Image Galleries and Smart Phones/Itouches

With smart phones/itouches becoming more common place and very helpful we have come up with a help aid for non-verbal family members to help communicate about the ride they want to ride. Included are zip files for each of the Walt Disney World Park's attractions. You can download these files to your smart phone/itouch and have an image gallery with you at the park. On our last trip, Josh tried to communicate which ride he wanted to ride, but was not able to say it. With the image gallery on my iphone he was able to scroll until he found the image for Splash Mountain. It helps to show the images to your family member before the trip so they are familiar with them. We had found this to be very helpful for us since Josh is limited in his communication.

"Josh Ratings" - how they work on the site

     Our son Joshua is a beautiful boy with autism, on the moderate to severe end of the spectrum.  He is almost completely non-verbal, but can express his enjoyment of a ride (or his aversion to it) in many non-verbal ways.  He is starting to use words more frequently to express his needs, which is thrilling for us as parents.  However, sometimes he cannot express his feelings verbally about his experience on a ride at Walt Disney World, so we have observed him carefully, and have crafted a three level system of rating rides and attractions at Disney parks.
 
     We have given each ride a "Josh Rating" of either a "thumb up", thumb sideways", or a "thumb down", providing you with a view of how much our son enjoys a particular ride at Walt Disney World.  This is by no means an indicator of how your child with enjoy a particular ride, but we hope it gives you some indications of rides to avoid, as well as rides to enjoy during your trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. 
 
     Here are the definitions:

• Thumb Up - "Let's do that one again!"
• Thumb Sideways - "I can take or leave this ride - it's OK"
• Thumb Down - "I don't want to do that ride ever again"

 
     "Thumb up" rides are ones we generally have to ride first, and have to ride at least twice in a row.  "Thumb sideways" rides are ones we can leave for later in the trip, and/or ones that Josh only wants to ride a single time.  "Thumb down" rides are ones we have either elected not to take him on (due to the scare factor), or ones for which Josh has verbally or non-verbally expressed a dislike.  This can be expressed by crying, hiding, or giving us the "no" sign.
 
     We hope you find these ratings helpful as you plan out which attractions you want to try out during your trip to Walt Disney World or other Disney parks.  We would love to get your feedback and comments on how your child rated each ride, to help us balance ratings if needed.
 

Character Greetings and Interactions

Disney World’s official website has a great summary of what character greetings are all about: “During Character Greetings, you are invited to say hello, shake hands, share hugs, photograph and receive one-of-a-kind autographs from your favorite Disney Characters.”

Types of Characters:

There are two types of characters at Walt Disney World.  The first type are called "Face Characters".  These are real people dressed and made-up to look like Disney movie characters.  Face Characters include Snow White, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Jasmine, Arial, Alice, the Mad Hatter, and others.  Face characters will speak with you, sign autographs, interact with you and your children, and pose for pictures.  The second type are often called "Fur Characters", because of their costumes.  Fur Characters do not speak, but will "mime" their thoughts and intentions in order to communicate.  They will also sign autographs (provided the pen is large enough for them to grasp through the costume), pose for pictures, and interact with you and your children.  Examples of Fur Characters include Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald, Lilo, and Stitch.

There are several different ways to meet characters, including:

• Character Meals
• Character Greeting Locations
• Out and about in the park

Tips for successful character greetings:

• Create a character greeting schedule, with pictures of the characters.  Let your child check off each character that you meet during your trip.
• View videos of character greetings to introduce the process to your child. 
• Read a social story with your child about greeting characters, so they understand the process and have something to look forward to on the trip.
• Never force a child to meet a character.  Many children, including neuro-typical children, are afraid of characters.
• Let cast members and characters know that your child has autism.  Many have received training on autism, and they will often spend more time interacting with your child in order to draw them out.

Social Story:

To help you with character greetings, we have created a character greeting social story.  Please feel free to download and modify the story to fit your child’s needs.  The social story covers the best ways to greet and interact with the characters, to make the most of your experience.  By adapting, printing, and reading the story with your child you can help make their character greeting experience a positive one!

Finding your favorite characters:

Character availability is subject to change.  We have provided information pages listing characters we have personally met in the parks, along with suggestions of where to look for many Disney characters.  We recommend that you look at the park schedule each day to determine when and where characters will be, and that you ask Cast Members if you are trying to find one particular character - they are happy to help you!

Another great resource is the Walt Disney World Insiders Character Finder Utility page.  This webpage gives you an alphabetical list of characters, along with a color coded "Mickey Head" icon to let you know how frequently the character appears in the parks.  One of the best features is the "recent sightings" updates from site visitors - this is the best indication of whether a character will be in the park when you go.  Check it out a day or so before your trip to see how frequently your child's favorite characters appear!

Disney Park Picture Schedule

To help your trip run smoother, we have created picture schedule of each park. They have images of each attraction with a check box in front. They are provided in two formats, power point if you want to edit and PDF. It help us for our trip, we laminated the picture schedule. Before we went to the park, we discussed what we wanted to do and listed the attractions in order with a dry board marker. It is also helpful for limited verbal child to point to be able to point out which attraction they wanted to ride. You are more than welcome to make any changes for your child and use the images on the website to adapt it for your trip.

For more information, here is a link to a video “Autism: Using Schedules” from Birdville Independent School District. Click here and look for the video on schedules.

Magical Express

For those guests flying into Orlando International Airport and staying at a Walt Disney World Resort, Disney offers a free shuttle service called “Magical Express”. Magical Express not only offers you an air conditioned ride to your Disney World resort hotel, but they also handle your luggage from airport to your room.

