Thanks to those who are reading - I know I ramble so apologies if you are bored by now - at least it will give you some inspiration of how not to write a trip report
Day 3 - Friday 10th Feb
We had already decided not to set an alarm for the mornings, as we were quite tired from 'real life' anyway and being out of season the parks weren't that busy so we didn't really need to do extra magic hours. We woke quite naturally at about 8am, but took forever to get ready and pack bags for the park etc. On our way downstairs to breakfast, we ran in to Goofy - this was the first character Matthew had seen this trip, so you can imagine how excited he was!! The characters really are his first love, as he can go on rides at Legoland, Drayton Manor etc - this is the only place where you have these larger than life cuddleable teddy bears.
I'm not sure what was happening at this point, it looks like Goofy was eating Matthew's hand lol - I am quite sure that wasn't the case though. No idea why I didn't manage to get a better photo ?!
Breakfast was nice, but then for me it is the perfect menu. At the Sequoia Lodge, you go to the entrance of either the Hunters Grill or Beaver Creek Tavern restaurants, and then they take you to your table. From there, you help yourself to anything from the buffet which included bread rolls, croissants, pain au chocolat, cereals, yoghurts, cheese, ham, fruit salad, etc. and there were juice and coffee machines dotted throughout the restaurant for you to refill your drinks at your leisure. Garry wanted to try the hot breakfast, so ordered an 'American' on top of the buffet. This was 2 sausages, some scrambled egg and a pile of bacon - oddly served with cold salad. We both commented that we've never seen a cooked breakfast come with salad, but maybe we are just showing our lack of experience with french cuisine ha ha. He said the food was ok, but the bacon was very crispy and all of it was quite cold (served on a cold plate I assume).
After breakfast we went back to the room, got our things and walked to the car as we had decided it was too cold to walk to the parks. We bumped in to a giant rodent in the lobby of the hotel, which pleased Matthew greatly and gave us a good starting point with the discipline for the rest of the trip. Here's the first cuddle:
Followed by Matthew 'squeaking' Mickey's nose:
which was met with concern from the greeter who was with Mickey, and choruses of "no, matthew!" from both Garry and myself. Mickey then followed with a cuddle, but made sure Matthew's arm was by his side LOL!
This was quite useful, because we were able to give Matthew a mini-lecture about what was acceptable with the characters, without being in the sensory-overloaded parks where his attention is hard to command. We explained that there was to be 'no touching noses' 'no touching eyes' 'no touching mouths or tongues (in the case of Pluto, lol!)' and 'no climbing' on the characters. Fortunately, this worked quite well and from then on we just had to remind him gently at the beginning of each character interaction.
We made our way to the car and drove to the park, taking a wrong turn on the way so it would actually have been about 10 times quicker to have walked in the end, LOL! At least we were warm in the car though, as it was still registering like -150 degrees outside. Our entrance to the park today was really exciting, as it was our first time at Salon Mickey's. We bought our shares just a couple of weeks before we went, and got the temporary certificate e-mailed to us, which I laminated before we went so I wouldn't accidentally destroy it with a wayward cup of coffee or by dropping it in a puddle or something. It is a really neat place, you go in and a cast member takes your park tickets and certificate or membership card, while you go on in to the main salon - which is like a large lounge, with a sofa, 2 armchairs then about 3 or 4 tables with upholstered dining chairs at them. There is a coffee machine at the back, and a fridge with cartons of orange juice and bottled water. Croissants and cookies were on a table near the entrance, in individual bags, and you were allowed to take one each. We sat down at a table, and Matthew got out his seemingly endless supply of chocolate coins (that I had decorated with character graphics). We heard the people behind us were also English, and smiled, and they smiled back which always gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. We got talking, and realised we were both DISers, and we had actually bumped in to Purdy2233 and family. Their boys are gorgeous and so polite. Matthew gave them each one of his chocolate coins, which I was quite proud of because until the last few months, sharing was something we had to force on him and has taken quite a bit of work to get him to realise that sharing is not the same as giving up everything.
Eventually we made our way out to the park, through the special entrance - it feels sooooooo exhilarating doing this! Its just like I've read in others' trip reports, you do feel as if you 'own' a part of it, almost like you live there and it is 'your' park that you are kindly allowing all these others to share ha ha ha. I'm sure we had a really smug look on our face at that moment!
