Cruise with autistic child?

[Blanche_Neige]

Has anyone done this before?

I have a autistic 6y old, not high function but no low either... He has limited language skills, is engaged on his own term, but has a tendency to wonder. He does have a shadow at school.

I went to WDW, with a therapist, last january he LOVE it!

Are the disney staff trained, do people with autistic kids go and leave their children at the daycare? Is it safe? I have to awful vision of him falling off the boat!!!

I heard such great thing about the disney cruises.

 

[tomatos5@shaw.ca]

We are from Edmonton and have a daughter the same age with the same character traits. Have taken her to WDW twice and Disneyland once. She loves it and from all I have read the ship is safe and the castmembers are trained to work with all sorts including special needs. We are going on our first cruise Aug 29 2009. We had the same doubts and visions of her falling overboard. We feel comfortable

 

[NJMomma]

My DS is highly functioning autistic. We cruised in April. He went to the kid's club and did fine there. Granted, he didn't really talk to anyone, but that's how he rolls! He's highly verbal but not social and does not wander, he's a rule follower to the "T" because his world is black and white - no gray here! I think that you cannot leave your kid in the clubs if they require one on one attention. They can't leave the kid's club area and just wander because the gate is locked and there is always a CM there monitoring who goes in and out. We had a great expereince, and are doing it again next year!

 

[atinkerbellmom]

Hi and welcome to the DIS DCL threads/forum. I will link you to a past thread. The thread you do have to read through, because it will give you a second link to an even better thread. I usually do details post about this situation, but since I have in such detail prior, I now just link the threads and open up for any questions if I can help. I do need to tell you though, DCL is great with ASD kids; BUT if your DS needs a para in school, then the clubs will not work for him. They are great, but unable to provide more than the normal ratio of 15:1 for staffing for the little kids. So, if he needs to have a para to keep him in the club and safe, then you need to bring a PCA with you. The good thing is, talk to your tax person, some of your Para exspences are deductable. I sure hope this helps. Feel free to PM me with specifics. I bet I can answer all of your questions. I have to go back and find the threads though. Good luck....

Okay, on this thread, you have to go down to my post #5 and it will give you two other detailed threads. I have others too as I keep all of them in a folder, but it gives you a big start. Also one of the mods did do a post of mine a while ago as a Sticky, but I am not really sure how to get to that. So I will let you point and click through these threads.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1842895

 

[hwysqrl]

We're cruising at the end of August on the 4 day Wonder. My 5 year old daughter is testing at the low-end mild/high-end moderate retardation level (she's right on the line) and has very limited speech.

She's very mobile, though, and loves to play and run. Her biggest issue is going to be that she doesn't appreciate the finer art of waiting your turn or following directions.

As long as the kids area is locked off so she can't escape, I feel comfortable that she'll find her own things to do and not be a bother. Especially since her older sister (age 7) will be in the same group, and she loves to follow her older sister around.

We're not planning to leave our kids in the play area very much, but will be going to Palo, so they will definitely have some time there. I'll report back how it went.

 

[Blanche_Neige]

I'm thinking about going on a cruise in 2-3 years.

Maybe I didn't describ my son so well. He very independant, perhaps to much. When he wants something he just goes and gets it, doesn't request it. He doesn't have a sens a danger. for intense, i live across from a park, a couple of months ago he decided he wanted to go swing, he left the backyard, crossed the street by himself and went to swing...
You can image the panic I felt when I saw that he was gone.

this is why I'm concern with his safety. He would enjoy the clubs, the activities. Not sure he would interact with the other kids. But he loves computer games and nintendo.. Big fan of Mario & Sonic.

I would wait 2 more year for him to get a little bit more mature, hopefully by then he will be a more verbal. He has made such great progress lately, hope it continues.

 

[atinkerbellmom]

Big difference between 6 and 8, even bigger between 9. You just wait. He will not be the same kid in 2 - 2 1/2 years. Different clubs as well. CLoser to the time, I will help you come up with some social stories and a photo map. Until then , you can book your cruise if you want, but I would not do any planning as the early school years and the later ones grade 3rd and on are totally different and you will have a totally different exsperience. No sense planning now for that now. Be sure to keep in touch, I think you did a wonderful job describing your son as no judgement was even made. They are truly a special blessing.

 

[sftnslky]

I actually need to post a reply to the thread that was created before our cruise, but I saw this one and decided to let you know our story....

We have two sons who are identical twin boys...they are adopted foster drug babies, and have some issues Asbergers, OCD, bi-polar, SEVERE ADHD, and learning disabilities. Now with all that said we to were VERY worried, but it actually went better then we thought it would in some cases, and sadly much worse in others.

