Days 6-9

I really need to finish the posts on this trip so I am putting the remainder of the trip in one post.  Joel decided that since we were already in Florida we may as well add a couple days at Disneyworld.  I personally thought he was crazy.  I thought the cruise was pushing our luck and then to add the craziness of Disneyworld, yep, he had officially lost it.  But with some convincing I thought "why not?"  We were extremely bad at taking pictures at Disneyworld, but we got some great videos I will try to get up soon.  Can you even imagine our two boys at Disneyworld?  Are we crazy or what?  Large crowds, loud noises, long lines, you name it, not a great mixture for our kiddos.  But, as with most of our family experiences, it went MUCH better than we ever thought it could.  I am going to tell you a little secret and I hope that no one ever takes advantage of this secret because we absolutely would NEVER have been able to do Disneyworld without it.  We got a note from our boys' doctor that explained their diagnosis and were able to get a pass that allowed us to skip all the lines.  In case you don't know, children with autism do not understand the concept of standing in lines.  Our boys absolutely CANNOT wait in line.  There was one line that we did not get to pass everyone and I promise you that if you could ask the people around us they would completely agree.  Let's just say it was terrible.  If our trip would have been anything like that we would have walked right out the exit and never looked back.  But we had the pass and it was wonderful!!

The first day we went to Magic Kingdom.  The boys absolutely loved every ride that we did.  We went on so many rides!  We were at Magic Kingdom for about 11 hours that day so you can imagine we got to ride just about everything there.  We watched the live shows they had outside the castle, we watched the parades, and we saw so many characters.  The best part about doing the cruise first was that we were able to get pictures and autographs on the ship so at Disneyworld we could just wave and the boys were completely satisfied.  Probably the funniest story of the day was we had debated on taking them on the Haunted Mansion ride.  We decided to try it and if it was the end of the day we would be fine with that.  Tyson rode with me and laughed almost the whole time.  He was not scared at all.  Charlie rode with Joel.  He got really quiet about half way through and Joel thought for sure he was scared to death.  At the end of the ride Joel looked over at him and he had fallen asleep!!  He may have been the first toddler to fall asleep on that ride!  The only complaint of the day was that Charlie never wanted to get off the rides so every time I would get him off he would smack me.  Other than that it was a fantastic day.  By the end of the day the best way I could describe them was that they had been "disney'd"!  They loved it!

That day was so great that the next day we decided to get a park hopper pass so we could enjoy multiple parks in one day.  We started at Epcot.  Joel told them it was Tyson birthday so they gave him a button to wear on his shirt so the entire day every worker that saw him said "Happy Birthday Tyson!"  He loved all the attention.  We had tested them the day before and nothing had seemed to bother them so we decided to press our luck and have them ride Test Track.  It is a ride that you get in a car and they test it for brakes, steering, etc.  The car goes up to 60 mph during the ride.  We even thought we were crazy on this one.  Again, no fear.  They got off and wanted to go again!  We also rode a ride called Soarin that makes you feel like you are flying through the sky on a hang glider and they loved that one too.  Nothing scared them. 

After Epcot we went to Hollywood Studios.  This was probably our favorite park.  We first rode on a ride called Star Tours.   I have never seen the Star Wars movies so I won't give it justice but it was awesome.  Then we went to the parade and it was all the Pixar movies so Charlie recognized all the people.  After the parade he walked around imitating the people dancing and giving everyone high fives.  (I have to put this video up because it was adorable!)  We got to see a Disney Junior show, Lightning McQueen, a stunt show, and more and they were all amazing.  We ended our time there with the one thing Tyson was dying to do since we entered into that park, American Idol!  It was like the real show with real singers and everything.  It was awesome.  We even got to vote for our favorite.  The winner got a free pass to try out for the real American Idol.  Tyson was in heaven!!  Then the park closed.  We would have spent much more time there.

Since it was our last day at the parks we decided to push our luck even further and head to Magic Kingdom one more time since they were open until 1am that night.  We rode all our favorites one more time and ended with the lighted parade.  Amazing!

So that's our trip!  Whew, I'm tired just talking about it again.  We had an amazing time and want to go back someday soon.  It went above and beyond all expectations that we ever had.  I love this little, crazy, happy family of mine! (oh, and the Packers lost their playoff game somewhere in there, boo)   

Outside our  hotel at Disney!