Have you taken your Aspie child to Disneyland?

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I took my AS son to Australia Zoo at age 7 and I can remember being soooo anxious about how the whole thing would go. While its nowhere near the scale of Disneyland, my worries about crowds, attention etc were similar.
We ended up staying the whole day and I was pleasantly suprised by how well he coped. We went on on weekday (no school holiday crowds!), had plenty of snacks, stopped along the way for little rests and used the bribe of a souvenier at the end to help our cause.
Even when we had to wait for the various presentations to start he was suprisingly good. Yes by the end of the day he was teetering on the edge but it was worth it for what turned out to be a good family day.

I don't know how he would go at a larger place like Disneyland or Movie World, I think that it's maybe a different atmosphere and with the crowds and noise etc it wouldn't work for him at the moment.

My parents took this aspie child when I was five. I loved it! I still remember it and that was 24 years ago. Just make absolute certain that you bring your aspie child's necessities. My parents failed to bring my water wings and I thought the world was coming to an end. Yes, I still remember exactly how upset I was two and a half decades later. I was and still am pretty crazy about things being the way they're "supposed" to be. Everything else was pretty awesome, until I almost died of a heat stroke on the drive home. We made it to somewhere in the Carolinas before I lost consciousness and was admitted with a 107 fever to a hospital there. I also remember the ice bath.

Hubby and I are planning on taking our kids in about two years, when the kids are 4 and 6. One is autistic, one has PDD, but they both LOVE rides.

For us, although I knew that it would be a [/i]very[i] big day for all of us, I wanted to do it for my son. All of us remember different things from our childhood, from different ages. I really wanted to do something as a family, so that hopefully my son would be able to have happy memories to look back as an adult.

We went to Disneyworld this past Feb. We had a great time, there were moments here and there but overall my son held up great. We never came back to the hotel to take breaks. I was a little worried about that but my son ( he is 11) held up really well. We would usually call it a night around 7:00 or 8:00. Someone on WP told me about a special pass so we did get a note from our doctor and went to guest services at Disney and got the pass. I was led to believe the pass only permitted you to wait in a less crowded area but we found out otherwise. It was our last day there and almost the end of the day and we were in line and saw someone else with the same pass so my husband asked her what exactly the pass did and the lady said it works like a fastpass, you don't have to wait in line. You get in the fastpass line and just show the card and they let you right in. My son was ecstatic because we rode this rollercoaster that he loved 4 times in a row. So then we went to another park so we could ride the rockin rollercoaster and we got to ride that one 2 times before the park closed. If only we had known all this at the beginning of our trip....now we know what to look forward to next time.

We went to Disney World for 10 days with my aspie daughter. We did have some rest days in there, one where we just went to the beach but we did spend a lot of time in the parks (hit all four of the major Disney theme parks there). She's a fairly mild case and was able to really enjoy the experience, though she did have her moments. The big thing we had to compensate for was her sound sensativey. Any loud noises will cause her to shut down. We had her put ear plugs in when going on any rides that would be louder. This dampened the sound enough that she was able to enjoy the ride in almost every case. If we hadn't used the earplugs she would not have been able to go on a lot of of the rides though. I know every aspie is a little different but she generally handled the whole thing very well for her. We were able to have a great time.

We went to Disneyworld in Orlando last year, when my son was 3 and had I great time. I also got the prescription from the Dr. just saying that my son has Autism
PDD, I found this to be very helpful, but you do need to let them know, even when we went to take pictures with the characters we showed the pass and they let us in right away from the exit side of the line. I found pass wonderful and we were there in the busy summer time. We also did the character breakfast, lunch with Jojo and little einsteins, winnie the pooh, mikey, donald, goofy etc. it's nice because they are able to spend time and take pictures with the characters, if you go to Universal he enjoyed the spiderman, cat in the hat breakfast, at the Barney show you let them know about your pass, they will ask you( and your family) to stay after the show is over and Barney will visit with the kids and take pictures, they are so nice. I had to pull him off the characters since he just wanted to keep hugging them! they also have the pass you just have to go to guest services. I know they have websites that tell you which days are crowded. My son does not have issues with noise, but he did not go on some rides, like ET since the waiting area was dark, but I know my son and if I don't make him do it, he won't, so while we waited I talked a lot with him try to calm him and once we were on the ride you could not wipe the smile off his face, I am not into getting up early during vacation, I found that after spending the whole day at the park the kids would be so tired they had a hard time getting up early the next day, so we just went to the parks later in the day or did something else that day. You should check what time the parks close, because it is not always the same. I hope you have a great time. We can't wait to go this year!! !

We had a disability pass for both of our boys.

It was the best thing we ever did. We were able to get in the front of the line, but sometimes that meant being behind other people. But ya know it worked out so well!! !

Most of the lines were so short tho, and my kids did well for them. I was especially worried about my Tourette Syndrome guy who has Coprolia and will shout out bad words at times when others don't understand.

When we did have to wait in a very small line my kids stimmed and ticced but you know what it was very minor.

Just take your kids dx-s from your docs and show them and they can give you a disability pass. It made our life much more pleasant.

Also plan for more days then just the one day pass. The first day our boys started freaking out and perservering on what they coudl buy (they both obsesse on money) and we realized they needed a break. We were able to take a shuttle and go back to the hotel, swim and relax and go back that night and also the next day. We needed lots of breaks btw and the extra days helped.

Lainie

HI
I'm sure that I read somewhere online that Disneyland had special passes for Autistic kids in that they didn't have to wait in line for rides etc like NT kids as it was too frustrating. Contact management to see if it is available.

Cheers