My first TR - Sept 2010 Three Adults "and Your Little Dog too!" - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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great start. Glad to hear TSA was accomodating. I HATE flying and the added security, while needed, just enhances my anxiety. I feel ya and hope every trip goes that smooth in the future!
I can only *wish* that future trips would be so nice
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Originally Posted by angel24
Great so fAr!
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Originally Posted by southerngirl1014
Great start! I am excited to read more.
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Originally Posted by southerngirl1014
Great start! I am excited to read more.
thank you It's so nice to know I'm not writing into a vacuum!!
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Originally Posted by lfredsbo
So happy that you were able to add more photos!!!
But NOT so happy about the meltdowns BUT I totally get it..........sometimes, we forget that Disney is NOT going anywhere and that we need to slow down and take our time to really enjoy it. I do not have special needs, and I have meltdowns too......so I can just try to imagine how Stitch and yourself felt.
I am glad to hear that it does have a happy ending though!!! And those pics of Little Dude with Mickey..........
Yeah, the meltdown was not good - for all three of us. And I know that you have to pace yourself, I was just completely unprepared for how slow we had to go. It will be in the report soon.
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Originally Posted by jennie622
Honestly, it just seems so easy to keep moving on at Disney but if not careful, it can turn around and bite you! I've done, we've all done it. I believe I've done it more than a few times. Not pretty.
I like how you compare the trip to a Disney movie and although there are scary/sad parts, happiness prevails!
The pics with Mickey and Little Dude are adorable!
Well, with Disney there are no unhappy endings We did find a balance, but it took longer than I thought.
And Little Dude is just a heart-stealer, I swear There are no bad pics of him, LOL
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Originally Posted by cubfancolleen
Glad you learned your lesson about fitting in too much in a day - but sorry it was so stressful on all of you!
The pictures are so great, though! Love the expressions on Stitch's face!
I love her face as well, just full of pure happiness at times. It also became a running joke about her crying at the drop of a hat with tears of happiness.
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Originally Posted by chezp
Sorry it was such a stressful day.
Thank you, it was bad - probably the worst day of the trip. Although I still have lots of happy memories of different pieces of the day, like meeting Tinkerbell and friends, and a one-on-one meeting with Mickey and Minnie!!
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Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Sorry it was a long stressful day for Stitch! Great pictures from your day!
I love, love, love Photopass!!! About 1/2 the photos in the last post were from them, and the pictures of Little Dude and Mickey are just priceless. I am so glad that I pre-paid!
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BTW - there is dog who is cuter than the Little Dude, IMO
She's my Molly.
And she's sick tonight. Came home from work to find that she got sick in her crate and did... well #2 all over the crate. Rushed her to the vet, gave her fluids and some meds. But she's just a sad little puppy tonight.
(Stitch and Molly hanging out in the kitchen together)
Everything had changed with the wheelchair. One unfortunate side affect of Little Dude is that he is too damn cute. All day long, people squeal “oh look at the puppy!” “oh he’s so cute!!” and will reach out to pet him even though he’s in a bag under Stitch’s arm. By having Stitch in a wheelchair, though, that put Little Dude below eye level. We still got squeals, but nothing like what we were getting the first two days (and when I mean not as bad, it’s still bad when you lose count around 35 of the number of people who felt the need to announce that “it’s a dog!” and you’ve only been in the park for two hours.)
Having Stitch in a wheelchair really slowed us down. It just takes time to do anything, to get anywhere, etc. Things are more complicated and it can be tough. Disney is great with wheelchairs, even though we had what DB nicknamed “the double wide.” It was a wider than standard chair, which gave Little Dude just enough space to sit right next to Stitch. With the wider chair, thought, also meant that we had about a quarter inch of wiggle room getting on and off the boats for MHS and Epcot. A couple of times, I know we gouged the entry to a ride with the wheels because there just wasn’t enough space. And because it was wider, Stitch could not reach the wheels easily and help push herself along. So all that preparation walking we did didn’t really help. My feet were so sore by the end of the trip because instead of doing a normal walk, we were basically pulling at our arches, pushing the chair along.
