These were the words joyfully exclaimed by my daughter as we made our way to The Happiest Place on Earth. While a Disney World vacation may be the ultimate family trip, it can be overwhelming to many, especially to people with disabilities (like my daughter). Fortunately, with a little extra planning and research, it can be possible to navigate and enjoy a magical vacation.
Traveling with Children with Disabilities
If you’ve ever traveled with children, you might be familiar with how much prepping and planning goes into it. From packing the suitcase, to making sure there’s enough to keep them busy on the flight, to having their favorite snacks, it can be a major undertaking!
We knew that traveling would be stressful for our daughter. She thrives on a routine because she knows exactly what her environment is like, who is going to be there (and who is not), what she’s going to be eating and what she is going to be doing. Riding in a car to the airport and traveling in a loud and busy airplane is not typical for her, so we knew there might be a few meltdowns.
And, if you’ve ever been to any Disney Park, you’ll quickly notice how much is going on at once: the sights (colors, characters, lights), sounds (music, chatter, laughter), smells (popcorn, cinnamon rolls, churros), all of which are part of that distinct magic of Disney. However, these are enough to overstimulate most, especially people with disabilities.
To minimize this, we talked to her as much as we could about the upcoming trip. We showed her videos of what the park looked like, talked to her about the many different rides that she might see (or go on), read books with some of her favorite characters, and exposed her to some of the sounds she might hear while there.
A common trait of individuals with neurodiversity is the way in which their stimuli is processed and the abundance of stimulation at Disney World can really pose a major challenge for some. Because people with neurodiversity and other disabilities experience and view the world differently, things such as crowds, noises from fireworks, enclosed dark spaces, and just the unknown at Disney World can be frightening, as was the case with my daughter.
Sometimes with so much going on, it can make it difficult for people to know what to focus on and can lead them to panic from being overstimulated. For example, while waiting in line to meet Goofy, the excitement from others caused my daughter to suddenly panic and she cried for the rest of her time in line.
Managing this overstimulation also requires an extra amount of energy, thus leading to reduced ability to process things to function and regulation of their emotions. In our case, it was a lot of crying. But what can be done to reduce some of this and make a visit to a theme park more enjoyable for all?
Before our visit, we looked up where the quieter areas of the park were, finding ways to reduce cognitive overload and ways to manage mental energy levels. Some suggested noise cancelling headsets for the loud sounds at the park, taking frequent breaks at the park’s many play areas (which were so helpful for us), familiar snacks and drinks (we packed a lot of her favorite fruit gummies) and lots of patience.
Accommodating Guests with Disabilities at Disney Parks
Something else really helped us on our visit: I recalled a conversation on our recent podcast with Mark Jones, leading the Accessibility and Services for Guests with Disabilities team at Disney World. He talked about the ways in which Disney accommodates guests with disabilities and their families to get the most out of their Disney vacation.
Disney has a program at its theme parks called Disability Access Service, known as DAS. DAS is designed to accommodate guests and their families who may have difficulty tolerating longer waits in the typical queue environment due to their disability. While it does not provide immediate access to park attractions, it works by allowing guests to request a return time at the main entrance to most attractions at the park.
Guests still wait the same amount of time but are allowed to do so in a more comfortable environment (such as at a quieter place or somewhere not so crowded).
DAS is available on request at Guest Service relations throughout the parks and it was one of the most helpful parts to making our vacation experience more pleasant and accessible. With DAS, we were able to enjoy certain rides at the park that we may not have been able to otherwise.
There were a lot of fun memories around the park where my daughter enjoyed herself, spotting characters and finding familiar things and while we were able to use DAS for a lot of attractions, there were still some experiences that were too much for our daughter. And that was okay with us.
Conclusion
When visiting a theme park with family members with disabilities, take some time to look up the many ways they assist guests with disabilities. Services like the one Disney provides can really maximize a person’s experience.
We learned to take it one step at a time (literally), take frequent breaks and create our memories that way. Some of my favorite memories from the visit were the ones that were not planned. One day, we will revisit the park and create new memories and know that services like DAS can make it happen.