cmonroe
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2004
- Messages
- 995
A note for anyone who have not and are thinking of taking their in-laws on vacation to Disney with them. You must prescreen them with two very important questions.
1. Ask Mother in law or Father in law, if they know they have extreme hearing problems, why do they refuse to go to the doctor and get a hearing aid?
My father-in-law has little to no hearing left because he has refused to wear hearing protection at his job. My wife, MIL, myself and even my DD 3 had an extremely hard time communicating with him. Coupled with that (keep in mind he hasn't been to Disney in over 15 years and that time was one day there) whenever he road the buses or the monorail, he would always assume the first stop was ours. He wouldn't ask, he'd just get up from the bus or the Monorail and start to get off.
This wouldn't be such a problem ;-) but he was often carrying our DS 7mths old. He did this at the beginning all the way to the end of our trip. On the bus to Downtown Disney, he got up at the Poly, then water park(I think it was Typhoon Lagoon). The bus driver couldn't contain herself from laughing and told us to keep an eye on him when we arrived at DTD . We were there for 10 days! I was at a loss, but laughed it off because we were at Disney.
2. Get an idea before you leave how fast your in-laws walk before you go. This will help set the expectations for your trip (I didn't do this). My in-laws walked so slow, this really slowed the entire trip down. They didn't want to separate from us either. We'd nicely say to them, "Hey we know it's hot and a lot of walking, if you'd like, you can sit down here and we'll come back after such-and-such ride."
They'd say "no, no, we're coming along". Keep in mind that they would not ride these particular rides, they would just sit outside on a bench there! Understand, I know people have different physical capabilities, but my father is a heavy man and he moves through the parks with my mother and the rest of the family. I sincerely overestimated the pace that they would move at. Please keep this in mind. We were there for 10 days and we saw approximately 70% of what there is to see. Again, we were happy and blessed to be there, but this is something to think about.
Part IV in a bit....
1. Ask Mother in law or Father in law, if they know they have extreme hearing problems, why do they refuse to go to the doctor and get a hearing aid?
My father-in-law has little to no hearing left because he has refused to wear hearing protection at his job. My wife, MIL, myself and even my DD 3 had an extremely hard time communicating with him. Coupled with that (keep in mind he hasn't been to Disney in over 15 years and that time was one day there) whenever he road the buses or the monorail, he would always assume the first stop was ours. He wouldn't ask, he'd just get up from the bus or the Monorail and start to get off.
This wouldn't be such a problem ;-) but he was often carrying our DS 7mths old. He did this at the beginning all the way to the end of our trip. On the bus to Downtown Disney, he got up at the Poly, then water park(I think it was Typhoon Lagoon). The bus driver couldn't contain herself from laughing and told us to keep an eye on him when we arrived at DTD . We were there for 10 days! I was at a loss, but laughed it off because we were at Disney.
2. Get an idea before you leave how fast your in-laws walk before you go. This will help set the expectations for your trip (I didn't do this). My in-laws walked so slow, this really slowed the entire trip down. They didn't want to separate from us either. We'd nicely say to them, "Hey we know it's hot and a lot of walking, if you'd like, you can sit down here and we'll come back after such-and-such ride."
They'd say "no, no, we're coming along". Keep in mind that they would not ride these particular rides, they would just sit outside on a bench there! Understand, I know people have different physical capabilities, but my father is a heavy man and he moves through the parks with my mother and the rest of the family. I sincerely overestimated the pace that they would move at. Please keep this in mind. We were there for 10 days and we saw approximately 70% of what there is to see. Again, we were happy and blessed to be there, but this is something to think about.
Part IV in a bit....
