BethCPTSD
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2016
Hello everyone,
I thought I would post a little trip report based upon our two weeks spent at Disney World May 31, 2022 to May 14th 2022. Up until right before we left I had not posted in several years. However, I used to post more frequently and gave a background on myself around 2017 or so if you'd like to visit my history.
I am a 44 year old woman, married and use a task trained service dogs to mitigate my disabilities. I used to have severe POTS as well and spent three years in a wheelchair, but it is in remission, and I proudly walked through all the parks this year. My primary disabilities are serious mental illnesses, including Complex PTSD and Dissociative Identity Disorder.
This was the third trip to WDW I have been on with my service dog Harrison. He is now 6 years old and has a lot more experience and is much more bonded to me than on our first trip (which was only 6 months after I'd gotten him from his program.) Last year he went through intensive refresher training and did a wonderful job on this trip.
My comments here mostly pertain to working him on this trip in the parks. I am used to getting comments everywhere I go with him even at home like "look there's a dog!" or "beautiful dog!" just walking through the mall. This year for some reason (and spending two weeks again) the comments were driving me a little batty by the end of our trip. In case you go with your service dog, be prepared. We could not walk two feet without people squealing, screaming and gasping "look it's a dog!" or "AAH! That dog is wearing shoes!!!!" The shoe comments especially were non-stop. Thankfully, most people were very understanding and kind, and simply enjoyed seeing a working dog. But after two weeks of it, it was sort of getting harder for me to deal with because it felt like the only thing I heard all day long and it was sort of distracting to trying to enjoy our trip.
(By the way, I get that this is just a part of the deal when you are a partner to a service dog, but the reality for me, is that it can cause some issues after awhile with being able to cope.)
Another thing that happens everywhere but because of how many people are at Disney World it happened more frequently, were the invasive questions like "what's wrong with you?" or "what's your service dog for?" It has taken me decades of intense trauma therapy to learn to be able to set even basic personal boundaries with people, and questions like this on our trip gave me a lot of practice. I will gladly say, I successfully stuck to my guns and answered only as I felt comfortable with people no matter how much they tried to get me to talk about my private medical information. With one woman, my service dog and I were a captive audience, as she and I were standing virtually face to face on a resort bus to Epcot where there was standing room only and we barely got on. The first things she said to me was, "Beautiful service dog! What's he for?" This question is the one that causes me the most anxiety because I don't want to talk to everyone in public about what my disabilities are and I'm also afraid of people getting mad at me. So I answered, "he's for my disabilities." At the end of this sentence, I purposely dropped my tone as if to say, "that's the end of this topic." She didn't take the hint and said, "And your disabilities are?" To which I responded, "private."
I thought she got the message, but a few minutes later she brought it up again saying, "I only asked you about your disabilities because my daughter is diabetic." This felt like another fishing attempt, so I just said, "I'm not diabetic. But there are diabetic alert service dogs if you're interested." This caused to to talk more about her own situation and leave my disabilities alone -- but please don't ever be afraid to stick to your boundaries with people if you wish to keep your business private. I was still kind to her and had a nice conversation, just not all about me.
One thing I noticed about being at Disney with him this time that felt different than past trips in 2017 and 18, was this inconsistency among Disney staff regarding accommodations. First of all, I'd made quite a few ADR's and did an online chat with a Disney representative before we left, requesting he note on our ADR's that we would be dining along with my service dog, so that they would accommodate us with a big enough table for him to lie under. Pretty basic service dog accommodation. The rep came back and said he had done so, and we were all set. Turns out when we went to our ADR's he had actually requested an accommodation that was marked "other: allergy" and nothing about my service dog at all. Everywhere we went we had to explain we had no allergies. Also, even when specifically pointing out to the host at each restaurant that we needed a table or booth that seated at least 4, we were constantly given a two person table that did not accommodate Harrison under the table. Then they would have to reseat us, which shouldn't have been necessary.
We faced similar issues on service dog friendly rides. The accommodations were very inconsistent. For example, we went on Haunted Mansion several times. One time, we were automatically directed to skip the hallway queue so that they could stop/slow down the ride for Harrison to get on. Other times, we would have to ask not to go through the queue (service dogs are easily stepped on in wall to wall people) and cast members acted like we were asking for something very strange or unnecessary. But after rushing to get on HM at one point with Harrison and almost getting his paws crushed when the bar came down, we asked each time after that to have more time to get on the ride (and make sure he was out of the way of the bar) regardless of how unnecessary some of them thought it was.
This happened other places too -- where we would be offered an accommodation by certain cast members, while others would seem put out when we requested it subsequent times.
All of this just seemed to me to be an issue with "rebuilding" since the pandemic, having a whole lot of new/under-trained/inexperienced cast members of every kind, and of course some misunderstanding that commonly happens with invisible disabilities. (Although I found myself almost just as misunderstood when I was a wheelchair user.)
This of course, really focuses on the "negatives" of the trip, but I want to say that overall we had a very enjoyable trip and will gladly go back in the future -- hopefully some of the kinks will be worked out!
I'll leave you with a few pictures from our trip and thank you very much for reading our report!
