20. Top-Secret Vacation Day Three/Four

The boys, especially J, were super crabby after being out so late at the Magic Kingdom.  So we gave the boys a day off from parks.  They stayed at the hotel and the pool for almost the entire day.  They slept in late (J almost 'til 11am) and just relaxed.  Even swimming all day was less tiring than if they had gone to the parks.

We left the boys at the hotel in the afternoon/evening with my niece so that Stormy and I could go to Epcot and have some adult time.  We ate at a Mexican restaurant, rode some rides, and then headed back to Hollywood Studios once again for our fourth round of Star Tours and second of Tower of Terror.  We love our kids, but it was nice to be able to escape for the evening.  Even at home, we don't get to out on many date nights, so this was so nice for us.  We ended the night eating ice cream (Stormtrooper is obsessed with ice cream) and fell into bed and slept.

Monday we all woke up and went to breakfast and then headed to Universal Studios.  My husband got to geek out at Star Tours and Star Wars weekends, but Universal has the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and that is my thing.  I was so excited.  I loved it.  It was fantastic.  We rode the rides and got some treats from Honeyduke's.  The boys have both read the Harry Potter books and seen the movies, so they were excited about going, too.

J had one meltdown while there, but it was definitely nothing we were upset about.  My niece, husband, and I wanted to ride on the dragon ride, but J doesn't like roller coasters that do the "corkscrew" kind of turns.  And our other boy is just terrified of any rides (which we didn't even know until we went to Disney and he was scared to ride on everything that was on a track).  We weren't going to force either of them to ride something they were scared of, but we still told them they had to wait in line with us.  When we got to the front, I asked one of the employees if there was a place they could stand and wait because they didn't want to ride.  Jokingly, the guy said, "Oh, no, everyone in this line must ride the ride."

J burst into immediate tears and just buried his face right into the middle of my chest.  It took a few moments to get him to calm down, but he did, and he wiped the tears away and waited while we rode on the ride.

We rode water rides and got completely soaked.  The boys seemed to enjoy that.  I was skeptical about J enjoying it because if he gets uncomfortable he will complain for ages, but he seemed to like being wet!  My husband took the boys on some sort of spinning ride that was similar to the tea cups.  Since my husband nearly killed me on Saturday on the tea cups, I sat the ride out and let him torture the boys to sickness on it!

Universal was nice.  We also spent the day with one of my old friends from Starbucks who moved down to Orlando a few years back.  It was great to reconnect with him and his wife - and also get some inside scoop on working for Disney!  We hopped over to the other Universal park so that we could go on the Transformers ride.

I think the boys enjoyed Universal more than Disney because they were much more familiar with the movies and rides.  Some of the rides from Disney were still old-school characters, like Dumbo or Peter Pan, and that is not as relevant to them as Harry Potter, Spiderman, Jurassic Park, or Transformers.  Over all Universal was really amazing and I am so glad I got to see Hogwarts, and I am glad the boys were able to share in that experience.  They got to watch Stormy geek out over Star Wars, and me over Harry Potter.

We drove home on Tuesday, and we got to see Tiny after five nights away from him!  And now on to the rest of our summer!  Which looks like it is going to include a new swimming pool, clay camp for Iron Man, and autism sleep away camp for J.  So much of the summer has already passed and yet we have so much more left to experience!

19. Top-Secret Vacation Day Two

Our first day was really pretty successful, and looking back, I don't have any complaints about it.  It was a really long day; we got back to the hotel very late.  We were out for about fifteen hours that day.

On Saturday, we slept a little later.  Stormtrooper went to Hollywood Studios for the parade while my niece, the boys, and I ate breakfast and went to the pool for the next couple of hours.  The boys splashed around and enjoyed cooling off in the water.

Once Stormtrooper was done with the parade, he picked us up from the hotel and we went to Magic Kingdom.  Since we already had our disability pass, we were able to set-up our Fast Passes for the day.  The boys had a blast driving the cars in the speedway and we were able to try out the new seven dwarves ride.

This day I saw a lot of J's symptoms come out.  Once his medication wore off, his hyperactivity was in full force.  He was also very, very tired, but when he gets cranky, there's nothing to sway him away from it.  He reached a point where he stopped caring about the rides and wanted to spend his Disney gift card and go back to the hotel.  He was tired, we all were, but he became argumentative and very snappy.  I know he had fun, but towards the end, Stormy and I wanted to ride the Haunted Mansion one more time, and Iron Man wanted to ride Thunder Mountain, and J didn't want to do either.  My niece took the boys to Thunder Mountain, but J refused to get on so he had to wait until they were done, and my husband and I got to enjoy some kid-free time at the Haunted Mansion - which, coincidentally is both of our favorite ride.

My husband had one negative encounter that day.  He was talking in a group of Star Wars folks and it was mentioned about the new Seven Dwarves ride.  The Fast Pass was used-up for it, so if you wanted to ride, you had to wait in the line (which was 120 minutes when we were there!)  My husband said that we were going to ride and use our disability pass to bypass waiting in the actual line.  And someone said they did not think it was fair that we could just walk to the ride for free, no strings attached.

