OK.....we decided to go to Disneyworld for a week with the kids. We did a lot of planning and prep work and overall it was a great trip. The chefs were wonderful in accomodating John's gfcf diet! And overall we didn't have any real problems. OK....we had a few. When we went to guest services to ask about the special needs pass (had a docs letter with me) the woman snapped and said "YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T CUT LINES WITH THIS!?" I informed her we had no intention of that. She finally gave it to us. Then we only used the pass I think 4 times the whole week and only when it was really needed otherwise we stood in line so John could start to learn he had to wait for things. Anyway, the one time we did use it was entering the park. You have to go through a bag search and a few times it was really long so we asked the guards at the "guests without bags entrace" to check my bag and they were great about it....except one. He told me it didn't matter that my son had autism we needed to stand in line like everyone else. When I persisted he said "well you don't have autism....so he can come in here and you can go wait in line". I told him I couldn't leave him alone and he needed to check my bag NOW! He finally did. The last trouble we had was on the airline coming back. We were assigned seats at our hotel checkout and we were all over the plane (obviously.....can't do that) so gate agent changed us around. Well, a passanger who was late getting on was ticked her seat was changed and when my husband explained why to her she yelled she didn't care what he had (autism) she said she didn't care and that was no reason for my husband to refuse to move. We then waited in the plane at the gate for 2 hours waiting out a storm (John fell asleep) but the woman continued to rant and rave to anyone who would listen. Oh well.....guess everyone hasn't gotten the message about autism yet.
Good grief!
What a snotty lady and rude to boot! :~P Glad your back and survived:) Post pics!! With a few glitches it sounds like a good vacation, that's great! Don't let the neg. stuff get you down. My motto is, what comes around goes around. I know thoses people in our lives who refuse to be kind and helpful will someday need compassion themselves and will probably run into somebody just like themselves. Then they will know what it was like for the people they treated badly. I had a bad exprience on a plane too. I had gotten our seat assignments in advance just the way I wanted them. I didn't know but on planes with 3 seats across you cannot seat an 2 adults and 2 lap children. Has to do with the oxygen masks. Well anyway we were boarded in the last group of passengers and the flight attendant noticed the problem and requested another passenger change their seat. NOBODY would move!! Here I am standing at the front of the plane, Dh already seated with our older ASD child, the flight is now delayed, and nobody would move! Totally unbelievable. The flight attendant finally MADE somebody move-guess what? My daughter was an angel the entire flight, and the people in our row loved her. I hope the other passengers who didn't want a young child next to them felt totally stupid. Anyway, overall , it was quite an eventful trip wasn't it mamasquash. I'm sure John was quite chatty marvelling at the structures around him. Paige would probably be throwing you a lot curiousity questions.. " WHY mommy this..." or "WHY mommy that..." !! So planning for another trip in the near trip... ?? When we went to Disneyland, Jacob was a few days before 4 years old. He was not dx'd ASD yet. I thought about the special needs pass and we probably could have gotten one for his anxiety and disruptive behavior disorder. And dh's 5y nephew was there--severe ADHD and anxiety. It was during Christmas and it was BUSY!! They even closed the park to vistors at 12pm. We got Fast Passes for the big rides and NEVER waited longer than 15 min. Most of the time, we never waited at all!! We would like to go to Disney World next time. But we want to wait until my youngest is tall enough for ALL the rides!! Thank goodness she is tall for her age--5y!
people sometimes. When you are late, you always chance getting your seat
changed. I am glad you did not give into her. I think my husband would
have lost it with her. He has such little patience with peolple with such low
self monitor. We have also been wanting to take the kids to Disney World as
well so your informaton will be handy. (Just use it for the really extra long
rides) We used the pass for the 2 1/2 hour wait for the Kilimonjaro Safari ride at Animal Kingdom and waited about 10 minutes instead. It's a Small World was about a 15 minute wait.....so we waited....and John had to deal with it. He did ok too!!!We used the pass when we went in January and didn't have any problems. The entire staff at Disney was super nice and understanding. They're paid to be!! I guess we got everyone on a good day. I always find that people are either extremely nice, extremely rude, or standoffish when you say the A word. It is almost worth what you go through when you see the pictures, and they always remember the experience. That's awesome that you took him.
over the years. he is in the engineering dept. going on 17 years. clearly
he likes it enough to stay.
with that being said the guest treatment has changed a lot. i too worked
there one summer during college and the training i received for guest
relations and management is so different than what is done today. so i
ALWAYS SUGGEST when a cast member gives you trouble to go straight to
a manager or guest services. you don't have to be rude but assertive. if
the guest services woman gave you lip about the red pass i would have
quickly asked for the manager. i can't stand that crap!! it irks me
everytime i hear about a cast member being rude.
it happens to us all the time when we are in the parks as guests and i just
won't put up with it. they are there for the guests and the power play they
think they are pulling doesn't work with me.
o.k., i have gone off on a disney rant :) sorry, seriously if the disney
issues bother you than write a letter and complain or give them a call. tell
them they can remedy the situation with a t-shirt or something! it would
be fun for your son. i'm actually writing a letter of complaint regarding
the photographer and power rangers to see if we can get my son a signed
picture of the "green" ranger since we were brushed off a couple of
weekends ago. e did so well standing in the hot line and waiting and we
had an issue with the photographer. people don't get how hard it is for
those with autism to wait!
L
Copyright Autism-PDD.net