Could a Disney Cruise with teen with Aspergers/behavioral problems ever be a success?

[kazzie]

Hi to everyone!

MY DS is 14 and as I said has Aspergers which in his case means 'challenging' bahaviour too

We have been lucky enough to vacation in Orlando 8 times as we love it so much.MY DS's ambition is to go on a Disney cruise and as he is 'young' for his age too I know he would have an amazing time.I was thinking about a 4 day cruise.

The problem is he gets stressed/anxious if he is 'cooped' up and this affects his behaviour.On our trip last October we went to NY for 4 days then flew to Orlando.Being in a hotel room seemed to bring out the worst in his behaviour (we usually stay in a villa in Orlando) and changing 'place' twice may have been 'too' much.

Because of that trip I changed our holiday plans for this year which which I had already booked.That was to be a fly in to San Francisco and home from LA and lots of changes of places type of holiday to Orlando again as I thought the fly drive to California would too much for him.

I'll get to my point now! Has anyone any experience of a teen with similiar problems who has been on a cruise? If he is in the right frame of mind he would love the cruise so much.When we were on holiday in an onsite Universal hotel in Spain 2years ago he had a 'melt down' and went into the corridor and kicked over the ashtray and was shouting in the corridor and people were opening their doors and were being horrible to my DH and me

I would love to give it a try but my DH would take some convincing it would be OK.Also other teens can be very cruel to him.He is very tall/big for his age of 14 (he is 6ft) but acts much younger, which is an unfortunate combination.

He is mostly a lovely funny intelligent happy boy with a great personality and gets on extremely well with adults (adults are usually more tolerant less judgemental than other children and teenagers and tend to accept for who he is)

If anyone is still with me here (!) please say if you think I shouldn't consider a cruise at all

 

[mbb]

and if you think it would be worth a try, I would have to agree...

Our two sons have ASD, and seem to be scoring on the ASpergers side of the spectrum - but our boys are only 6...and we think a cruise would definitely work for us...we too, are concerned about the "space"thing...we are DVC owners, and find that the extra room allows for the boys to have their own "zone" for down time...

That being said, we're going to wait a little longer and save for an upgrade for a larger room category on DCL....and make sure we're at the pool early so they get the sensory time they need in the water. The structure of the Kid's Club will definitely appeal to them.

Anyway!! If your DS wants to try it, why not a 3 or 4 day cruise instead of the week long thing...then you'll know for next time...??

HTH!! Feel free to pm anytime!

 

[Poohnatic]

You know your son best. With my son, sometimes he wants something bad enough that he'll be a dream for it.
We haven't had trouble with confined spaces, and his issues at WDW seem to be the sensory overload.

Perhaps a verandah room will be helpful, you could have the slider open and it gives the sensation of it being open. I don't know, our first cruise will be later this year.

Suzanne

 

[kazzie]

Thank you both very much for your thoughts and good ideas