Now, with all that said, I wouldn’t change a thing. That wheelchair gave us back a vacation that I still hadn’t realized how close I came to losing. It wasn’t until later in the week when I finally slowed down enough, and we got a chance to really talk, did I realize how much of a disaster those first two days were. Looking back now, I just want to shake myself for being such an idiot. I came very close to ruining this dream vacation for Stitch, turning it into a nightmare. Thankfully on our fourth day, Stitch was able to really get it through my head how bad the trip had become and I had to slow down even more. By the end of the trip, we were doing 3-4 hours in the park, sleeping late in the morning and remembering to “take it easy!”
BTW - there is dog who is cuter than the Little Dude, IMO
She's my Molly.
And she's sick tonight. Came home from work to find that she got sick in her crate and did... well #2 all over the crate. Rushed her to the vet, gave her fluids and some meds. But she's just a sad little puppy tonight.
She looks like she's feeling a bit better... Thank goodness the vet managed to see her so soon.
I was the last to wake up - there was no alarm, no set time to get up. The events of the night before had really shocked me. I realized that all my carefully laid plans of this park on that day and that park on this day had to be completely thrown out and re-written. I remember being able to doing 6-7 hours at a clip in the park, going back to the room for a nap, then going back to the park for a couple of hours at night as a kid. But this was not going to be possible with this trip. We still did too much this day, you’ll see below. But I did start slowing down.
Today was going to be a split day. Morning at MHS and then off to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. Before we left for the trip, I spoke with my boss who’s wife is obsessed with all things Disney. LOL He strongly recommended the Halloween party, saying it was the best parade and fireworks. Since he’s been at the Kingdom in all seasons, I considered this to be a very good recommendation and signed us up!
Morning at MHS really became afternoon at MHS once we were done with breakfast and getting ready. This time, we didn’t walk, but took the boat. So much easier! And the crowds - they were GONE! Since we’ve returned, I’ve learned that the park is insane on days with Fantasmic and empty the other days. First ride: Tower of Terror!! Just love that one. A young girl in front of us started to get a little scared, but we explained that our hair elastics glowed in the dark and that if she was frighten, to just look for us glowing and know that we were right behind her. It worked! She loved the ride and was so glad that she did it! Then off to Rockin’ Roller Coaster. They were so nice there that they let us go again by walking through the by-pass area that connects the back exit with the front of the line without having to go back outside. Which was a great thing as Stitch’s meds were giving her issues and she couldn’t walk straight! (we left the wheelchair at the end of the ride with DB and Little Dude.)
This time we listened to Little Dude and made sure that he had his normally scheduled bathroom breaks.
We also got to meet a lot of characters in the old animation building. I don’t ever remember meeting so many characters! I remember them being chance encounters when I was a kid and you were lucky if you got to meet a max of 10. Instead, it seemed like we met 10 right there in the old animation building! Sorcerer Mickey, Mr. & Mrs. Incredible, Mary Poppins, one of the penguin waiters, Minnie and of course PLUTO! He played scared of Little Dude, it was great.
What do you taste like?
Definitely not as tasty as my dog treats!!
A quick ride on Toy Story Mania and then back to the hotel to get ready for Halloween.
Which I timed horribly. We missed the opening and almost missed the fireworks! I had to hail a cab to take us to the TTC and we made the fireworks with 10 minutes to spare. Stress I did not need. Again, I was squeezing in way too much stuff. The wheelchair makes everything so much longer, and I was not budgeting enough time in. I also wasn’t budgeting time in to be tired.
Halloween fireworks are the best - if you’re on the fence about going and love fireworks, then you have to go to this show. No YouTube video is going to give you a good taste of what they do because no camera can possibly catch all the action at the same time. I like to think of these fireworks as immersion fireworks, where you feel that you’re in the middle of the show. They were so awesome that Stitch cried (again). One of the videos I took that night is just of her reaction to the fireworks, always makes me smile when I watch it. There is just nothing like your first Disney fireworks show!
