It was a blissfully slow start to the morning. We all spent the first few hours of the day lounging around the house and pool, chilling and relaxing. I chose to spend my time at the laptop by the pool, finishing up my blog from yesterday’s notes. Joey was wandering around with his lightsabers and other toys. Sandy went back to bed, since she was up really early. Jae was in her room, doing teenager’ish things with her circle of friends online.
Jae eventually came out of her cocoon and hovered around me for a bit. She was actually being a bit of a pest, clearly looking for something to do. Somewhat predictably, it didn’t take long before I heard the word bored muttered. I closed the laptop lid and offered to cook her some of the bacon we picked up from Publix yesterday. Well, when I say ‘offered’, what I really mean is that she said she wanted some bacon. I suggested she cook some; she looked at me beseechingly; I caved and did it myself. In my mind, this was an opportunity for some quality time with Jae, so it was all good. My initial urge was to keep writing my blog, and I would have enjoyed doing so. I’m most at ease when I’m at the computer, writing. After all, my blogs are not going to write themselves. However, I resisted the urge to keep writing in favour of some quality time with my child. I’ve been trying to do this consciously with both kids since we got here. As they go through the teenage years, both kids have at times been aloof and disconnected from us. This trip is an excellent opportunity to reconnect with both of them. Indeed, it would be great if the whole family could reconnect during this holiday. Besides recovering from the ongoing stresses of our daily lives, I hope reconnecting with each other comes from it all.
We’ve had fairly miserable weather since we arrived—at least relative to what we had been hoping for. It has been persistently overcast with only mediocre temperatures, and it has rained a few times. For Floridians, I imagine it’s been a welcome break from the usually oppressively hot summers. Today, the skies are crystal clear, and temperatures are expected to reach 28 °C (82 °F). This is much more like it. Better yet, it’s forecasted to last.
Sandy and Jae opted to remain home for the time being, so I took Joey over to our nearby Waffle House for breakfast. Joey and I are both peas in a pod. We know what we like, and we like what we know. Where neurotypical people often want to try new foods and new things, those of us with autism tend to favour the familiar. I have a very narrow range of food likes. There are lots of things I simply won’t eat. I’ve been like this since I can remember. As an adult, this affects me, and my family by extension, in subtle ways. For example, we rarely visit someone else’s home for a meal. The risk that we’ll be served something I can’t or won’t eat is really high, and so I avoid such situations at all costs, mainly to prevent offending anyone. If there’s ever an occasion to eat out, such as a work group event, I have to be in control of the choice of restaurant, or I have to ensure it’s somewhere I know there’s something on the menu I’ll eat. I learned only recently (through being formally diagnosed) that there’s a defined condition for this called ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder). Coincidentally, I was scheduled to start a six-month series of therapy sessions to tackle this condition, but had to postpone it all due to this holiday. The therapist and I have agreed to pick this up again upon our return. I strongly suspect Joey has ARFID also.
ARFID or not, Joey and I drove over to our nearby Waffle House for our now familiar breakfast. I shudder to think what our US friends and family might think of our apparent obsession with Waffle House, but it’s like visiting McDonald’s back home. It might not be gourmet-quality food, but it’s consistent, which I think is key for both Joey and me.
Once we were back, I wasted little time crawling behind the laptop again. However, I sensed Joey was also hovering, so I closed the lid again and suggested that he and I play some games on one of the two Nintendo Switch consoles we brought. He immediately jumped at the chance, and we had a good laugh trying to figure out why I was so bad at playing Mario Kart versus Joey. It was another micro quality moment with one of my kids.
While Joey and I were at home laughing it up on the Switch, Sandy took Jae out for some retail therapy. When Joey and I had filled our fun buckets, I had a voice call with our good friend Jennifer. She and her husband, Dave, now live in St. Augustine, but they lived in the same subdivision that we moved into after our first couple of years in Jacksonville. They became our closest of friends during our time there, and we’ve kept in touch over the years since we left Florida in 2002. We’ve tentatively arranged for them to come to Orlando for a couple of days so we can catch up.
By the time Sandy and Jae had returned, the day was well into full swing, and we were now contemplating what to do with ourselves. I already have a complete schedule of theme park visits mapped out, but it was supposed to start on Monday, and it’s still Sunday. The original plan was for us to relax and recuperate from the journey here for this first weekend, buy provisions, get settled in, etc. However, our all-access theme park tickets are already valid, so we contemplated popping over to one of the Disney theme parks for the afternoon. We mulled the various options. Animal Kingdom closes at 6 pm, so that was out. We decided initially we might visit EPCOT, but only to explore the first half of the park, skipping the World Showcase countries. Ultimately, we decided that Disney Hollywood Studios would be the way to go. We could explore the new Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge section of the park (it was still under construction when we were here seven years ago). Joey has several experience bookings for tomorrow (two Savi’s Lightsaber experiences and a Droid Depot experience). I’ll go into that in more detail in tomorrow’s blog. We figured it would be worthwhile to explore the area today, so we knew where we needed to be for Joey’s booked experiences tomorrow. Jae was cool either way, regardless of which park we chose. Joey was jumping up and down with excitement when we announced where we would be going.
