JohnnySharp2
No man stands as tall as when he stoops to help a
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2005
- Messages
- 7,913
Who : Johnny , Julie and Joshua (plus teddy comes too).
When : 14th March 2008 for 20 nights
At this point I should warn this is not an 'ask me thread', so no tears anyone please.
Never done a pre-trip report before so this is a first for me. May sound more like 'trip report' than pre-trip but in our case the background and history of a few things affects the way our holiday's are planned so I am afraid I will have to bore you with those.
Our last holiday was August 2006, in many ways it was a mixed trip, I say 'mixed' because it was a mixture of minor disasters!
Firstly I had a car crash the weekend before - no physical damage just shaken car bonnet a bit of a mess (car now sold!), Joshua (who many of you know has autism and cannot talk) had a minor convulsion 5 hours into the flight, I had a fall on the wet cobblestones outside the Pirates ride at Magic Kingdom and had a sore back for a week afterwards - given part of the impact was taken by my head I got away lightly overall I think though.
Joshua/Julie really struggled with the oppressive summer heat too.
With most of our 3 week stay in a villa the evenings were slightly on the dull side, mainly because Joshua gets up very early each day and often by 4 or 5pm after tea he is happy playing in the pool or watching a DVD or video ( we bring loads of US format with us).
Also had a run-in with a couple of cm's at MK who made unkind comments about Josh. Kind of 'put them straight' if you understand what I mean.
Many thanks go to the guy who helped me on my feet after my fall - still keep in touch with him via email - Julie was walking ahead with Josh and kind of heard a groan from a distance and looked round to see me laid out on the floor! It kind of took the attention away from Captain Jack 'whatshisname' stood there on-looking, would have made a good clip for 'Youve been framed' perhaps too.
Classic case of "we laugh about it now" I suppose.
Overall unfortunately a few minus points and generally the feeling we needed a break from Orlando.
We look back at many of the photos we took and Josh looks happy, he loved especially staying at the villa and especially playing in the pool (beats my tap in the garden at home anyway!). At the parks and in the heat he was less happy and whilst we had some good times around Fantasyland he never really enjoyed many of his favourite attractions and only went on the likes of Woody Woodpecker at Universal 3 or 4 times the entire holiday. The previous March he would do more than that in an hour.
Can only put it down to the weather and perhaps a few health issues too.
To be honest all the above sounds nothing much when you consider the previous year in March 2005 we flew when Josh had not been well for a day or two.
Just a 'virus' of some kind. We were actually at the Emergency Doctors at 2am on the day we were due to fly, the Dr said "you are not going to America", as he prescribed Josh with some medicine to lower his fever.
Three hours later we are all sat in bed with Josh asleep, wondering "what are we going to do", Taxi arrives in an hour and flight leaves in 4!
I turned to Joshua and said "you alright , are we going to Disney?", with that he jumped up and starting bouncing up and down on the bed. Blimey, maybe we are going after all, he may not be able to talk but we are convinced he understands what we are saying. And we went and he was fine.
Anyway back to the 'pre-trip' we actually had a holiday booked for July 2007 but could we face the summer heat so soon given the problems we had in 2006? No, we couldn't. All this prompted a total re-think of our holiday plans and I even kind of retired from the DIS for a few months as we were unsure if we would ever go back to Florida again.
Familiarity is a big thing for Josh, and recent holidays we have found it more difficult to vary things a little and stay in different places. We also have
many added complications that we have to deal with, he really dislikes eating out so it's very difficult even going for a simple breakfast buffet - I guess
you can hardly blame him as we rarely eat out at home.
Even driving past Indian Creek villa development, where we have stayed many times, can cause him to get upset - and I am only going to Publix for a loaf of bread!
There are only certain times of the year we can go, whilst Josh goes to a special school and they are forgiving on taking 'time out' Julie is a teacher and they are more stringent.
Summer is the obvious time with the 6 weeks they both get off, however if we are to go back again we really feel a break from the heat is required.
We don't really have a social life at home, other than going to watch Liverpool play I rarely go out and cannot remember the last time I was in a pub.
