Pre-Trip Everybody's got a Laughing Place (and I can't wait to get to mine!)

I have been enjoying reading trip reports so much while counting down my return to Disney World that I decided to give writing my own pre-trip report a try. We have just over three weeks left to go so the excitement is building!

When: August 20-30
Where: Starting out at Universal Studios Sapphire Falls Resort (huge Harry Potter fans in this family), moving over to Disney World on Wednesday the 23rd and staying at the Contemporary, moving again to Beach Club on Saturday the 26th.
This will be my 8th Disney World trip but first time staying at Disney World resorts other than two nights at Port Orleans River Side on one vacation. Really excited to do this!

Who: me (Jo), husband (James), daughter(Maddie, 13), son(Xander,10). Here we are on our last WDW vacation in October 2015.

 

[Figaro Family]

James has Aunts and Uncles and a lot of younger cousins who live in Florida. The cousins started to have weddings in the spring of 2011 and we were lucky enough to be able to make it to that one and a couple others since then. This gave us our perfect excuse to get back to WDW. Maddie joined us for those trips but Xander stayed behind with grandparents, we really wanted to bring him to WDW but knew he wouldn't be able to sit through a wedding and all the other festivities. One of the weddings was early January 2014. A lot of wedding guests from out of state didn't make it because of the blizzards that winter, our layover was in Chicago and we almost didn't make it. Snow was falling and they were de-icing the plane while we were waiting to take off with our fingers crossed. One of the nights we were at the Magic Kingdom the temperature fell to 32 degrees and the park emptied out. Since we are used to that kind of weather we stayed until closing and it was amazing, especially since the Christmas decorations were still up.

That was also the trip that we stayed at Port Orleans Riverside.

This last picture is us waiting for the Magical Express back to the airport. We're trying to illustrate how freezing cold it was. I said we were used to the cold but we didn't pack winter coats because I didn't think we'd need them in Florida!

 

[Figaro Family]

One last post about prior Disney trips before I get on with the details of the upcoming one. I hate to be a downer but can't really talk about these trips without being a little (or a lot) depressing. I already mentioned that my mom passed away in 2012, this happened shortly after our 2011 December Disneyland trip. She hadn't been feeling well but didn't know why until a late night run to the ER after New Years resulted in a cancer diagnosis. We lost her about eight weeks later. Part of the healing process involved a summer 2012 getaway to Disneyland, (Disney as therapy is real). We went there again in January 2015 while we were in the middle of planning a big family trip to WDW with my sister's family and my dad. Dad decided that we needed a big family trip and that he wanted to foot the bill for just about everything. We settled on October 2015 and spent a year planning every detail. The fun year of planning and the trip itself are memories I will cherish forever, which brings me to the other depressing part of this story. The trip was so much fun and my dad loved spending special time with the four grand kids but there were several signs that he wasn't feeling well to the point that my sister and I convinced him to rent a scooter for our last day. When we got back home he was diagnosed with diabetes and a pre cancerous tumor was found , both explained his symptoms. He opted for a surgery in the spring that was successful but he recovered poorly. At the beginning of August last year he passed away from sudden heart failure. The one year anniversary is coming up in a few days so planning our Disney vacation has been a very much needed distraction (Disney as therapy again). Also writing a trip report as therapy? Losing both parents in my 30's has not been fun but I try my best to be a positive person and I think being a Disney person helps a lot.

This is dad with my kids and my niece and nephew. Dad was a certified scuba diver and his happiest moments of the trip were taking the two older kids on the Aqua Seas tour and doing a Dive quest. It was so cool to actually see my dad in all his gear diving! I got to see for myself how much he loved it.

Once again, sorry to anyone reading for getting depressing. I have a feeling this is going to be a tough week for me but moving on to talking about happy trip planning is really going to help. As I said in the report title, I can't wait to get to my laughing place!

 

[12in12]

I am so sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing the wonderful pictures of your parents, they seemed like great people. Disney therapy should be medically recognized as I am sure it has helped many people myself included. Hopefully it will be very therapeutic for you this week and just remember we are here if you need us.

 

[amjt660]

Words cannot explain how sorry I am for your losses.
As you stated losing both parents in your thirties is rough and I cannot imagine it.

