Disney World was a magical place for this family to visit. It really was extraordinary. These boys were just as high as a kite for the whole week. The plane rides were fantastic! Waiting at the terminal for the gate to open was a bit tumultuous, as is anything to do with waiting for a child with autism and an unruly two year old. It was about 5:45 a.m. at the airport in Raleigh, and these boys were running roughshod over the entire Terminal A. We just pretty much let them go at a full tilt, frenzied pace to release all that excited energy before we got on the plane, and I think it helped. Dirty looks were abundant at our gate. Our fellow travelers didn't realize that the boys' energy would have to be dealt with either in the airport or on the plane, so it was win/win for everybody. We were so worried about what would happen once we were sitting on the plane, and Gavin was just great! He just sat there soaking it all in, wide eyed and intrigued by everything. It was so easy. Garrett was a typical squirmy and restless 2 year old, but he actually did pretty well. Thank God the flight was only about an hour and 20 minutes.

These boys had a blast at the parks. It was so much fun. We did all the rides. Well, Gavin and I did all the rides. Sara has a rather large bun in the oven, and Garrett is too short for a lot of the stuff. The teacups were an immediate favorite for these guys. We must've rode in those teacups 6 or 7 times. I know we did every color of teacup at least once, at Gavin's persistent request. Space Mountain was the first "scary" ride we went on, and Gavin laughed the whole time! It was unbelievable! I had forgotten just how scary it really is, but he loved it. At the end of the ride, however, Gavin had a full fledged meltdown. When you come back out into the light and you have to wait a few seconds before the safety bar releases to let you off, he freaked out big time. He felt trapped in the rocket, I'm sure. When that happens, he's over the edge and off the deep end and there's no explaining to him that we just have to wait a minute. So we left Space Mountain with a bad taste in our mouth, and he didn't really want to do any more rides like that. I felt like a bad dad. The "cast members" there are so great. A girl selling hats and souvenirs saw Gavin crying in Sara's arms and came right over to cheer him up. She just talked to him for a few minutes about all the fun things to do there and gave him some Mickey Mouse stickers. It was really sweet.

Overall, the 2 things that made this trip really easy and less stressful were the stroller and the Guest Assistance pass. Having a stroller was priceless. Well, actually it wasn't priceless it would've been $30 a day, but we brought our own. It's a big blue tandem stroller that we checked on the plane, it counts as one suitcase, and you can take it right to the gate! It was harder than heck to steer through a very crowded Magic Kingdom, but absolutely essential if you plan on staying all day there. The guest assistance pass let us get on all the rides without standing in line for more than 5 minutes, ever. It was really great. We brought a note from Gavin's doctor explaining his difficulties, and we got a little red pass for the whole week. You can use it on any ride. If there was a Fast Pass entrance, it counted as a fast pass. If not, you just go in through the exit door and hop on the next Teacup, Flying Carpet, Dinosaur, Dumbo, Race car, Pirate Ship, etcetera.

Now, at breakfast, Gavin and I watch YouTube videos of the rides we did. He remembers the precise order in which we did each ride, and we watch the videos in that order every morning! We've got some home videos too, but we've been too busy since we got back to even think about looking at them. I'll post something on YouTube if it's worthy.