Autistic Child

[christopher10]

Hi there! My family and I are embarking on an upcoming Disney Cruise on the Magic. We are all real excited! One of my children is autistic and the Disney Company assures us that it is no problem, they can accommodate him. Has anyone else had any experience in taking an autistic child on the Disney Cruise? How was the voyage and did your child enjoy it? Thank you for any information!

 

[SweetSpot]

My AS son was 12 when we went on our first DCL cruise with him. It was amazing for us because it was such a great week for him. We have now been on 3 DCL cruises and have 2 others planned. We have been extremely fortunate to have met the best CM's in the kids clubs. If you are open and honest they will do anything they can to help your child have the best time possible. They will make allowances like dropping him to a younger age group or letting him sit out of a planned event to play on the computers (if possible). One tip, the clubs and shows can be loud and if your son has sensory issues you might want to bring ear plugs because we found out the hard way that they are not available anywhere on the ship.

Let me know if I can answer any questions for you.

 

[Katerbug]

We have never been on a cruise because my 9 yr old autistic son loves water!! I am scared to death that he would try and jump over the railing. Am I being paranoid? At the very least I think he would want to hang out by the rail and watch the water all of the time.

 

[darlingfamily]

I'm right there with you katerbug. My oldest has major water obsession. While he is just now at a level where he understands fear, etc., my DH and I would be terrified he would try to get over the railing on a cruise. Although I would LOVE to do a cruise. sigh.

 

[DBC]

I don't know if part of your cruise is taking in Disney World as well. We were afraid there wouldn't be enough to keep him busy in the cruise so we passed on that part.

For the DW part, I did a trip report on our trip in Sept 2002. It's pretty long though. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any particular questions.

http://www.mouseplanet.com/dtp/trip.rpt/report_files/wdwtr02/casali02se.htm

We have since been to US/IOA last year and Disney again this year so I've learned a bit more since then (we are lucky enough to be doing both next Feb) and we're handling it pretty well at this point.

Good luck, I'm sure you'll have fun.

 

[SweetSpot]

My DS is also water obsessed, a bit less now that he's 15 but he'll still jump at a chance to wash dishes just to play with the water. He was thrown out of his first preschool at 3 because they couldn't get him away from the little sink they had in the room and still has major restrictions about washing things during culinary arts class in HS. I never worried that he would jump over the railing but he was 12 on our first cruise. We get a verandah room each year but you can always get a port hole room so he can see the water or an inside room. The only place you have a chance of getting over a railing is on a verandah, deck 4 or deck 10. Deck 9 where all the pools and outside activities take place has an enclosed plexiglass covering and the railings on deck 4, 10 and verandas are covered with plexiglass so a chair would be needed for a small child to get over the railing. DCL does do a great job at keeping kids safe.

 

[Katerbug]

That's good to know. I always wondered exactly how the ships were configured so that those types of things could not happen easily. Thanks for the info!