My family and I recently came home from a two week trip to Orlando, Florida. Of course, we had to spend a lot of our time in the most magical place on Earth, Disney World. Two of my children have additional needs. My son Zachary has Autism, and my daughter, Avery has Cerebral Palsy. So how did Disney World shape up when it came to catering to my special needs children?
Anyone that has been to Disney World knows that it takes a bit of planning, especially if you want to ride the busiest rides, eat at your favourite restaurants and well, actually get into the parks..
If one or some of your party has additional needs, there’s a little more planning involved.
Avery has complex medical needs. She has HIE, which leads to an array of subsequent conditions – Cerebral Palsy, Dystonia, Epilepsy and she’s 100% G tube fed.
Of course, a lot of organisation was involved to make sure Avery was safe and well trekking around the parks in the Florida heat, but I’ll get to that a little later in this blog post.
Disability Access Service (DAS)
DAS is Disney Worlds disability access service, their way to ensure everyone can experience the magic. In short, anyone who cannot wait in a long line waiting for a ride or experience because of a medical condition or disability is eligible for a DAS pass. The pass allows you to book rides based on their current wait time, and you can go straight to the lightning lane when the time has lapsed.
For example, Thunder Mountain has a 60 minute wait time, you can book a DAS return time for 60 minutes time. Instead of waiting in line, you can go about your day, grab something to eat, use the toilet, stay in the shade, and head to the lighting lane at your return time.
This means you can avoid any meltdowns or mishaps you could experience in a line.
You can only book one ride at a time, you need to be scanned into a ride before you can book the next. A lot of the time, by the time you’ve exited one ride and walked to the next, it nearing your return time anyway.
For us it was almost impossible to wait in the long lines, DAS was our saviour.
How To Apply
There are two ways you can apply for a DAS pass, in advance or in the parks.
There are pros and cons to both.
To apply in advance you need to join a chat, and wait for a cast member to invite you into a video call – this can take hours, and the person who needs the DAS needs to be present for the call. However, once you have spoken to a cast member, you are able to choose two pre selected rides for each of your days in the parks, this is in addition to booking your rides in the park.
To apply in the parks you can simply head to Guest Services, you don’t need to show proof of disabilities or conditions, unlike in Disneyland Paris where they do ask for documentation.
I chose to apply in advance to take advantage of the pre-selections. I waited about 3 hours for a cast member to join my chat, but it was smooth sailing from there.
Something to note is I am based in the UK, so I needed to sign up to a VPN server to get access to the DAS pre-registration. I used surfshark. The process was fairly straightforward.
Although my daughter was eligible for DAS, I chose to only register my son. Since Avery is only two, I knew Zachary would ride everything Avery could ride. We were a party of eight, and the cast member very kindly added us all to one pass (normally they only allow six).
Wheelchair Tag
The wheelchair tag is another accommodation Disney World makes to people with disabilities. The wheelchair tags are literally just a little red tag that attaches to the wheelchair (or in my case a stroller), and it lets cast members know that it’s a wheelchair, and the use can’t do without it. This allows you to take it into lines.
This was important for us, as we were carrying Avery’s many medications, and we needed to keep them close.
Rides
All of the cast members were extremely accommodating, and although Avery cannot sit unaided there was still tons that she could do and ride.
As a general rule we realised if a ride didn’t have a height restriction they were happy for us to sit Avery on our lap.
The Finding Nemo ride in Epcot even has a special cart for wheelchair users that don’t require any transfer.
We also took advantage of rider swap. Of course, there was also a lot that Avery couldn’t ride, but my boys really wanted to. So rider swap (child swap) allowed myself or my husband stay with Avery so that one of us could take the boys onto the ride. When they were done, we could swap so both me and my husband got to experience the ride.
Rider swap can be used in conjunction with DAS.
Medications & Equipment
The cast members barely batted an eyelid at Avery’s medical supplies.. and we were carrying a lot of it.
After doing a lot of research we decided to take her bottles of medication in their original packaging, instead of pre-filling syringes, just incase there were any questions. I also carried doctors notes, just in case.
There was only one day that Avery’s medicine bag was checked – there were no questions asked.
Tip!
If you have a basket below your stroller or wheelchair, use a nappy caddy below for organisation and easy transferring. We did this, and it made storing everything and maundering through security so much easier.
What we learned as the time went on is that the cast members would only check things that didn’t set the machines off. So my husband carried the nappy caddy and bags through security, and I would stay with Avery and the stroller. This way, the cast members didn’t need to check the bags. It saved us so much time.
To store Avery’s medicine, we just used a small cooler bag with ice blocks, this slotted nicely in the nappy caddy under the stroller, and it kept her medicine and feed below 25 degrees celsius all day.
Luckily, we didn’t need to carry refrigerated medicine into the parks, but if you do, they have first aid buildings where you can store them. I would take a note from a professional – just incase.
All in all – I was really impressed at Disney’s level of inclusivity.
We had already travelled to Disneyland Paris, and were incredibly happy with how easy they made the experience for a special needs family, so we had high expectations, and they didn’t disappoint.