Again, no characters out which was a real shame, particularly for Matthew. We were slightly in luck when we turned the corner though, and the giant yellow one was in his usual spot! Matthew ran straight over to where Pooh was doing a meet and greet, but just as we got there, he had to go in. The Cast Member said he would be back in 5 minutes, so we waited. And waited. And waited. Over 15 minutes later, he re-appeared - no-one else had bothered staying, so it meant that we were first in line and Matthew got a massive hug which made his day!! I do completely understand that there are limits to how long characters can be out for in that weather, and that there are only a limited number of them available - but I just wish they wouldn't say 5 minutes if they don't mean it, because we would have gone off to do something else rather than tell an expectant child that it would only be 5 minutes, then disappoint him. We didn't take any photos of this, just wanted to enjoy the moment. We found ourselves doing that quite a lot during the trip, it was so cold to keep getting the camera out and I think the lens would have frozen had we kept it round our neck!
From here we went over to Its a Small World, Matthew's favourite ride. He looks so enthralled all the way through the ride, commenting on each figure that takes his interest: "bus!"... "giraffe!"... "kangawoo!"... "taxi!" etc. On the exit to this ride, he loved the hedge. No idea why, but every single time he ran up to it and laid on it. Normally I wouldn't let him do something like that, but the hedge seemed strong enough to take his weight and somewhere like DLP, we kind of had to pick our battles with him and save our 'strong hand' as it were for the really necessary times.
From here, we went in to the Princess Pavillion - which I really like - and we saw Snow White. She was really good with Matthew. We video'd it so I don't have any photos to show you
Our plan had been to do the other rides in Fantasyland at this point, but Matthew didn't want to do the teacups, and - wait for it - Storybook boats, Casey Jr, Dumbo, Alice's Labyrinth, Snow White, Pinocchio and Peter Pan were all closed. !! What are you supposed to do in Fantasyland!? We rode the only other thing open, which was the Carousel (also video'd so no photo, sorry). I have to be honest, at this point I was really cross. This trip cost £150 more for exactly the same thing, than the same time last year, yet there were no characters anywhere, and no rides open. I definitely didn't feel like we had got value for money, which is a sad thing to be thinking in the middle of your day - in my opinion, money shouldn't really come in to your thoughts, the magic should sweep you away from reality.
We picked our miserable selves up, dusted our disappointment off and strolled off to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Matthew had only ridden this once before, and we couldn't really tell if he was ok with it or not. Being non-verbal it is hard to tell when something bothers him; the physical effects like the small drops wouldn't bother him at all but I was nervous in case the 'spookyness' bothered him, either then, or at night afterwards. As it turns out, he hasn't shown any symptoms of worry so I think it was fine. We did the thing you really shouldn't do, lol, and took a photo of the ride photo: (am I allowed to post that here?)
After Pirates, we tried to think what we could do - Indiana Jones was out of the question, because although Matthew would love it (faster and higher the better for him!) I was too nervous that it might hurt his neck or something. And besides, its important to have something left to do in future trips. So, one thing he loved from last time was the Playground area near the big pirate boat; so we said "shall we go to the playground?" and he was excited... We walked there, and it was closed off. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. We went over to Colonel Hathi's for some lunch. I had lasagna, a coke, and Garry had a pizza - I found it very expensive - about £25 - for what it was and how it is served:
Matthew had behaved well during lunch, so we said he could ride the 'fast train', i.e. Big Thunder Mountain, which we all went on and really enjoyed.
Matthew still wanted a playground, so we went round to the Indian Village/Pocahontas Playground thing at the bottom end of Frontierland... to find that it, too, was closed. Last year, we'd spent a lot of time with Woody, Jessie, Goofy, Mickey and Minnie outside the Cowboy Cookout eatery and Matthew remembered that - so he was absolutely gutted that they have changed this in to an expensive character restaurant, and now of course there are no characters outside it. There was nothing on at the Chaparral Theatre, so the entire bottom part of Frontierland has no activities in it now. I was nearly in tears at this point, we were in the middle of this wonderful place and there was almost literally nothing for my little boy to do and no characters for him to see.
We decided to ride the train back and call in to City Hall to let them know our disappointment, but we had a bit of a problem here because Matthew was in his buggy and we used his access card, so we couldn't fit on that train. The CM said to wait for the next one, which would be fine...so we did, 15 minutes. This arrived and they told us we would have to wait again for the next one, another 15 minutes. We said this wasn't going to be easy with Matthew, who was already screaming because there was this massive train in front of him and he just wanted to get on it... We said, ok, if he gets out, then can we get on this train - but they refused us. They said that no, because they'd seen that card we weren't allowed to do that either and we'd have to wait for the next train. I literally could have cried. I have never been in DLP, yet just wanted to come home so much, ever, in my 15 years of going there.
