Planning a trip to Disneyland, are we crazy?

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I haven't read all the replies, but wanted to give you a few tips and share our experience with our kids and taking them there. One is HFA, one is Mildly ret*d, all have sensory issues. We've taken them twice with no prblems. We live in N. CA, about 8 hours from the park.

First of all, 3 days is not too much. In fact, it's hard to get around the park and do most of the fun stuff in just 3 days if you are also planning on going to CA adventure as well. If the kids like roller coasters/rides, then CA Adventure is a must because it has some of the best.

Most useful advice that I know: stay in the Disneyland resort. It costs a little more, but it is more than worth it. If you stay at the Disneyland Hotel(the cheaper alternative since it's a bit dated) you will have free access to the park right at the monorail station in Downtown Disney- a short walk from the hotel. This means that if kids(or you) get tired, need a break, etc, you can take monorail back and go to your room. You also get perks like one day of early entrance to the park- you get in an hour earlier than the general public and avoid crowds.

Start off in one area of the park and do everything there. Then move on to the next area. 2 areas in a day at Disneyland is plenty. Familiarize yourself with the park and attractions online at disneyland.com and plan out your routes beforehand.

The weather should be very nice- temperate, possibly cool. You'll need sweatshirts in the morning and take rain gear just in case. You can get a locker at the front of the park and stow any unnecessary stuff there.

The chaos and crowds at Disneyland are at least orderly. I can deal with organized crowds and not feel overwhelmed. None of our kids had serious problems. My HFA 10 y/o DD would kinda space out into her own little world while waiting in line and we'd have to keep reminding her to move up. The park is kept VERY clean and neat. I have been to Six Flags and it's like night and day. I could not stand Six Flags: rude crowds of teenagers, filth everywhere, disgusting. Disneyland is very nice.

The food near attractions is higher-priced. There is a great cafe near the main street entrance- Carnation Cafe that has reasonable prices and you don't have to stand up to eat and you get served- a nice break. The Blue Bayou Restaurant inside Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't cost more than eating at most places in the park and is a nice, quieter, darker, and cool. You have to make reservations in advance. It was a good place to get away from the crowds and have a nice break and well worth it.

If your kids do indeed have issues, you can go to Guest Services at the front of the park on Main Street and speak with someone about getting a pass that will allow you to skip the crowded lines. You have to wait the same amount of time, but they will let you wait near the exit, then bring you in the back way when it's time to enjoy the ride/attraction. If you explain that your kids have autism, they should be very accommodating.

My DS is 4 and is easily overwhelmed. We want to do the Disneyland trip but we don't think he can handle all that stimulation for more than a few hours at a time so we're planning to get hotel rooms in the park so it's easy to take breaks. I'd suggest doing the same if you can afford the rates.

Lego land is definitely low key compared to Disney land. It's quieter and easier to navigate. Perfect for AS kids. Note that Lego land is near the coast and it gets cold and rainy starting in November so try to make your plans flexible. Balboa Park is a nice place to visit and there's alot of stuff indoors so make that as your backup if the weather is bad. You can spend a couple of days there, it's that big. If you go to Balboa Park, be sure to stop at the San Diego Model Train Museum. It's the biggest operating model train layout in the world. Also check out the Ruben H. Fleet space/tech museum there; it has a huge hands on science and technology room for kids to explore.

Make sure to visit the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park. There's also the tidal pools in La Jolla and the aquarium at the Scripps Research facility at UCSD.

Just got back from our trip, and it was a big success.

Disney was really hard for my guys (as I suspected), but thanks to the sage advice here and my own research, we had 3 things which saved our lives -ear defenders (they wore them for most of the time there. Man, is that place ever loud!), Ridemax (it told us how to minimize crowds and waiting. Helped us all to know what to expect next and kept us from wasting energy by wandering around aimlessly. I really loved this software and wouldn't want to do Disney without it!) and the Guest assistance pass (because we were already using Ridemax, which helped us to use the fastpass system efficiently, we didn't need the pass that often, but it came in really, really handy a few times).

We went to Disneyland for 2 days, but only lasted until just after lunch, then went back one evening to visit California adventure and to see the parks lit up at night, but in that time we managed to go on all the rides my sons wanted (their favourites more than once) and to see the Jedi Academy Training show, which they got to participate in (this was a huge highlight for them! they were so blissed out on all the Star Wars stuff that they didn't even notice the crowd watching. It was so cute!). We skipped the parades and were in bed asleep long before the fireworks, but that's OK. We had fun (most of the time ). They also loved the shops. One of my sons is very tactile, and spent the longest time on our first day touching every single thing in the pirate, Indiana jones and Star Wars shops...finally settling on one item to buy. We were really impressed with the cast members. We noticed many of them adjust their behaviour towards our sons after they noticed the ear defenders etc., becoming extra kind or quieter. Pretty cool.


I did have one moment though, as we were first walking into Disneyland, seeing all the happy, excited kids rushing past us, as my sons huddled close to us to avoid the crowds, clutched their ear defenders to their ears and looked terrified, where I had a big wave of sadness and "it's not fair" that even fun things have to be so hard for us. Often at home, we don't notice the difference between them and the other kids much, if at all, but in a high stress environment like Disneyland the differences were like a gaping chasm...so I had a little moment of feeling sad, but then got on with our day and had a great time in our own way. What was really cool is that with most of the sound blocked out, they really loved the motion of the rides, so we went on lots. And I was even surprised to find myself enjoying the "Disney magic" at times too.

Other than Disneyland we spent a lot of time on the beach at La Jolla Shores, went for a hike in the Torrey Pines State reserve, went to the Birch aquarium and also visited Sea World (much easier on my guys. Far less people and they found some of the activities really peaceful and relaxing (like petting the bat rays. The shows were their least favourite part.) and Lego Land. Legoland was both of their favourites, because Lego is a major, consuming passion for them. It was easier than Disney in parts (way quieter, way less people, more hands on things to get involved with and not just be entertained by) and also harder in parts (trying to negotiate and share parts with other kids in the Bionicle discovery room almost came to blows!? And playing with others kids in the playground areas was tricky too)...but man, did they love it! I never thought we'd make it out of that bulk LEGO store!

Anyway, thanks for the help and advice. We had a great trip.