Using the Magical Express service is very easy. One you have your flight information, you or your travel agent can request the Magical Express service from Disney. You will be mailed a Magical Express boarding pass, along with luggage tags that list your name as well as your resort hotel, about 40 days prior to your trip. When you are ready to fly into Orlando, attach your luggage tags and check your bags with your airline.

When the bags arrive at Orlando International Airport, Disney will retrieve the bags from the baggage carousel and deliver them to your resort. You can proceed directly to the Magical Express counter on Level 1, Terminal B to check in and board your bus. Alternately, if you have your boarding passes, you can follow the signs to the Magical Express bus and board directly. There are several lines depending on the resort. Disney cast members will direct you to the correct bus. The ride to Walt Disney Resort takes approximately 30 minutes, however guests may have to wait up to approximately 40 minutes for the bus to leave. The buses may make several stops at different resorts along the way to your hotel. Also, your bags can take up to a few hours to reach your room at the resort. We recommend you take any items you would need upon arrival at the hotel with you in a carry on bag.

There is a terminal desk, however if you already have your boarding pass you can go directly to boarding line. Disney needs approximately 10 days to send out Magical Express boarding pass and luggage tags. If guest do not have them, they will need to take their luggage from the airline baggage pickup and stop at Magical Express Desk. They will provide you with a boarding pass and the bus driver will load the luggage onto the bus.

The day before you leave, Magical Express will provide you will a boarding pass and departure time for the guest ride back to the airport from the resort. Magical Express departure is approximate 3 hours before the guest departure time.

Click here for additional information regarding Walt Disney World Magical Express Transportation.

Images:

To see Magical Express Image Gallery, click here

Orlando International Airport

The closest airport to Walt Disney World is the Orlando International Airport(airport code MCO). Going to a new airport can be confusing and sometimes overwhelming to navigate. Orlando International Airport is set up with four satellite terminals connecting to a main terminal hub. When you arrive at your gate, you will make your way to a monorail shuttle. This shuttle will rapidly transport you to the main terminal hub. The main terminal is very large, containing shops (including a Disney
Store), a food court, and also a hotel, and is split into “Terminal A” and “Terminal B” for navigation purposes. You are on level 3 of the airport when you fly in. Baggage claim is on levels 1 and 2. Transportation is also on level 1. You can find Disney Magical Express on Level 1 on Terminal B side.
The airport website is very helpful as it provides a walk through for those that are arriving and those that are departing. Maps of the airport are also on the airport website. We have PDF pages of the maps on our website for your convenience.

OIA Shuttle Images:


OIA Disney Store Images:

To see additional Orlando International Airport images, click here

Planning Resources

As with many vacations, a trip to Walt Disney World Resort is better with some preliminary research and planning. There are many different sources of information you can use to put together a great vacation plan. They range from the Disney Vacation Planning video, to books, websites, and different Disney community discussion boards. In this section of the site, we let you know which ones we have found to be most helpful to us and give you ideas on how to find the planning aids to best suit your needs.

Social Stories

Social stories are a simple, visual way to describe different situations and identify appropriate behaviors for children with autism.  Social Stories help a child learn and practice appropriate behaviors in a positive manner.  Powercards are shortened versions of the key points of a social story - like a "cheatsheet" with key behaviors or phrases to help a child remember what they learned.  Powercards are meant to be about the size of a playing card or flashcard, so children can carry them in a pocket and refer to them as needed.

We have created several basic stories to help your child prepare for his or her trip.  The stories and the Powercard were created in PowerPoint format (using Office 2003 formats).  and you can customize the story to your situation.  Feel free to download and modify the social stories as you need.  We have also included a .PDF version that you may print and use if you don't have access to Microsoft Office software.

One good resource for learning about Social Stories and how to use them is the Birdville (Texas) Independent School District Autism website.  We are fortunate to live in the BISD - and they have a tremendous training and support program for parents of and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.  To learn more about Social Stories, follow the link to their podcast training section and select the "Autism: Teach Social Skills" link to launch the video training on Social Stories and Powercards or click here.  We are grateful for their permission to refer you to their website for more training and information, and hope you find it useful.

If you have a social story you would like to share, please let us know and we would be happy to add it to the site.

YouTube Videos on the Site

     Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder usually love videos.  They provide security in an overwhelming word - because they are the same each time a child watches one.  As we were putting together this site, we wanted to provide parents as much information about rides at Walt Disney World as possible.  This led us to searching the YouTube archives for the best ride walk-through footage we could find.
 
     We wanted to explain that most of the YouTube video links on this site are not our personal videos.  We don't claim any copyright or intellectual property rights for the ride walkthroughs, and we are grateful to the contributors of the videos for the excellent job they did in capturing the ride elements.  Our hope is that parents can view these YouTube ride walkthrough movies and determine for themselves whether a ride is appropriate for their child with autism.
 
     Where possible, we have included our own footage of rides, shows, attractions, character greetings, and character meals, showing parents how our child with autism reacts, or how we interact with cast members to provide the best possible experience for our children. 
 
     Viewing these videos is entirely optional.  However, based on our experience as parents of a child with low-functioning autism, we recommend these video walkthroughs as a great way for your child to become acquainted with the rides and attractions of Walt Disney World in Florida, as well as other Disney parks as we add them.
 
     We welcome your comments and feedback on rides, as well as video footage if you care to share it with us on this site.