(DB as himself , me as Wonder Woman, Stitch as a pirate and Little Dude as Mickey Mouse!)
Lessons Learned:
SLOW DOWN! (I think I finally got it through my head when we had to take a cab to make it to Halloween on time.)
Always reach out to the younger ones to remind them that as scary as the ride can be, this is Disney and there are no unhappy endings.
This is a GREAT Trip report! I'm so glad that you are writing this up. I also had to learn to slow down a bit on our last trip. DBF's Acute Social Anxiety and his meds wouldn't let us do the commando style touring that DD and I did on our first trip.
I am so sorry your dog is sick - I hope he feels better soon!
This is such a great trip report - your honesty, thoughtfulness and strong friendship is tremendous.
I love all your pictures - the smiles on your faces fills me with joy and excitment for my next trip!
__________________
Jenny
"If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember this whole thing was started by a mouse" Walt Disney
This is a GREAT Trip report! I'm so glad that you are writing this up. I also had to learn to slow down a bit on our last trip. DBF's Acute Social Anxiety and his meds wouldn't let us do the commando style touring that DD and I did on our first trip.
I talked Stitch last night before bed about your post and she understood immediately what you were talking about. It was a real adjustment to slow down enough for her, which is one of the reasons why our upcoming trip is a little longer. I'll spoil the ending, but by the time we hit the 6th and 7th day, we were doing four hours in a park per day. Four hours!?!? But that was as much as she could handle without a serious break. Sometimes those breaks could be a meal if the restaurant wasn't too crowded. Or we had to leave the park completely. Thank goodness we can go in Sept, because four hours translates to about 5 rides in low crowd times.
I talked Stitch last night before bed about your post and she understood immediately what you were talking about. It was a real adjustment to slow down enough for her, which is one of the reasons why our upcoming trip is a little longer. I'll spoil the ending, but by the time we hit the 6th and 7th day, we were doing four hours in a park per day. Four hours!?!? But that was as much as she could handle without a serious break. Sometimes those breaks could be a meal if the restaurant wasn't too crowded. Or we had to leave the park completely. Thank goodness we can go in Sept, because four hours translates to about 5 rides in low crowd times.
The GAC is a HUGE help to him so that he can wait without getting to anxious from the crowds. But yes, we are scheduling some nice sit downs for breaks too. He has a couple of "favorites" that he has requested. Those are booked and now we just wait. *sigh*
The GAC is a HUGE help to him so that he can wait without getting to anxious from the crowds. But yes, we are scheduling some nice sit downs for breaks too. He has a couple of "favorites" that he has requested. Those are booked and now we just wait. *sigh*
The GAC is why Disney is worth every penny. That and the complete and total acceptance of the service dog. As a friend commented: it was a true vacation as no one questioned us for 7 day if he was "really" a service dog.
I've also told my friends that if they know anyone with any sort of disabilities, or disabilities in their family, and they're thinking of going to Disney that we give it two unconditional thumbs up. They are definitely prepared to handle anything we throw at them, and do it with a smile and a friendly attitude.
I know Disney is not cheap, but for the level of care and service we had on this trip, we got our money's worth. I've traveled a lot for work and have never needed to visit the concierge more than once or twice the whole trip. We were there twice a day for help, morning and evening. ADRs, Halloween tickets, help with the wheelchair - you name it, we were asking for help. And every single time, they had the answer we needed and delivered it with a smile and a wonderful attitude. At no point did we feel that we were bothering them or being unreasonable - they wanted to go out of their way to make it work. Especially after the first full day and Stitch's complete meltdown and asking for a wheelchair. They saw how close we came to losing the whole thing, they listened to Stitch when she freaked out and they made sure that the rest of the days were as smooth as possible.
Isn't the wait just annoying!?!?! I have way too many countdowns going on, besides the one in my signature. And between now and then, I have a couple of major projects here at work that need my full attention. But it's Disney!! I'm so distracted at 90+ days out - it's going to get so much worse at the 45 day mark! LOL
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It's so nice to know I'm not writing into a vacuum!!
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