I sincerely hope the upcoming Disney trip will help with the healing
We are all here for you

Max

 

[fractal]

One last post about prior Disney trips before I get on with the details of the upcoming one. I hate to be a downer but can't really talk about these trips without being a little (or a lot) depressing. I already mentioned that my mom passed away in 2012, this happened shortly after our 2011 December Disneyland trip. She hadn't been feeling well but didn't know why until a late night run to the ER after New Years resulted in a cancer diagnosis. We lost her about eight weeks later. Part of the healing process involved a summer 2012 getaway to Disneyland, (Disney as therapy is real). We went there again in January 2015 while we were in the middle of planning a big family trip to WDW with my sister's family and my dad. Dad decided that we needed a big family trip and that he wanted to foot the bill for just about everything. We settled on October 2015 and spent a year planning every detail. The fun year of planning and the trip itself are memories I will cherish forever, which brings me to the other depressing part of this story. The trip was so much fun and my dad loved spending special time with the four grand kids but there were several signs that he wasn't feeling well to the point that my sister and I convinced him to rent a scooter for our last day. When we got back home he was diagnosed with diabetes and a pre cancerous tumor was found , both explained his symptoms. He opted for a surgery in the spring that was successful but he recovered poorly. At the beginning of August last year he passed away from sudden heart failure. The one year anniversary is coming up in a few days so planning our Disney vacation has been a very much needed distraction (Disney as therapy again). Also writing a trip report as therapy? Losing both parents in my 30's has not been fun but I try my best to be a positive person and I think being a Disney person helps a lot. View attachment 219757This is dad with my kids and my niece and nephew. Dad was a certified scuba diver and his happiest moments of the trip were taking the two older kids on the Aqua Seas tour and doing a Dive quest. It was so cool to actually see my dad in all his gear diving! I got to see for myself how much he loved it.View attachment 219767 View attachment 219768Once again, sorry to anyone reading for getting depressing. I have a feeling this is going to be a tough week for me but moving on to talking about happy trip planning is really going to help. As I said in the report title, I can't wait to get to my laughing place!

Sorry for your losses. Cancer just s*cks.

Looking forward to more of your report.

 

[LowesChevy]

Sorry for your losses, I can't imagine that even right now in my life! Godspeed

I think trips are a great way to bond and heal also to think about why you should be grateful for what you have. You have to live life with zest. I cringe when people say they want to do this activity or take that trip when they are older or the kids are older. Do it now!

Looking forward to more of your report, thank you for sharing

 

[Figaro Family]

Thank you to everyone for your kind messages. Cancer totally sucks! I hope to live a nice long life but this experience has taught me to balance living in the moment with planning for the future. My husband and I have agreed to not wait on taking fun trips as long as we can reasonably afford them and to make those special memories with the kids sooner rather than later. My sister and I have been working nonstop this past year on finalizing everything with my dad's estate. I won't go into the whole mess but I've become something of an expert on probates, bank loans, estate accounting... Just this morning we signed off on some paperwork with a bank that we've been waiting for approval on for six months!!! This is a huge weight off my shoulders before the vacation knowing we're so close to finalizing everything and can move on with life. Next up: Counting down to WDW! It's August 1st and we're leaving in two weeks and 5 days!

 

[Figaro Family]

A big reason why we decided on WDW instead of Disneyland for this trip is James' extended family in Florida. The cousins had three new babies between them this year and we are excited to meet the babies and to spend time with the cousins and aunts and uncles. Some of the families have AP's and we're working out the logistics on who is going to meet up with us in the parks and on what days. We've also built in time to visit at the aunt's house who lives closest to WDW and to drive up to Saint Augustine for an evening to meet up with one cousin and his family who live further north. This is also why our trip is ten days, this is the longest we've been away anywhere with the kids!
The other theme of the trip is trying new things. I don't want Disney vacations to start seeming stale especially for my now teenage daughter. We're done with the princess phase, she knows the characters aren't "real", she wishes she could bring a friend along to hang out with. I have a bad feeling that she doesn't think we're cool anymore. I did get a boost to my ego recently when her best friend said "I wish my mom was younger like you, but she's old." I was like "thanks? Wait! you need to be nicer to your mom!" My daughter has been trying out teenage snark as opposed to "mom snark" but the sweet Disney loving girl is still in there and I'm ready to pull her out. The first new thing is staying at a Universal resort and getting a three day park pass. We went there for just one day in 2015 and loved Harry Potter World. If it wasn't for Harry Potter, I would be fine skipping Universal but Maddie is looking forward to the roller coasters that she didn't have a chance to ride last time and the Jurassic park area. She is also a huge Harry Potter fan like her parents so we get to bond over that. My son Xander is autistic, I'll write more about that in another post, so even though he is 10 now he still loves "little kid" things. His favorites from our one Universal day were the Dr. Seuss land and the Curious George play area, I think that will stay the same this time.