So let's revisit that for a moment.  With the disability pass, I walked up to the ride, and asked them to sign us up for a return time.  The return time is comparable to the actual wait time for the ride.  We didn't get to immediately cut the line.  We rode other rides and walked around until it was time for us to return to the Seven Dwarves.  It's not a free pass to cut lines, but also if you're a stranger, you don't know what other families go through.  You don't know how we deal day to day, our frustrations, worries, fears, or even our strengths.  So to make a blanket statement of how things are not "fair" is ridiculous.  When J's hyperactivity kicks in, he is so all over the place that waiting in line has the potential to be disastrous.  When we walked around the parks, he bumped into people and wandered (never far, because we kept a close eye on him).  I was very careful to continually check in on him when we were in a line or in a ride, to make sure he was okay because the last thing any of us wanted was a meltdown in the middle of the park.

I think Disney tries to make the experience the best it possibly can be for every family going.  From what I saw, they took disabilities, including food allergies, very seriously.  They seemed to try to take the worry away from parents over whether their children would have an enjoyable time.  For that, I was extremely appreciative.  To the man who wasn't compassionate at all, my husband replied with, "Oh we deserve to use the pass ... we pay for it every day living with a kid with ASD."  It can be very difficult having a child with special needs and when a place like Disney wants to help eliminate some of the stress, we welcome it with open arms.

On day two, we got to ride a lot of rides in the Magic Kingdom:  Astro Orbiter, Big Thunder Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Haunted Mansion, Tea Cups, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Stitches Great Escape, Space Mountain, Speedway, and of course, the train that took us around the park as well as the Monorail.  That's a lot of rides for one day, and it's no wonder the boys got tired.  We were exhausted, too!  We got back to the hotel and finally fell asleep after midnight.  Such a long day, but so much fun.

18. Top-Secret Vacation Day One

Last Thursday, May 29th, my stepmom (whom everyone calls "Grams") came to pick the boys up.  Her BFF was also there with her grandson, who is roughly the same age as our boys.  They went off to play while Stormtrooper and I got the boys' stuff together.  Unfortunately, I had a really bad cold, so I packed the boys' clothes and car-stuff together and my husband set it all up properly in the car while I took a quick nap.  We also had to pack Tiny's things because he stayed at my parents' house.

We got in the car, filled up on gas, and went to my parents'.  We exchanged Tiny for the big boys and started driving.  We told them we were going to a Star Wars event, but they've been to so many parades and things that they weren't upset about being in the car, or too inquisitive about where we were going.  

After about three hours, we asked them if they had any idea where we were going.  Once we finally told them we were going to Disney World, Iron Man got super exited and bounced up and down in the seat.  J was very neutral, as I expected he would be.  When I asked them if it was a good surprise, J said, "No, not anymore," since I had just told them.  Still, he was excited.  Later on in the vacation he told me that inside his brain he is excited and happy, but he doesn't know why his brain doesn't tell the rest of his body to express how his brain feels.  

We got to the hotel around 10pm Thursday, went to bed, and got up early the next morning for breakfast.  Stormy had to go to Hollywood Studios early since he was part of the parade.  The boys and I waited to meet some friends of mine who worked at Disney so we could spend the day with them.

The first Mickey we saw!

The boys in front of the lake while we waited for the ferry.

We took one of the ferries to the Boardwalk and the boys got to see parts of Disney before everyone was awake and at the parks.  I got to explain how different parts of Disney work, how some people stay in different resorts/hotels while they visit and how the buses, trolleys, and ferries work.  When we got back to Hollywood Studios, I went to Guest Relations.  I was originally so hesitant to use this because I always feel there are people who are so much worse off than we are, who need it more, but at the same time, I could envision meltdowns and sensory overload if we were in a line full of people.  Also, at the end of the day, J's hyperactivity kicks in because his medication wears off, and he starts to wander, starts to rock back and forth, flail about, and standing in line with people could have gotten really terrible if he started knocking into people because he cannot stand still.

We got the pass and I am really pleased we did.  The Disney cast member was very nice and helped with the whole process.  We ended up getting a pass that allowed us to wait for a ride without having to wait in the actual line.  Instead of waiting for two HOURS for the new Seven Dwarves ride, we were given a time to come back and bypass the long wait.  The staff is supposed to write down the time so that we would wait as long as the others in the actual line, but because there's always a small wait to get on the ride anyway, they usually wrote our return time for less than the stand-by line.  It was extremely helpful.  It allowed us to get something to eat or drink, visit a store, or wait in shorter, more manageable lines.  

At Hollywood Studios, we were able to use the pass for almost all the rides we wanted to go on, which was especially useful for the Toy Story ride, which always had a line longer than an hour.  Overall, J did really well.  He went on Tower of Terror (granted he said he never wanted to ride it again, but he at least gave it a chance).  My husband walked in the parade in the morning and joined us in the afternoon for the rest of the day, along with my seventeen-year-old niece who we brought to babysit the boys if we needed it.  

That day, everything went pretty smoothly.  We didn't have any meltdowns or complaining.  Both the boys were happy.  I did have to have a conversation about what Autism is with Iron Man; afterwards he looked at me with a glazed look.  I don't think he's ready to understand/accept anything about Autism yet.

We ended the day with fireworks and then we all went back to the hotel.  All in all, day one was a great success.