We left the house at 3 pm, bound for Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Since it was only intended to be for a few hours, we didn’t go into full-blown theme-park prep mode. We didn’t pack food, drinks, dry clothing, etc. This proved later to be a mistake. More on that in a moment.
On the way to the park, I noticed that the road signs disagreed with the satnav on exactly which route to take. I have come to trust my satnav, since it knows where all the road closures, accidents and traffic jams are. We made it to the car park entrance without further incident, so my best guess was that there are multiple ways to reach the park.
After being relieved of $35 for the privilege of parking the car, we made our way to the Buzz section of the car park and boarded the nearby awaiting tram to the park’s entrance. One of the things that was immediately obvious was the relatively newly installed cable car system, which transports people between EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. It wasn’t yet fully operational when we were last here. I’m hoping we’ll have an opportunity to use it at least once while we’re here.
First up after getting off the tram was passing through security screening. This has changed slightly, also. Now there is a full-body scanning system. If it detects anything, you are diverted to the side, where a security guard inspects you and your bags further. Joey did, in fact, have a backpack with him, and he was the only one of us to be selected for further screening. My mind went back to the security checks at Schiphol Airport, where they discovered a stash of metal Beyblade toy parts. The Disney security staff asked Joey to stand in line for a security check. I went with him. When it was Joey’s turn to be inspected more thoroughly, the security guard asked me to put all of my things into the tray for inspection, too. I told him I hadn’t been flagged. I was just here shepherding my autistic son. Apparently, that didn’t matter to the security guard. I was in this queue now, so I was subject to a security inspection. I was initially waved through, so there was no need for me to be checked, and I felt aggrieved at now being told otherwise. Every fibre of my being said I should stand my ground here, as I thought I was in the right and he was in the wrong. This felt very much like someone with a hammer seeing everything as a nail. However, my rational self prevailed over my emotional self, so I offered my things for inspection with a smile. This seemed like the fastest way to complete the process, which was the game’s main aim at this point. It was already oppressively hot and sweaty, so standing around in lines wasn’t ideal. We needed to keep moving. If placating this security guard secured that aim, so much the better.
When Joey dutifully emptied his backpack, the issue was laid bare. Sure enough, his backpack was half-filled with toys, including the metal Beyblade parts he totes around with him. None of these were an issue for the guard, but then he spotted something that piqued his attention. Joey has a comb with him that looks like a gun. The comb bristles are along the barrel of the gun form. I had no idea he’d brought this, and I felt sure this was going to cause problems, which it did. The guard admitted he’d never encountered this before, so he called over his supervisor for guidance. Sure enough, the supervisor said it was clearly a ‘no’. I agreed with him. Sandy asked whether she could stash the comb in a locker. The security supervisor insisted it wasn’t permitted to be taken beyond this security checkpoint, so Sandy said she’d take it back to the car while the rest of us entered the park. We would all meet up at Galaxy’s Edge. I set off to the entrance, while Sandy took the tram back to the car to stash the offending item.
It took a while chatting with the staff at the entrance before I was convinced that Sandy could scan in, even though the tickets are all in my name (I’m listed as the primary). What worried me was that Sandy had been having issues with her phone and needed to refresh some apps. What if she couldn’t log in to the My Disney Experience app for some reason and couldn’t show the appropriate barcode? The supervisor at the entrance stiles winked at me while saying they have options to ensure we would all get into the park somehow. Trusting to that, I took the kids through and into the park.
We were less than 30 meters into the park when the lack of prepping hit me full force. Theme-parks-101 states that you should always bring your own water, as the bottled water sold in the parks costs a whopping $4.50. Jae immediately asked if I could buy her a bottle of water. Since it was blisteringly hot and I was already hot and bothered, I felt a bottle of cold water—whatever the cost—was needed. As if to make matters worse, Jae spotted pretzels shortly after I parted with my $4.50, and so I was quickly relieved of another $8! Despite this being a half-day at a theme park, something told me it would be a full-day sting to the wallet. I took a deep breath and smiled politely as I tapped my phone on the payment machine.
It was at this point that I made a mental note to myself to treat the kids today. Both had been trigger-happy with their initial week’s worth of pocket money, leaving them both short. I decided I’d pick up the tab for snacks and drinks for the day for both of them, so they didn’t need to stress about their budgets. They are on holiday, too, after all. I also resolved to treat them both while we were in the park today with some merch they might take a fancy to, although I didn’t tell them this. That would be a happy surprise for them to unwrap sometime later in the day. A helpful tool, if you will, to help me keep them happy for as long as possible as we progress through the day.