To be honest it's mainly by choice, we both have busy work committments and naturally Josh takes up a lot of our spare time too so we feel we deserve our holidays. Consequently as time passed we decided we would have a year off and cancel the July holiday, well actually move to a different date, recharge our batteries I suppose.
After much thought we decided to move to March 2008, most of the existing booking conditions remain, fly drive with Virgin from Manchester, Minivan booked with Dollar.
We did decide though to upgrade to Premium Economy both ways, purely for Josh's benefit. He will have more chance of sleeping and will certainly be more comfortable.
So we would depart on Friday March 14th, fly-drive from Manchester with Virgin. Taxi will pick us up at 6am, in theory flying PE gives us that extra hour or so before we set off, hoping that Josh gets a good night's sleep.
Have 3 days at the theme parks left on our Magic Your Way Disney tickets. Have these because we relly wanted non expiry/hopper facility, also got 4 days water parks left too. Hmm, whether we will actually use these I don't know, for some reason Josh really never settles at all at the water parks and is either totally hyper-active or just plain miserable. Strange because he loves water, maybe he is just so used to privacy in the pool at a villa.
Hoping Aquatica may be open to be honest.
Also have Universal Annual Passes which do not expire until October 2009, so hoping to get 2 holidays out of these.
Currently consdering Discovery Cove but haven't made our mind up yet, Went there in March 2005, it wasn't the best of days, freezing cold weather and a thunderstorm caused a few problems/delays.
Sorry if this is sounding negative? The good times we have had over the years far outweigh the bad, and a few bad experiences cannot change that.
Fact is we are going back in less than 4 months time, and we will be ready.
Overall in some ways the more we go to Florida and the older Josh gets the more things we have to consider. Whilst I never have a real plan on what we do each day, we would only change it anyway, we kind of have a good idea for the first 3 or 4 days out of the 3 weeks.
Guess depends on where we are staying, so accomodation - well I have rambled on enough so that will be part 2. And as far as accomodation goes that's when it reallyyyy gets complicated!
Only one thing for sure we will probably stay at the Hyatt MCO the first night, hoping for a repeat of our night there last year - Josh cuddled up with his little Teddy (always sleeps with him) in our room:
When : 14th March 2008 for 20 nights
At this point I should warn this is not an 'ask me thread', so no tears anyone please.
Never done a pre-trip report before so this is a first for me. May sound more like 'trip report' than pre-trip but in our case the background and history of a few things affects the way our holiday's are planned so I am afraid I will have to bore you with those.
Our last holiday was August 2006, in many ways it was a mixed trip, I say 'mixed' because it was a mixture of minor disasters!
Firstly I had a car crash the weekend before - no physical damage just shaken car bonnet a bit of a mess (car now sold!), Joshua (who many of you know has autism and cannot talk) had a minor convulsion 5 hours into the flight, I had a fall on the wet cobblestones outside the Pirates ride at Magic Kingdom and had a sore back for a week afterwards - given part of the impact was taken by my head I got away lightly overall I think though.
Joshua/Julie really struggled with the oppressive summer heat too.
With most of our 3 week stay in a villa the evenings were slightly on the dull side, mainly because Joshua gets up very early each day and often by 4 or 5pm after tea he is happy playing in the pool or watching a DVD or video ( we bring loads of US format with us).
Also had a run-in with a couple of cm's at MK who made unkind comments about Josh. Kind of 'put them straight' if you understand what I mean.
Many thanks go to the guy who helped me on my feet after my fall - still keep in touch with him via email - Julie was walking ahead with Josh and kind of heard a groan from a distance and looked round to see me laid out on the floor! It kind of took the attention away from Captain Jack 'whatshisname' stood there on-looking, would have made a good clip for 'Youve been framed' perhaps too.
Classic case of "we laugh about it now" I suppose.
Overall unfortunately a few minus points and generally the feeling we needed a break from Orlando.
We look back at many of the photos we took and Josh looks happy, he loved especially staying at the villa and especially playing in the pool (beats my tap in the garden at home anyway!). At the parks and in the heat he was less happy and whilst we had some good times around Fantasyland he never really enjoyed many of his favourite attractions and only went on the likes of Woody Woodpecker at Universal 3 or 4 times the entire holiday. The previous March he would do more than that in an hour.
