Disney cruise with special needs child?

[hwysqrl]

I know this forum is for WDW, but was hoping somebody may have also been on a Disney cruise with a special needs child?

One of my daughters is low-end mild/high-end moderate mentally retarded, and we're a bit anxious about how she will do on the cruise we booked this August. She's been in structured special-ed school programs, so we think we can leave her with the counselors for the kids' activities for at least some of the time, but we're really not sure of how she'll do.

Has anybody been on a Disney cruise with a Down's kid, autistic kid, or otherwise mentally handicapped kid, that could share how it went?

Thanks in advance.

 

[PatMcDuck]

My son was about 11 when we took the cruise. He has Down syndrome and autism. Not to depress you, but for us the parks are better than the cruise. edited to add that Sean is now 18, and he was/is more involved, I would say moderately retarded, no conversational speech. The autism is perhaps more an issue than the Downs for him.

They really were not able to handle him in the children's activites. His behavior is not that bad, they just had no idea how to deal with him. I was a little disappointed, a good friendly babysitter would not have a problem with him. One problem, they would not assist him to go to the bathroom (he was not in diapers). I mean remind him, tell him to go after a few hours, show him where it was, maybe straighten up his shorts afterwards. I can sort of get that, I guess, liability issues? They change diapers though, don't they?

Another thing, they were just uncomfortable with him being non-verbal I guess. He was attracted to the computers, but they of course make the kids take turns. This could be a problem with Sean, he might get upset if he wanted to keep playing (hard to predict, other times you say, "Johns" turn, and he understands and is fine). So, they agreed to sort of leave him alone. We left him once, for about an hour and a half. I was nervous, because the staff was nervous.

It was a little hard getting around the ship, Sean was using a big stroller much of that time, he could walk but gets tired so quickly. Many of the doors have a big lip to get over (it is a ship, I understand why those lips are necessary of course)

Sean got tired by about 8-9 pm, so my husband and I took turns walking around the ship alone, while the other one watched Sean. Which stunk. My other 3 kids had a blast, one of the nights we should have made them stay in with Sean. But, we wanted them to have fun, and it was only a 3 night cruise. Alot of the problems we had were specific to Sean, like he is very very fair, and also won't walk on sand, it is too hard for him(Castaway Cay).

Yes, we had fun, it was my first cruise......... no regrets.

 

[michelle9343]

My DD is moderatly to severly mentally handicapped and we love DCL. Her first trip was a 4 night cruise through MAW we loved it so much we went on a 7 night and have another 7 night booked for this Oct. She is 10 and uses a wheelchair . She is non-verbal and not toilet trained. The club was willing to have us try and leave her but I chose not to. There were so many things I wanted to do has a family that I really did not feel that I missed out on anything by not using the kids club. This trip I might try but I am not sure. I cruised with two other families that have special needs children. My one friend has a high funtioning autistic girl who spent many hours in the club. They were fantastic with her.If you have any question feel free to PM me.

 

[Chloesmom]

I looked into taking a cruise with my DD who is type 1 diabetic when she was 7 and I was told they could not guarantee that any child who needs extra help would get it. They used using the restroom as an example ( they will not even help pull up pants) DD would not have needed any extra help since she would not have been eating there but it made me uncomfortable. I was worried she would drop low and maybe need something and would not get it.
The problem with Disneys kids program is that they are too popular. Other lines may not have the characters but the kids programs are less crowded and kids can get more atte.ntion. A friend of mine went on a Royal Caribbean cruise and said there were only 8 kids in the program and her diabetic daughter got great care...

 

[SueM in MN]

it sounds like you got some well thought out opinions.
No one has posted about children with special needs on cruises for a while, but there are some threads from about a year or 2 ago that might also be helpful.

 

[hwysqrl]

Thanks for the responses.

My daughter is toilet trained, but only to know when she has to go to the bathroom. She still needs somebody to take her and make sure she remembers to pull down her pants and underwear BEFORE she pees...and then help pulling things back up and making sure she washes her hands.

Shes's also pretty bad at waiting and being patient. If they will let her roam around on her own in the general area, and just be on the lookout to make sure she doesn't escape, I think she'll be fine. She mostly just follows her big sister around at play places anyway. But the toileting may be an issue.

We're not planning on leaving either of our girls in the kids area much...but we have booked Palo, so hopefully we can drop them off for at least a few hours that evening without a lot of drama.

I guess we'll just have to see how it goes.

 

[PatMcDuck]

I guess I was wishing they offered in room babysitting as an option. Of course, a big liability issue once again. (for a fee I mean). My son was just sleeping, he did not need much, just a person there with him. We were only looking to leave him 1-2 hours at a time in the program. So the one time we did leave him in the kids program, we just had him use the bathroom right before we left, so that was covered.

Or, if one CM in the kids program was experienced enough with special needs kids to say, "don't worry, I will keep an eye on him". (for an example, if a CM had a special needs sibling or neighbor growing up, or had a relative with special needs, they might have the confidence to step up).

My other 3 kids absolutely loved the programs, so if your children can use them, they will have a great time.

 

[dclfun]

They do take the children to the bathroom on scheduled intervals and see that they use the toilet and wash hands. Lots of kids will forget to go or try and wait if they're involved in a fun activity and then have an accident. I'd think telling the counselors that she'd need verbal coaching to pull down/up her underwear might work. They just can't assist physically due to liability issues. I've been on cruises where I've seen severely disabled children in w/c's being pushed around by a youth counselor. I think the level of assistance they can offer depends on how many kids are in the clubs since they have to provide supervision to everyone and can't do 1:1 "usually". It's tough though to not know for sure until you get there, but they do try to bend over backwards to accommodate special needs kids and do make exceptions. ---Kathy

 

[NicoleDisneyFan]

I just came back from the cruise and posted recently how the cruise is NOT able to handle a child with special needs. My son has a health issue, not good speech and physical problems, and a type of autism. They never asked him once to use the restroom. Had to change him for accidents. The manager of the staff said their were counselors who had credit to help with special needs and didnt see it. They were rude and un organized in my opinion. I had people who also said about their child getting hurt, my ds did get hurt. Kids who were also bored because of too many kids and not enough help. My 6 year old dd went to the lower group for my ds 4 to watch him. I will make sure the word gets out because I would rather pay lower and go on another cruise. Also I heard GOOD things about RCL cruise from someone else about their childcare. I also forgot to mention that I had my kids there one time late night before closing after 11pm and found my ds falling asleep next to a tv with a hard chair he was sitting on and no one even noticing it even though they had a blanket and mats to lay on. I feel like it was my fault for putting them in there.