One thing I was less enthusiastic about was Joey’s tendency to race ahead. He was like a hound on the scent of a fox as we meandered through the park towards the new Star Wars area. I tried a few times to suggest he stick with us, but it was an uphill battle that was clearly going to kill me if I clung to the notion that I could somehow affect this behaviour. Eventually, I gave up, trusting that he had enough smarts to contact us if he got truly lost. Since it was Sunday, the park was bustling (we later learned it was a holiday weekend, so the parks were all more crowded than usual). Wait times for rides were in excess of an hour for the most part, so it wasn’t an ideal situation with respect to getting lost in such large crowds.
When Sandy finally caught up with us, she made the impromptu suggestion that we split into pairs. Sandy would wander around with Joey, while Jae and I stuck to each other. I was fine with that suggestion. This is precisely the scenario that prompted Sandy to be so insistent on acquiring DAS passes for both kids. Chalk that up as a win for Sandy.
The first thing Jae and I did was to register a DAS return time for Rise of the Resistance, one of the main attractions in the Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge section of the park. Since the current wait time was 70 minutes, the app showed a return time of 70 minutes from now. That gave Jae and me time to wander around Galaxy’s Edge, taking it all in. We wandered into all the nooks and crannies and had some photos taken. Our Disney tickets include the Memory Maker feature, which means we can have a photo taken by any of the official photographers. After scanning our passes, the images are available in the app immediately, which is a cool feature.
While wandering around Galaxy’s Edge, we stumbled into various Star Wars characters. At one point, Jae was approached by a couple of white stormtroopers who quizzed her about whether she was a member of the resistance. This slightly overwhelmed her, so she communicated with nods and shakes instead of words. It was a lovely interaction.
We made our way to the appropriate entrance for the Rise of the Resistance attraction. It’s a dark ride with multiple ride systems. The storytelling and immersive theming, often in expansive indoor settings, make this truly a next-level attraction. It was super fun and we both enjoyed it immensely.
Once we were back out into the park, we wasted no time in submitting our subsequent DAS return time request, this time for the Hollywood Tower of Terror, which is probably Jae’s and my favourite Disney attraction.
We had to traverse the full length of the park to get from Galaxy’s Edge to the Tower of Terror, and we had plenty of time, so we popped in and out of numerous retail outlets along the way to see what merch options there were. Sticker shock was still on full alert throughout. Whenever we spotted something we liked, the truly outrageous price tags kept us moving.
Something I was super keen on was to tuck into a famous Disney turkey leg. From past experience, it would have been enough to keep me fed for the rest of the day, meaning no need for another expensive sit-down restaurant meal. The Tower of Terror area previously sold them, so I was already salivating by the time we got there. I had trouble finding them, so I inquired with one of the concession stand cast members. They told me this theme park no longer sells them as they did before. Damn! I was really looking forward to that turkey leg.
Notwithstanding my disappointment at not being fed, we quickly made our way through the Tower of Terror pre-show and staging areas. Judging by the regular line, we saved ourselves at least an hour of waiting with the DAS. As ever, the Tower of Terror ride was a huge success. As a bonus, the Memory Make feature on our tickets also lets us get all the ride photos without paying for them. Winning!
Since we were right next to the Rock ’n’ Rollercoaster, a fast, dark roller coaster ride featuring music from Aerosmith, we put in our subsequent DAS return time request for it. This ride is scheduled to close soon. It’s to be re-themed for the Muppets, now that the Muppet area and the Muppet 4D show are being removed to make way for a new Monsters Inc. ride and themed area. This would therefore be the last chance to experience this ride, so we were both glad for the opportunity.
We did some more window-shopping while waiting for our 50 minutes to elapse. Jae found a Silly Symphony T-shirt that she really liked, which I treated her to.
The Rock ’n’ Rollercoaster ride was fantastic. It starts with a blistering launch immediately into an inversion, which is really intense.
It was getting dark when we exited the rollercoaster, and we were summoned back to the Galaxy’s Edge area by Sandy, as Joey wanted to have another go on the Star Tours motion simulator ride, but this time with me. We did so, and Joey noted that this story was different from the one he experienced earlier in the day, which was cool.
It was by now completely dark, and indeed hard to see people criss-crossing all over the place, left, right and centre.
We meandered through the throngs towards the tram stop. The live commentary from the tram operator was, as usual, hilarious, and put smiles on everyone’s faces—especially Joey, who was doubled over with laughter. This was a sure sign he had enjoyed himself today. He was also toting some extra light sabres he scored from Mum and Dad today, so that also helped.
Sandy and Jae both wanted to eat at Olive Garden this evening. We agreed I’d drop them both off, while Joey and I went…you guessed it…back to Waffle House.
When we got home, I wasted no time showering the day’s grime off my body and started to feel a little more human again.
Today was a good day. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I finished up the evening writing up the notes for my blog. I will complete the blog in the morning, as it could take well over an hour, and I was just too tired for that tonight. Sandy and Jae arrived at the house via Uber, not long after Joey and I stumbled through the door.
Tomorrow is our official first theme park day, and it will be Hollywood Studios again. The lessons learned today will serve us well.