 

[Figaro Family]

In what might be a sign of the end times, it is currently hotter in Portland, OR than in Orlando. I mean seriously hotter, 107 degrees and maybe a high of 108 tomorrow! This is record breaking weather here, so I guess I should take advantage of the opportunity to acclimate myself for WDW and walk several miles outside?
I jumped ahead of myself on the trip planning and trying new things. I should have started with the plane flight. We've always had a layover somewhere when we go to Florida. This time I found a decent deal on Alaska for a nonstop flight! This means we will be flying for over 6 hours on one plane but will get there way faster than we're used to. This is a bit of a gamble for us because of Xander. As I said earlier, he is autistic so his ability to keep it together in any situation is tricky. From our experience Xander's favorite thing about traveling is the plane ride itself. He has always been on his best behavior while we're actually flying. It is everything else about the airport experience that he is less thrilled about, especially going through security. We figure he'll be less stressed if he gets to stay on one plane the entire time instead of getting off the first one, running across the airport and boarding a new one. Also we're making the travel day as a whole shorter. This is what we'll keep telling ourselves. When we flew to Orlando last time we really did have to run across the whole airport to catch the second flight. Xander had enough of that and halfway there tried to drag us toward the first plane he saw that was boarding. His classic move is to drop to the ground and slither toward his intended destination and to become a dead weight when we try to get him back up. Xander can talk, but isn't "conversational" he is good at getting his point across with his limited vocabulary though. We know he loves to travel because he asks every other day to "fly to the airplane!" and "vacation! Disney World!" We're waiting to tell him about this vacation until at least next week because he'll get so excited that he won't be able to stand it. I usually make a countdown calendar for him to mark off the remaining days that he has to wait and that helps.
Our Magic Bands arrived yesterday so I'm feeling like this trip is really about to happen!

 

[Figaro Family]

Still trying to keep Xander in the dark about the Disney trip. We speak in code about it when he is around because his receptive language skills have gotten pretty amazing. He likes to have a schedule of what he is doing throughout the day and likes to list out what's going to happen each day of the week and repeat it like a soothing mantra. I talked with him today about what we're doing tomorrow and Saturday but we don't have any firm plans for this Sunday so I was going to skip over to Monday when he helpfully filled in with "vacation on Sunday!" Little does he know he's just off by two weeks. Speaking of his love of schedules, I went all out on this trip and made a power point presentation to illustrate the general plan for each day and we had it printed into a spiral bound book. It looks pretty cool and I think he's going to love it. I normally just make a social story on his ipad about vacations but this one is going to be so long that I thought we needed something that we could carry around in the backpack and get out when he asks what's next.

I'd do just about anything for this little cutie!

 

[Figaro Family]

We decided that renting a car was necessary for at least part of the vacation since we're starting out at Universal and driving to visit family. It is a little disappointing to miss out on the Magical Express at the beginning of the trip. I came up with a plan to get rid of the rental car toward the end of our time so that we can take advantage of the Magical Express to get back to the airport. (even though I know that's not nearly as fun). We'll pick up the car on Sunday the 20th when we get in around 3pm. I booked the rental with National which has a location at the Dolphin resort. This is pretty close to our final destination, the Beach Club. We're going to drop the car off there on Sunday the 27th and rely on Disney transportation the last few days. Then we can enjoy a more relaxing return to the airport and already have our bags checked in. We also got a nonstop flight home, we don't have to leave until about 4pm but because of time difference, land back at home about 7pm!

 

[Figaro Family]

I'm missing both my parents quite a bit today (the dreaded one year unhappy anniversary). So I decided to do a deep dive into the family photo albums in my garage. I was looking specifically for pictures from our last family WDW vacation in the spring of 1993. I found the right album but the pictures were terrible! mostly blurry and of random things, leave it to my dad to go ahead and put them in an album anyway. The bad old days when you had to wait forever for film to process and didn't know what you had until you were stuck with it. I scanned in the only two shots that prove we were actually in Disney World.
Epcot with Goofy and Pluto dressed in futuristic space outfits.

