Behavior Challenge Thread

[kirstenb1]

snow 88, our daughter with ASD loves Sea World. The Clyde and Seamore show is a must for her, along with the many animal exhibits. She likes the cool darkness in Penguin Encounter, and the Shark Encounter. She loves Pets Ahoy. We also visit the Manta Rays, and the Dolphins. There's a kid's playground too. Sea World overall is more low key than WDW, and in our experience, less crowded. We always spend at least a day there.

 

[snow88]

Thanks! I will write these down for my trip. I was reading that the Penguin Encounter is closed. Does that mean we can't see penguins at all or is there another exhibit?

He loves Penguins as well.

 

[kirstenb1]

Oh no!!! Penguin Encounter is a favorite!! I thought that just the behind the scenes tour was closed, not the whole exhibit. Now I need to go find out.

I think I forgot to mention that the Arctic Express ride (one of those motion rides with the movie) can be bypassed, which we do, and just go to see the polar bears. This is a nice cool relaxing walk through at your own pace.

 

[sjkobriger]

I just wanted to post a follow up report to my question from April after our 10-Day trip to WDW a couple week ago. The advice offered by Grace was spot on. We went to Epcot GR on day 1 and they were absolutely wonderful. They asked about my son's needs and without hesitation issued a 10-day Alternate entry GAC. (granted he made it easy by sitting in the corner with his headphones on playing his Nintendo DS).

The GAC was handled as advertised. On some attractions that had very long standby waits, the CM would ask who was the person on the card and ask my son if it was him. They were very nice to him, giving him high fives for the courage to go on the Rock n' Roller coaster and offering to have him make the announcement to move the queue(he was too freaked out to do that, but it was very kind of them) and their demeanor made him feel welcome. I was nervous about that ride with him (as was he), but after we rode he claimed it as his favorite and we rode twice more and he still talks about it. I would wait the 90 minutes, but there was no way he would have survived it. Thank you Disney for your accomodation of kids on the spectrum. It makes great memories possible that otherwise we couldn't even think about.

One final note. The friendliness and interaction of the CMs at the parks varied quite a bit. By far the most gracious CMs were at Epcot, followed by HS and AK, which were both really great as well. We were very dissapointed in the attitudes of the CMs at the Magic Kingdom. They were nearly all curt, grouchy and matter of fact. This shocked us since we thought MK should have been the most "magical" park, but we felt like we were at six flags based on the attitudes of the CMs there. We still had a great time, but it was a very noticeable difference (made me thankful we went to the GR at Epcot).

Thanks again and I encourage anyone who is nervous heading to WDW with their spectrum child to make sure you go to Guest Relations first. That card was a massive anxiety reliever.

 

[GraceLuvsWDW]

Glad you had a good trip skjobriger. We also just returned from our trip and had a great trip. We did not have the same experience in mk, all of the cm's were very good with us. As a matter of fact, I felt the gac was handled better this trip than it has been in the past couple of years. My dd is no responsive when asked her name and in prior trips this has caused some issues but this trip everyone was wonderful with dd. we even had the dreaded expererience at the airport where dd was selected to go into the back scatter machine but when I explained that wasn't going to happen they waived us on. This has been a fear of mine for some time so I am glad it worked out so well.

We had a few minor meltdowns and one doozie of a meltdown on the last day but my dd made amazing strides this trip! She finally worked up the courage to ride space mountain and loved it.

I am amazed your son rode rnrc that ride is a favorite of mine but it is really intense! I don't think my dd will ride it for many years to come.

 

[sjkobriger]

Glad you had a great trip as well! Just to clarify. The CMs at MK didn't give us trouble using the GAC, they were just not as engaged as the CM's at the other parks and generally offered no smiles, minimal eye contact, and were very business-like.

As this was our first time at WDW, I don't have a comparision for GAC issuance/use there, but the CM at Guest relations at Epcot was exceptionally kind and indicated that they had recent training on handling autism-related requests and it is a priority for them to make sure we have a wonderful time. He even let us know that the GR office there has private rooms that we could use to relax, eat or cool off in if there was a issue in the park and we needed to re-group. Kudos to Disney for this!

Congrats to your dd for riding Space Mountain! That's a pretty intense ride too. RNRC was much more thrilling than I expected and I kept looking over at my ds to see if he was going to be traumatized. Fortunately, listening to music is his thing, so the whole experience fascinated him. The countdown prior to launch was the worst part, but at that point there was no turning back! Our only meltdown occured after TSM because he was frustrated at not doing well on the games (it was also the longest wait, even with GAC) and demanded a return to RNRC immediately


Thanks again for your advice!