Hi,
Just a quick post to share the great trip I was able to take with my 14 year old autistic son Josh. We flew from Maryland for a quick weekend trip. Stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, which was a wonderful place. The walkway thru the pool is open to walk over to the parks, and there are signs and all the hotel folks tell you to go that way, maybe 4 minutes walk tops. We had read different reports on this so wanted to provide an update. We couldn't walk two feet in the hotel public areas without a hotel employee saying hello and asking if we needed anything and just chatting - they were terrific.
We were only there to see characters, so we did character dinners at the Portofino and Hard Rock Hotel, and two character breakfasts at the Confisco in Islands of Adventure. After so many character buffets at Disney I have to admit I LOVED ordering off a real menu with lots of choices - I had wonderful seafood for both meals and Josh was able to get his chicken fingers and french fries - a perfect way to dine. After some chatting with a wonderful character actor from this board ("the Guy" from Green Eggs and Ham), I made up little pieces of paper to hand the character hosts explaining Josh and his special affection for the characters. This worked out great and in three days he probably hugged 100 characters, all of which were so wonderful with him. We hadn't ever seen the Shrek characters before and Josh loved talking with Donkey. He drew and colored pictures for almost every character and they were very nice making a fuss over him.
I would tell you about rides but we didn't ride any! Well, not quite true, we went on ET twice. So now we are back home and I'm exhausted but full of affection for all the wonderful actors and actresses and hotel and park staff who were so nice to my son.
Hope you are all well and safe.
Best regards,
Beth
Just a quick post to share the great trip I was able to take with my 14 year old autistic son Josh. We flew from Maryland for a quick weekend trip. Stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, which was a wonderful place. The walkway thru the pool is open to walk over to the parks, and there are signs and all the hotel folks tell you to go that way, maybe 4 minutes walk tops. We had read different reports on this so wanted to provide an update. We couldn't walk two feet in the hotel public areas without a hotel employee saying hello and asking if we needed anything and just chatting - they were terrific.
We were only there to see characters, so we did character dinners at the Portofino and Hard Rock Hotel, and two character breakfasts at the Confisco in Islands of Adventure. After so many character buffets at Disney I have to admit I LOVED ordering off a real menu with lots of choices - I had wonderful seafood for both meals and Josh was able to get his chicken fingers and french fries - a perfect way to dine. After some chatting with a wonderful character actor from this board ("the Guy" from Green Eggs and Ham), I made up little pieces of paper to hand the character hosts explaining Josh and his special affection for the characters. This worked out great and in three days he probably hugged 100 characters, all of which were so wonderful with him. We hadn't ever seen the Shrek characters before and Josh loved talking with Donkey. He drew and colored pictures for almost every character and they were very nice making a fuss over him.
I would tell you about rides but we didn't ride any! Well, not quite true, we went on ET twice. So now we are back home and I'm exhausted but full of affection for all the wonderful actors and actresses and hotel and park staff who were so nice to my son.
Hope you are all well and safe.
Best regards,
Beth
thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I didn't even know about the character dining before!!