You can just see that I am wearing an awesome fannypack. My dad has a camcorder around his neck which was the first one our family owned. We got it just before this trip. I found all the home movie tapes when going through my dad's house and had a bunch of them converted to DVD recently including the ones from this vacation. The best part was the last night of the trip in MK. The camera is swinging wildly around and zooming in too close on everything, then I hear my mom's voice in full "mom snark". She says something like "It's our last night in Disney World and I'm finally getting a chance to use the video camera." This made me so happy because I totally remember that special tone in her voice. Brightly cheerful but with just that touch of irritation.
Tomorrow: A return to regularly scheduled trip planning

 

[Figaro Family]

I'm now going to introduce a very important player in our upcoming trip, ...the Cadillac of strollers.

This special needs stroller has a weight limit of 100lbs and height limit of 5ft. Xander is currently under that weight limit by a good amount and is 4ft 7inches. I'm so relieved that we can use one of these again, it was a real life saver on our last trip. We are renting it from the same company we used last time and it's all set to be waiting for us at our Universal hotel and we can leave it at the front desk when we check out of the Beach Club.
I'm sure we got a few side eyes last time for our "big kid in a stroller" and I'm certain we'll get more this time since he's bigger. I admit I get annoyed when big kids who look perfectly capable of walking are being pushed in a stroller, but as Xander has gotten older I realize that there can be hidden reasons for the stroller. We haven't used one for Xander anywhere but Disney since he was three but on our trips with him to Disneyland we would rent their strollers which are bigger than the ones in WDW. Xander is a bolter or "eloper" with no sense of personal safety or danger which keeps us on high alert in any public setting. He is also a scary fast runner. The stroller gave us the ability to keep him in one place safely without keeping a death grip on his hand. He fit into the Disneyland strollers until our trip in January 2015 when we realized he was just too big. We decided to wing it with having him walk and holding his hand. Since it was only a four day trip it went OK but that was also because Disneyland is small compared to WDW and we were staying in a hotel within walking distance.
We decided to rent the big stroller for the WDW trip and found that it made many things easier on all of us. Xander also loved having a cocoon to chillax in, he would pull down the sunshade and hide from sensory overload and last longer in the parks without getting overwhelmed. We loved the thing so much that we've thought longingly of it in many situations out and about at home.

 

[Figaro Family]

One last "special needs centric" post. Although I realize every detail of our trip goes through the filter of "how is this going to work for Xander?" This will be our fourth time using the DAS (disability access service) twice at Disneyland and second time at WDW. Universal has a similar program which we tried out on our one day in 2015 and will use again this time. For anyone who doesn't know what this is I'll give a quick overview. It's basically like a rolling fast pass with no limits imposed. You can only have one reservation at a time and don't get a new one until it's been used or changed. It can overlap with the real fast passes which is a nice feature.
You cannot sign up for it before you actually enter one of the parks on your first day. Whatever park you choose, you go to the guest services building and introduce the person who is being signed up along with everyone in your party that will be attached. All the information is connected to the tickets or magic bands. Normally the limit is six people but they did make an exception for us in 2015 when we had nine. The general focus for DAS is people with cognitive disabilities who have difficulty waiting in a traditional line. The idea is not to let that person and their group skip the line of any ride they want, instead it is based on the current wait time of the ride. If Splash Mountain has a 90 minute wait time, you get a return time of about 90 minutes and then your group checks into the fastpass line and waits with all the other people in that line. If the ride doesn't have a fastpass line, then you check in with a cast member standing by the disability entrance. They will usually have you wait another 5 minutes before getting on the ride. In all cases the person with the DAS has to actually be there or no one gets to ride.
I have to give an edge to Disneyland over WDW on how their system works. At Disneyland there are several guests services kiosks where anyone from the party can check in and make a DAS return time for any ride. So if you're in fantasyland but the ride that is wished for is Splash mountain you can check in at the Fantasyland kiosk and walk to splash mountain later. In WDW, you have to go to a castmember at the ride itself to get a return time. I found it was sometimes hard to get castmembers attention at some of the rides, also you have to be more strategic like with legacy fast pass. It's not fun to run across the park to get a return time, run back to your group then go back again later. Also it's never a good idea to have the DAS kid with you at the entrance to a ride that you can't actually get in line for for another hour.
Over all the system has worked well for us. I know there were a lot of negative news stories when the system was overhauled after all the fraud going on with the old one. We never used that system when Xander was smaller so we can't make a personal comparison. All the rides he could go on at that time usually had shorter waits and he wasn't too opinionated about which one we went on. We joke about how we didn't know how easy he really was back then and we should have taken him on even more disney trips! The big thing we remember to do with the DAS is to be as nice as possible to all the cast members, thank them for everything and not act like we're entitled VIP's. We've had some really nice interactions and some have offered extra help in certain situations!
Well, that's my "expert" review of DAS, hopefully helpful to someone out there and not too boring for everyone else.
Coming up tomorrow: We tell Xander about the vacation!