Can only put it down to the weather and perhaps a few health issues too.
To be honest all the above sounds nothing much when you consider the previous year in March 2005 we flew when Josh had not been well for a day or two.
Just a 'virus' of some kind. We were actually at the Emergency Doctors at 2am on the day we were due to fly, the Dr said "you are not going to America", as he prescribed Josh with some medicine to lower his fever.
Three hours later we are all sat in bed with Josh asleep, wondering "what are we going to do", Taxi arrives in an hour and flight leaves in 4!
I turned to Joshua and said "you alright , are we going to Disney?", with that he jumped up and starting bouncing up and down on the bed. Blimey, maybe we are going after all, he may not be able to talk but we are convinced he understands what we are saying. And we went and he was fine.
Anyway back to the 'pre-trip' we actually had a holiday booked for July 2007 but could we face the summer heat so soon given the problems we had in 2006? No, we couldn't. All this prompted a total re-think of our holiday plans and I even kind of retired from the DIS for a few months as we were unsure if we would ever go back to Florida again.
Familiarity is a big thing for Josh, and recent holidays we have found it more difficult to vary things a little and stay in different places. We also have
many added complications that we have to deal with, he really dislikes eating out so it's very difficult even going for a simple breakfast buffet - I guess
you can hardly blame him as we rarely eat out at home.
Even driving past Indian Creek villa development, where we have stayed many times, can cause him to get upset - and I am only going to Publix for a loaf of bread!
There are only certain times of the year we can go, whilst Josh goes to a special school and they are forgiving on taking 'time out' Julie is a teacher and they are more stringent.
Summer is the obvious time with the 6 weeks they both get off, however if we are to go back again we really feel a break from the heat is required.
We don't really have a social life at home, other than going to watch Liverpool play I rarely go out and cannot remember the last time I was in a pub.
To be honest it's mainly by choice, we both have busy work committments and naturally Josh takes up a lot of our spare time too so we feel we deserve our holidays. Consequently as time passed we decided we would have a year off and cancel the July holiday, well actually move to a different date, recharge our batteries I suppose.
After much thought we decided to move to March 2008, most of the existing booking conditions remain, fly drive with Virgin from Manchester, Minivan booked with Dollar.
We did decide though to upgrade to Premium Economy both ways, purely for Josh's benefit. He will have more chance of sleeping and will certainly be more comfortable.
So we would depart on Friday March 14th, fly-drive from Manchester with Virgin. Taxi will pick us up at 6am, in theory flying PE gives us that extra hour or so before we set off, hoping that Josh gets a good night's sleep.
Have 3 days at the theme parks left on our Magic Your Way Disney tickets. Have these because we relly wanted non expiry/hopper facility, also got 4 days water parks left too. Hmm, whether we will actually use these I don't know, for some reason Josh really never settles at all at the water parks and is either totally hyper-active or just plain miserable. Strange because he loves water, maybe he is just so used to privacy in the pool at a villa.
Hoping Aquatica may be open to be honest.
Also have Universal Annual Passes which do not expire until October 2009, so hoping to get 2 holidays out of these.
Currently consdering Discovery Cove but haven't made our mind up yet, Went there in March 2005, it wasn't the best of days, freezing cold weather and a thunderstorm caused a few problems/delays.
Sorry if this is sounding negative? The good times we have had over the years far outweigh the bad, and a few bad experiences cannot change that.
Fact is we are going back in less than 4 months time, and we will be ready.
Overall in some ways the more we go to Florida and the older Josh gets the more things we have to consider. Whilst I never have a real plan on what we do each day, we would only change it anyway, we kind of have a good idea for the first 3 or 4 days out of the 3 weeks.
Guess depends on where we are staying, so accomodation - well I have rambled on enough so that will be part 2. And as far as accomodation goes that's when it reallyyyy gets complicated!
Only one thing for sure we will probably stay at the Hyatt MCO the first night, hoping for a repeat of our night there last year - Josh cuddled up with his little Teddy (always sleeps with him) in our room:
I was fine once cooled down by numerous bottles of water 
,but stopped myself, ooops it slipped in there didn't it)
