Just back from our Disneyworld "adventure"

[THREEBOYSPLUSONE]

My husband, myself and our 12 and 17 yr old sons spent June 5 to 15 at AKL. This is the 5th time visiting WDW for my husband and myself, 2nd time for 17 yr old and 1st time for 12 yr old. The last time we there was 11 years ago. Since then I have gotten Transverse myelitis(TM) and although I have regained the ability to walk it is slow , with a cane and not for long distances. My right leg also does not move right and I do not have normal feeling from my waist down. I used a lot I learned on here and we had a great trip even though we had some problems.I will share some of the highs and lows of our trip.

AKL-absolutely beautiful. My 12 yr old son(who has intellectual disabilities among other things) did not like it. to quote him"It is all wood. I don't want wood I want color and characters" Of course now that we are home he misses it. The pool is nice but the zero-depth entry point is extremely slippery. My husband was helping me in and I went right down. The lifeguard was right there to make sure I was ok. They got a water wheelchair for me that wasn't any better so I ended up using the lift. I didn,t realize until later that night that I must have bruised my foot as it swelled and stayed swollen the rest of the week.

Scooter rental and accessibility- After reading these boards I realized I would need to rent a scooter for the time we were there. The travel agent went through apple scooter. It was waiting for me and for the most part it was good. The last couple of days it seemed to be getting ready to die sooner then earlier in the trip. Getting on and off the buses wasn't too bad usually. It was interesting how different the bus drivers were. some made me do everything, some made me get off and parked it for me and some parked it with me on it. Unfortunately the very last time I was getting on the bus to head to AKL to go to airport the bus was parked wrong and I had to make too sharp a turn to get on. The back wheel caught the rim of the ramp and it flipped over with me on it. Paramedics, ambulance ride and er visit followed along with having to change airline reservations. Everything turned out good though.

Dining plan-This is the first time we purchased the dining plan. We did enjoy when we didnt have to pay for the meals esp. the couple that were 170 or 180 some dollars. I don't think I would want it again though. Too much food. we were rarely hungry for our snacks. in fact the second last day there were still 20 snack credits. We did end up using them. We had some fantastic meals. We tried some new places Boma and Via Napoli for dinner and Be Our Guest for lunch. Loved them. We also went to some we went to last time like Whispering Canyon Cafe and Crystal Palace and pizza planet for our 12 yr old toy story obsessed son. We also went to The Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue. My husband and I had been there about 20 yrs ago. We all loved it.

Epcot- my 12 yr old hated it. Liked Test Track but nothing else. Wanted to leave and never go back. Wouldn't even see characters there. Had to struggle to get him to cooperate enough to stay through our dinner ADR. 17 yr old and I went back one night and husband took 12 yr old to MK. I absolutely loved Soarin.

Hollywood Studios and Star Wars Weekend- We all loved toy Story Mania. Rockin Roller Coaster was my first roller coaster ride in 7 yrs since I got TM. I loved it but unfortunately my brace got stuck under seat and I couldn't get off for a couple of minutes. CM were wonderful though and didn't rush me or make me feel bad. We did the Star Wars Galactic Breakfast and enjoyed that. The boys enjoyed seeing all the star wars characters but we didnt wait in lines for pictures because we aren't that into it. They loved the Lights,Motor show and the Indiana Jones Show. They were both really into Indiana Jones movies at one time and were thrilled to be able to go down and get picture and autograph at end of show( something I learned about on here)

Animal Kingdom- Did Safari first and saw so many animals. Breakfast at Tusker House was good and we got to sing happy birthday to Daisy. We enjoyed our day there. Had some of the best character interaction with Chip and Dale at rafikis planet watch. They went for break right as it was our boys turn. when they came out they headed over to me and scooter and tried to blow horn. It wasn't turned on so they turned it on and I found out horn doesn't work. Then they went over to boys who had Hulk Hogan shirts on. Chip and Dale started wrestling each other and clowning with boys and it was so much fun.