 

[12in12]

Thanks for the info on DAS. My niece has special needs and it is a dream of mine to take her to WDW. Not sure if it will ever happen but it is good to have the info .

 

[fractal]

I'm missing both my parents quite a bit today (the dreaded one year unhappy anniversary). So I decided to do a deep dive into the family photo albums in my garage. I was looking specifically for pictures from our last family WDW vacation in the spring of 1993. I found the right album but the pictures were terrible! mostly blurry and of random things, leave it to my dad to go ahead and put them in an album anyway. The bad old days when you had to wait forever for film to process and didn't know what you had until you were stuck with it. I scanned in the only two shots that prove we were actually in Disney World.
Epcot with Goofy and Pluto dressed in futuristic space outfits.View attachment 220861 View attachment 220862
You can just see that I am wearing an awesome fannypack. My dad has a camcorder around his neck which was the first one our family owned. We got it just before this trip. I found all the home movie tapes when going through my dad's house and had a bunch of them converted to DVD recently including the ones from this vacation. The best part was the last night of the trip in MK. The camera is swinging wildly around and zooming in too close on everything, then I hear my mom's voice in full "mom snark". She says something like "It's our last night in Disney World and I'm finally getting a chance to use the video camera." This made me so happy because I totally remember that special tone in her voice. Brightly cheerful but with just that touch of irritation.
Tomorrow: A return to regularly scheduled trip planning

Photos serve many purposes but the most important is preserving great memories.

 

[Figaro Family]

Thanks for the info on DAS. My niece has special needs and it is a dream of mine to take her to WDW. Not sure if it will ever happen but it is good to have the info .

Depending on what her needs are, you never know what can happen until you try! It takes a lot more intense pre planning but I find I'm more relaxed on trips with Xander if I've tried to think of everything that can go wrong before hand and plan for it. Some things are harder now because he is bigger but other things have become easier as he has matured more emotionally. Castmembers really do go out of their way to help if you ask for it! One suggested that we get the stroller tagged as a wheelchair which we hadn't considered doing. We were able to roll him onto the monorail this way without having to get him out and hold onto him while folding the big stroller. Also he was able to sit through the Disney Junior show in the stroller parked in a special section. Normally kids sit on the floor and Xander has a hard time sitting when there is no "marked" place to sit like a movie theater seat and he gets agitated. Also keeping plans simple and scheduling in an afternoon rest break is helpful!

 

[12in12]

My niece has a genetic disorder which unfortunately means she is physically and mentally delayed.Although she is now nearly 9 she is the size of an average 3 year old. None of this would stop me from taking her to WDW as I know she would love it, the problem is she lives in Australia.

 

[Figaro Family]

My niece has a genetic disorder which unfortunately means she is physically and mentally delayed.Although she is now nearly 9 she is the size of an average 3 year old. None of this would stop me from taking her to WDW as I know she would love it, the problem is she lives in Australia.

That would be a long plane flight for her

 

[Figaro Family]

We told Xander about the vacation earlier this evening! I wanted to post a small video of his reaction but couldn't figure out how to do it. I told him that we had decided to go to Disney World and he immediately said "Fly to the airplane! Blue car!" Translated this means: "let's load up in dad's car and get this party started!" I was ready with the countdown calendar to explain how many days he still had to wait. We also showed him the schedule book. Here is his sweet happy face.

And here he is checking out the schedule book