Beth and Harrison
I thought I would post a little trip report based upon our two weeks spent at Disney World May 31, 2022 to May 14th 2022. Up until right before we left I had not posted in several years. However, I used to post more frequently and gave a background on myself around 2017 or so if you'd like to visit my history.
I am a 44 year old woman, married and use a task trained service dogs to mitigate my disabilities. I used to have severe POTS as well and spent three years in a wheelchair, but it is in remission, and I proudly walked through all the parks this year. My primary disabilities are serious mental illnesses, including Complex PTSD and Dissociative Identity Disorder.
This was the third trip to WDW I have been on with my service dog Harrison. He is now 6 years old and has a lot more experience and is much more bonded to me than on our first trip (which was only 6 months after I'd gotten him from his program.) Last year he went through intensive refresher training and did a wonderful job on this trip.
My comments here mostly pertain to working him on this trip in the parks. I am used to getting comments everywhere I go with him even at home like "look there's a dog!" or "beautiful dog!" just walking through the mall. This year for some reason (and spending two weeks again) the comments were driving me a little batty by the end of our trip. In case you go with your service dog, be prepared. We could not walk two feet without people squealing, screaming and gasping "look it's a dog!" or "AAH! That dog is wearing shoes!!!!" The shoe comments especially were non-stop. Thankfully, most people were very understanding and kind, and simply enjoyed seeing a working dog. But after two weeks of it, it was sort of getting harder for me to deal with because it felt like the only thing I heard all day long and it was sort of distracting to trying to enjoy our trip.
(By the way, I get that this is just a part of the deal when you are a partner to a service dog, but the reality for me, is that it can cause some issues after awhile with being able to cope.)
Another thing that happens everywhere but because of how many people are at Disney World it happened more frequently, were the invasive questions like "what's wrong with you?" or "what's your service dog for?" It has taken me decades of intense trauma therapy to learn to be able to set even basic personal boundaries with people, and questions like this on our trip gave me a lot of practice. I will gladly say, I successfully stuck to my guns and answered only as I felt comfortable with people no matter how much they tried to get me to talk about my private medical information. With one woman, my service dog and I were a captive audience, as she and I were standing virtually face to face on a resort bus to Epcot where there was standing room only and we barely got on. The first things she said to me was, "Beautiful service dog! What's he for?" This question is the one that causes me the most anxiety because I don't want to talk to everyone in public about what my disabilities are and I'm also afraid of people getting mad at me. So I answered, "he's for my disabilities." At the end of this sentence, I purposely dropped my tone as if to say, "that's the end of this topic." She didn't take the hint and said, "And your disabilities are?" To which I responded, "private."
I thought she got the message, but a few minutes later she brought it up again saying, "I only asked you about your disabilities because my daughter is diabetic." This felt like another fishing attempt, so I just said, "I'm not diabetic. But there are diabetic alert service dogs if you're interested." This caused to to talk more about her own situation and leave my disabilities alone -- but please don't ever be afraid to stick to your boundaries with people if you wish to keep your business private. I was still kind to her and had a nice conversation, just not all about me.
One thing I noticed about being at Disney with him this time that felt different than past trips in 2017 and 18, was this inconsistency among Disney staff regarding accommodations. First of all, I'd made quite a few ADR's and did an online chat with a Disney representative before we left, requesting he note on our ADR's that we would be dining along with my service dog, so that they would accommodate us with a big enough table for him to lie under. Pretty basic service dog accommodation. The rep came back and said he had done so, and we were all set. Turns out when we went to our ADR's he had actually requested an accommodation that was marked "other: allergy" and nothing about my service dog at all. Everywhere we went we had to explain we had no allergies. Also, even when specifically pointing out to the host at each restaurant that we needed a table or booth that seated at least 4, we were constantly given a two person table that did not accommodate Harrison under the table. Then they would have to reseat us, which shouldn't have been necessary.
We faced similar issues on service dog friendly rides. The accommodations were very inconsistent. For example, we went on Haunted Mansion several times. One time, we were automatically directed to skip the hallway queue so that they could stop/slow down the ride for Harrison to get on. Other times, we would have to ask not to go through the queue (service dogs are easily stepped on in wall to wall people) and cast members acted like we were asking for something very strange or unnecessary. But after rushing to get on HM at one point with Harrison and almost getting his paws crushed when the bar came down, we asked each time after that to have more time to get on the ride (and make sure he was out of the way of the bar) regardless of how unnecessary some of them thought it was.
This happened other places too -- where we would be offered an accommodation by certain cast members, while others would seem put out when we requested it subsequent times.
All of this just seemed to me to be an issue with "rebuilding" since the pandemic, having a whole lot of new/under-trained/inexperienced cast members of every kind, and of course some misunderstanding that commonly happens with invisible disabilities. (Although I found myself almost just as misunderstood when I was a wheelchair user.)
This of course, really focuses on the "negatives" of the trip, but I want to say that overall we had a very enjoyable trip and will gladly go back in the future -- hopefully some of the kinks will be worked out!
I'll leave you with a few pictures from our trip and thank you very much for reading our report!
Beth and Harrison