Magic Kingdom- My 12 yr old wants to live there. He loves space mountain and splash mountain. He just could not get enough of the rides there. He cried when we left the last night. I was glad we went to other parks first or he never would have wanted to go to any other parks. I found out first aid is very nice. I got stung by something and my finger swelled up so that I couldn't even bend it. Went to first aid and was glad I did because they had to cut off my wedding ring because they were afraid if they didn't I would lose my finger.

Magicbands and fastpasses- Both worked great for us. I didn't think our 12 yr old would wear his magicband because he has sensory issues and never wears any kind of jewelry.He wore it the whole time. He loved using it to get in park, for fastpasses , to get in room, and for pictures. He did have some trouble understanding fastpasses and that we couldn't get them for any ride he wanted to go on and that he had to wait for the time it was for. He did love that when we did use them we almost always had no line.

Pirates and Pals fireworks cruise- I learned about this on here. This was our surprise for our boys the night we arrived. Our 17 yr old loves Captain Hook and Mr Smee. This was definitely a big hit.

Memory Maker- Love the pictures we got. Would have liked to have gotten more but our boys didn't always cooperate. i wasn't even able to take that many pictures with my own camera they just didn't always want pictures taken.

I didn't get to do everything I wanted but both our boys have their own special needs and we had to adjust things accordingly. even with the boys issues, my injuries and the heat we had a great time.

 

[Mikie]

Wow - first of all, kudos to you for having such a great outlook even after falls, stings and ER visits that many would classify as ruining a trip!
Thanks for sharing the report! I'm glad you had a great time. Interesting take on AKL "it's all wood". I could see my son saying that in comparison to the very colorful Value hotels we've stayed at, but gradually coming to love all its awesome features

 

[eyehartdisney]

Agree with Mikie, that is one great attitude you have! The trip sounds great except the medical oopses

 

[MataHari22]

Glad you had such a great time in spite of some pretty crazy challenges that came up that you had to deal with.

 

[THREEBOYSPLUSONE]

Some more things from our trip.

We were able to get a spot on Main Street to watch the afternoon parade with only about 20 minutes before parade started. It wasn't planned either. We came out of first aid and realized everyone was lined up for it and decided we wanted to see it. There just happened to be an open space for us to watch it from. 12 yr old didn't want to at first but loved it once it started.

Downtown Disney- We went there twice. I had bought a groupon for the balloon for only $7 a person. Unfortunately both times we tried it was closed because of weather(once storms were coming in and the other the winds at balloon level were too high) so we didn't get to use it. We loved using snack credits at Goofy's candy co. The caramel apple was delicious and so was the mickey rice krispie treat. DisneyQuest was a big hit with my husband and 12 yr old, They both could have spent a whole day in there. The 17 yr old could only handle it for so long because he isn't in to games as much.

I found that most of the CMs were very nice and helpful. They didn't rush me if I was having trouble getting on or off. Once or twice they didn't seem to hear me or know what they were saying. I asked the CM at the Land ride if it was a step down when he asked if I could transfer and he said no it is just straight across. When I went to get on it was a step down but luckily it wasn't too big and I could do it.

Water parks- We got to Typhoon Lagoon right before it opened. By the time we had our locker and the boys were ready they had let people in. Within an hour and a half our boys had gone on every slide at least once. Some two or three times and had their picture taken with Lilo. We did Castaway creek and our youngest son did the wave pool. We actually were changed and out of the park by 12:30. It was great. We went to Bl;izzard Beach too. Only our youngest son did stuff there though because by that point in vacation our 17 yr old was having issues.

We also checked out Art of Animation and All Star Movies at the request of our 12 yr old. He wanted to see the Radiator Springs section of AoA and the Herbie section of ASM. The only disappointment was that Herbie was out for repairs so he couldn't see him.He had worn his brand new Herbie shirt too that someone on here had given me the link to. Thanks he loved it. What made it worse was that after we looked for Herbie and couldn't find it my husband asked someone and they told him where it was so we went back and looked again. He finally found someone else and they told him it was out for repairs.