We gave Matthew some chocolate to ease the blow of not riding the train, and walked back to Main Street. We thought he could do with a nappy, so we called in at the Baby Care Center. Matthew was still really distressed at this point and all he wanted was cuddles from some characters. He saw the lost children playroom which had big plushes of Stitch, Minnie, Tigger etc and was desperate to go in there to play. The kind cast member there checked with her supervisor and then said it would be okay for him to go in for just a few minutes, as long as we stayed with him. He was so grateful to cuddle something, it was heartwrenching. We thanked her very much, and continued down Main Street. As we got closer, we toyed with the idea of going to City Hall, but the CM at the Baby Care Center having calmed us down somewhat, we realised that Matthew's happiness was more important right now - and he needed both of us to be happy and smily for him, so we agreed to put it behind us and just write to Disney when we got back. We thought we might have more luck seeing characters at the Studios, so we toodled off there instead.
Minnie was just disappearing from view as we got in to the Front Lot! Nooooooo.... the CM said she'd be back out at 4:50pm so we thought we'd go out to the Animation Courtyard behind Studio 1, to see if anyone else was out. No such luck, so we thought we'd do some rides. We offered him the chance to go on the Cars Race Rally, but he didn't want to, but he did think the 'turtle ride' looked quite good, so Daddy and Matthew went on that and I video'd them as they passed by in their turtle car. This was their first time on this ride and they both enjoyed it, but Garry said it was 'very spinny' and 'very dark'. Our next stop was the going to be the Parachute Drop ride, which he'd not been on before but was very excited about because about a week ago, we gave him a bucket of toy soldiers, the Toy Story 'Bucket o' soldiers' which contains a loads of green army men, some attached to parachutes. Matthew has enjoyed running up the stairs and letting the green army man parachute back to the bottom, and then squealing with laughter... so he was totally prepped for this ride! To add disaster to distress, they have a really strange policy. Whilst we often try to make Matthew queue and not use the easy access pass, he was still so disappointed about characters, we didn't think this was the time to test his limits so we showed the card. The CM there said we couldn't use it on that ride, which we were surprised about but no probs, we said we'd just go and queue up in the regular line (which was 45 minutes) but he said we were not allowed to. He said that because he'd seen us, he couldn't let us ride. ?!?!? Apparently, it is blanket unsuitable for guests with mental impairments. Its not even a case that they advise you that it might be unsuitable, but you can ride it at your own risk, you are just point blank not allowed to ride it. I can't see anything on the ride that would make them come to this conclusion - they have no problem with him riding Rock 'n' Rollercoaster, Tower of Terror, Big Thunder, Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Phantom Manor etc.... Matthew was absolutely devastated.
We took him round to Slinky Dog ZigZag spin which he always enjoys, then he was measured for RC Racer but is still just a few cm too small. Next time hopefully! He enjoyed playing with the dominoes around the walls of the TS Playland and by then it was time to get back to the Front Lot for Minnie's 4:50pm timeslot. 4:50pm came and went, but no Minnie. Just after 5pm she appeared, thankfully, and Matthew ran up to her and gave her the biggest cuddle ever, lol! He was so happy to see her. I noticed a few people moaning because she only cuddled about 4 children, and then went in again.
After this, we decided it was a good time to head back to the room and go for a nice swim. We made our way back to the car, and drove back to the Sequoia Lodge. We got our swimming kit and headed down to the pool. It is such a gorgeous pool here, with the slide and the hot tub - we stayed for over an hour and Matthew must have gone down the slide about 30 times! We all went back to the room, Matthew had some dinner and a bath, then went to bed. I had a shower, and prepared to write some notes for the trip report, or pack a bag for the next day - but Matthew wasn't having any of it. He was really worked up and excited and just did not want to go to bed tonight. He cried and got cross and threw things, etc, as kids do when they are excited, overtired and don't know how much good sleep will do them! In the end we had no choice but to turn the lights out and go to bed too, no dinner for us again, lol!
We half thought that we might get up once he'd dropped off, but that obviously didn't happen as the next thing I remember was waking up on Saturday morning!
It was nothing that really affected us as all we needed was a bed for a few hours but I wouldn't recommend it or stay there again. 
Look forward to reading the rest! 
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Our main reason for taking the gifts was to stem Matthew's need to be in and out of every gift shop - and thankfully it worked.
at the bunkbed thing - I had a decent nights sleep at least! I love sleeping alone, my hubby has waking dreams and my daughter pulls your eyes open to wake you up, sleeping alone, be it in a bunk bed, or even on the floor is a dream! 