I will explain. Our boys are the type that you don't tell them about what is going to happen before hand because they will worry them self's sick. So we literally told them about the cruise at the pier. We did not take them to the kids club until the following afternoon because they did not react to the cabin well..i.e...not their beds, too small of a room/space, the toilet was to loud, etc... so after letting them swim and eat their fill of chicken strips they finally fell to sleep.

The next morning they went to breakfast and thank the heavens above there was scrambled eggs, if my boys could only have two foods for the rest of their lives it would be scrambled eggs and chicken strips...So after filling their bellies with eggs, we discussed the club... went over the navigators and told them what they had. They decided to give it a try. We went to the club and talked to Audrey, who sadly sorta brushed us off, but said she would call if their was any problems. WELL, 20 minutes later we got the call, "The boys need to be picked up" So we go down and a consoler said the boys were 'not listening'. We asked him what happened and he said it was time to make flubber and they boys got upset and only wanted to stay on the xbox. I told him I had MADE SURE that it would not be a problem if the boys did not participate in the scheduled activities and if they could just fixate on the puters. He said 'oh yes it is fine but we try to MAKE all the kids participate so that parents fill like they are getting their moneys worth" What the heck does that mean?? Of course I didn't' say that I again told him what I had told Audrey and he was like "oh sorry I didn't know....they are fine you can leave them". But by this point it was to late, so we took the boys swimming and to eat chicken strips... starting to see a pattern aren't you

So the next day we try again, after the eggs of course This time we took the boys and a SWEET young lady named Sarah from England met us at the front and introduced her self and told us she was studding Autism in children, and she recognized the boys behaviors and wanted to know what she could do to help. OHMY GOSH the first ray of hope she KNEW they boys would not do will with the various activities and told me that they could sit on the puter all day if that's what they wanted, and that she would talk to the other counselors and let them know what was going on. For the next two days all went pretty well, between the puters, swimming and yes you guessed it chicken strips all went pretty well.

But on day 5 for some reason the lab was being used for a ton of activities and the groups 3-5 and 5-7 all had to stay in the club? the one with the pirate ship, and they don't have xbox which was ok at first because the boys LOVED the pirate ship, but because there was ssssssssooooooooo many kids the boys got over whelmed and to top it off some other boy bit one of mine and then my boy grabbed the boys shirt and ripped it, so the counselor [not Sarah] 'yelled' at both boys and put them both in time out.

So my son started freaking out, tried to leave and they wouldn't let him which lead to him getting VERY agitated , so then he ran away... Oh gosh they lost him, they paged me, called the room and we ran down, and thankfully by that time Sarah had found him. At that point I knew the boys wouldn't be back to the club and Sarah was so apologetic and said she would always be near the boys if I had wanted, but the boys were so upset I knew they wouldn't go back, but on the last evening the boys saw Sarah in the hallway and she invited them to come and play xbox with her so one of my boys went and had a good time, the other one....well you know the drill by now

On disembarkation Sarah met us on our way out, high fived the boys, hugged them and asked them to please come back and visit her, they both hugged her and said they would see her later. and we told them that we would come back when they were 8 and they were excited. So If I had to do it again or some advise for you would be to talk to the counselors in depth and tell them what you need, what your son needs and keep talking till you find one that TOTALLY understands, and the best piece of advise I can give you is to keep all your expectations at home and just go with the flow, and just know if the whole week consists of swimming, eggs and chicken then that's what it will be. Most of all enjoy your vacation and give your son a big from me.

 

[mflaca123]

hi i just had to reply. i have two kids with autism and we go to disney every year. last year we went on the cruise and i have to say disney was better. at the park we get the disability card and it really helps to ride the rides and you can leave whenever you want. on the boat it was crazy. my kids were not able to participate in the programs because they were not potty trained and the staff really wasn't helpful the only thing they did for us was upgrade our room and put us next to the nurse. but i went 6 months after they were diagnosed and didn't know about social stories and how well pictures work for the kids plus there is a website that you can contact for more info its called autismatsea.com. the boat does have pagers for parents which is a relief since the kids cant answer basic questions

 

[lovethedream]

Our DS is Autistic "pdd-nos, to be exact". He has been on two DCL cruises now and loved them both. I think he was 11 and 14 on the first and second cruise. He can't wait to go back. I shared your concerns over the balcony but we did not have any issues.

The only issue we did have, and it was not a major one, was during the drill. While at the station, they blare the horn and there are bells and whistles going off. We had to convince him it was a drill ,and that we were not sinking. Showed him we were still at the dock. After that, he was fine.