quiet and, I think, nervous. Matthew handled it very well, but spoiler alert, he didn't do so well on the actual day.
Fast forward a week and we met them at the airport bright and early at 5 am for our 7:15 flight. After we checked our bags, all 10 of them, oy, we went up to security. Luckily for us because we are rapid rewards members we automatically qualified for Pre-TSA, so all the work we did with practicing taking our shoes off was for naught. We decided early that I would take Nathan through and DH would help Matthew and my mom. Nathan did great! He seemed slightly agitated about his backpack having to go through the machine, out of his sight. After we went through the metal detectors, we turned around and no DH or family behind us. Apparently, Matthew didn't empty his pockets and they were trying to stuff things in backpacks because Pre-TSA didn't have readily available bins to put stuff in. Then right before Matthew went through he threw the rest of his stuff in the X-ray machine. When he got to the other side with us, we had to wait a while for a TSA agent to get everything out of the machine.
After that trauma was over we sat and had breakfast.
Matthew is on the left and Nathan is on the right. If you can't tell, Nathan's favorite character is Goofy.
We then preboarded the plane and took some selfies.
Something that we didn't know until this trip is that Southwest's policy on pre-boarding based on disability, is that one person per disabled individual can preboard with them. So DH couldn't preboard with us but Matthew saved him a seat.
We flew to Houston first, where we were supposed to just stay on the plane to Orlando but were unexpectedly forced to changed planes. I was worried Nathan wouldn't do so well with that but he was fine with running to the next gate for Orlando. Everything was fine on our flight to Orlando. Then it was time to put on our Magic Bands!!
After picking up the mountains of bags, we went to board the Magical Express.
That's my mom right there, btw. More selfies!
I still hate the new video very much. Nathan and Matthew couldn't have cared less about it and I think Matthew started playing his video games. But we got really lucky and the Polynesian was the very first stop! yay! We arrived, got our leis and checked in to our room which was in Aotearoa. Not the building I chose on online check in, but I was actually really happy with it. We did get our other requests for adjoining rooms and a balcony.
And our view had the monorail going by! That never got old.
Next, presents for everyone! Captain Cook's lunch and Downtown Disney
Just a quick recap my name is Davita and this will be my DH's and my fourth trip to the World. DH is an orchestra teacher who did a mostly Disney concert and we Disney Bounded as Donald and Daisy Duck.
This will be my brother's and my mother's second trip to Disney World but only the first time with us. So this is technically their first trip they do Disney World properly. My brothers are twins who are 22 and on the spectrum. Nathan is much more severe than Matthew, with bipolar disorder and OCD.
Nathan hasn't been on a plane since he was a little boy, pre 9/11, so we were worried about how he'd handle TSA. He doesn't like taking his shoes off in public, or people going though his backpack so you can understand our hesitation.
In preparation about a week before the trip we went over to their house to stage a fake TSA screening. At first, Nathan seemed super happy talking about the trip but once we asked him to take off his shoes and put his backpack through the "x-ray machine" he became very quiet and, I think, nervous. Matthew handled it very well, but spoiler alert, he didn't do so well on the actual day.
Fast forward a week and we met them at the airport bright and early at 5 am for our 7:15 flight. After we checked our bags, all 10 of them, oy, we went up to security. Luckily for us because we are rapid rewards members we automatically qualified for Pre-TSA, so all the work we did with practicing taking our shoes off was for naught. We decided early that I would take Nathan through and DH would help Matthew and my mom. Nathan did great! He seemed slightly agitated about his backpack having to go through the machine, out of his sight. After we went through the metal detectors, we turned around and no DH or family behind us. Apparently, Matthew didn't empty his pockets and they were trying to stuff things in backpacks because Pre-TSA didn't have readily available bins to put stuff in. Then right before Matthew went through he threw the rest of his stuff in the X-ray machine. When he got to the other side with us, we had to wait a while for a TSA agent to get everything out of the machine.
After that trauma was over we sat and had breakfast.
Matthew is on the left and Nathan is on the right. If you can't tell, Nathan's favorite character is Goofy.
We then preboarded the plane and took some selfies.
Something that we didn't know until this trip is that Southwest's policy on pre-boarding based on disability, is that one person per disabled individual can preboard with them. So DH couldn't preboard with us but Matthew saved him a seat.
We flew to Houston first, where we were supposed to just stay on the plane to Orlando but were unexpectedly forced to changed planes. I was worried Nathan wouldn't do so well with that but he was fine with running to the next gate for Orlando. Everything was fine on our flight to Orlando. Then it was time to put on our Magic Bands!!
After picking up the mountains of bags, we went to board the Magical Express.
That's my mom right there, btw. More selfies!
I still hate the new video very much. Nathan and Matthew couldn't have cared less about it and I think Matthew started playing his video games. But we got really lucky and the Polynesian was the very first stop! yay! We arrived, got our leis and checked in to our room which was in Aotearoa. Not the building I chose on online check in, but I was actually really happy with it. We did get our other requests for adjoining rooms and a balcony.
And our view had the monorail going by! That never got old.
Next, presents for everyone! Captain Cook's lunch and Downtown Disney
I hope you enjoyed every minute of it!
