Our family vacation to Disney World was magical… And enlightening.
Y’all. The Disney bug has bitten me. Hard. We recently got home from our first family vacation to Disney World. Come to think of it, this Disney World trip has been our first real vacation as a family since Orson and Nova were born. And, let me tell you, as much as I prepared for the trip itself…
I was not prepared for the sheer amount of learning that we’d be doing.
I’ll preface anything else by saying this: we went into this trip treating it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We went all out by opting for a Land and Sea trip, 12 days in total. Yeah, a BIG adventure, especially for a three- and four-year-old’s first vacation.
With our ultimate goal to move onto a liveaboard sailboat, this was going to be THE Disney World family vacation before tightening our belts. Now? Disney is a full-blown, special-interest obsession of mine.
Even with as difficult, in some ways, as this family vacation to Disney World was.
Disney World Difficulties
AJ Wolfe, Disney Food Blog creator, talks in some DFB videos about how Disney can crank the dial up on quirks and idiosyncrasies. Preach.
I was under no illusions about how overwhelming and overstimulating a family vacation to Disney World would be. I tried my best to be prepared for it. Making sure I had my favorite fidget tools, the kids’ MUTED headphones, etc. Unfortunately, forgetting to pack my Loops in the process…
The world is SO LOUD.
We knew the headphones would be important. Mostly for Orson, but particularly during nighttime spectaculars featuring incredible firework displays. It was quickly apparent, however, that remembering Orson’s headphones was just as important as remembering water.
He requested them before every ride. He needed them for every show.
Orson loved our Disney World family vacation in many ways, but wanted to block it out in others. Every time he’d sit in our rental stroller, he’d pull the sun shade down as much as he could to serve as a barrier when it all felt like too much.
Our suspicions of OCD have been superseded by the belief that he’s more likely either autistic or twice exceptional. Infrequent hand-flapping at home that contextually could be written off as pretend play when he’s “Astrobot bird!” became a default response.
Is he excited or nervous? He might just take flight with how fast his hands are flapping!
And don’t get me started on the ride situation. If it has the slightest drop in it, expect him to have some major reservations and, likely, tears afterward. Thank Disney for Rider Switch! Ohh, the trauma that was Smuggler’s Run. You’re right. No drops for that one. Just too much pressure, too many buttons, too high stakes…
My sensitive, little man.
To be fair, right out the gate, he requested to ride Barnstormer. Short-lived, tiny, kiddie coaster, but it definitely shakes you around a little bit. Maybe wasn’t the best starter to set him up for success. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. I was super ride averse at that age, too…
Our family vacation to Disney World also taught us plenty about our three-year-old Nova… But the information is still a bit perplexing. To a certain degree, we were already expecting Orson’s traits to be amplified. With Nova, it wasn’t quite as straightforward, I guess?
ADHD is a safe bet.
And, sure, we already kind of knew that. But she’s three, so we felt like it was a bit early to tell definitively. At least half the soreness and overstimulation I felt in my body from our highly-active park days came from her pulling and jumping and spinning and wriggling while hanging onto me.
And ohmahlort, her oral fixation about spit…
Her chewing necklaces were a no-go… her alternative of choice was squelching spit in between her teeth like Jell-O… And then, she’d squish her drooly face against and lick my arm.
Shudder.
The things you tolerate as a loving parent…
After that, lots of questions and flags on the play. Nova shows some interesting and hella-inconvenient signs of pathological demand avoidance when she feels overwhelmed.
On the other hand, as expressive as she is, she seems to internally process a lot. It’s hard to really gauge her authentic feelings or motivations about things. This girl… She rode Slinky-Dog Dash back-to-back using Rider Switch (Orson opted out).
Nova tells me that it was too scary after the first ride through, and I believed her. Nathan goes to swap onto the ride, and we give her the option to sit out or ride again.
SHE RODE IT AGAIN!
Now, we ask ourselves: oh no, did she feel like we pressured her? Did she feel people-pleasy? Was she only riding it FOR Papa?
Still kind of a mystery, honestly. And I’m sure we were overthinking it, but even now… One minute she’ll be talking about how Slinky was her favorite ride. The next, she’ll say it was too scary and that she didn’t like it. Shrug.
Considering this is the same girl who will sit down in the middle of an airplane aisle and refuse to budge when it’s time to get off (hello, PDA!), I know she’s capable of saying “NO”. Nova can buckle down and fight like a feral animal when she’s decided against something (like when we have to drag her off of said airplane).
So, yeah, solve this riddle for me.
Nova also seems to hit energy caps like I do. Like slamming into a wall. Operating system crashes. We had some family rest periods built in for our Disney World vacation, but it wasn’t enough for her. You ask Nova what she wants to do when she’s hit her max?
“Nuffing. Go back to the hotel.”
And moments after making her position known, she’d quickly crash out for a midday siesta in the stroller. Thank God we opted to rent one.
With as extroverted as she’s always seemed, even the Oceaneer’s Club on the Disney Wish proved to be too much. Going into the cruise, Nathan and I had banked on some parent-recharge time while the kids played, but after about an hour, she requested to be picked up.
Seems she was in need of some recharge time, too. Which turned into a whole dilemma of resetting expectations and all that jazz, but we ultimately made it through.
The Magical World of Disney
There was a lot that felt arduous or “too much” during our trip, and I barely touched on the 3-day cruise. When we were all past our max. That being said, so many magical memories were made. Nathan and I got to bear witness to our kids’ excitement and wonder, personalities, and styles of processing.
Our family vacation to Disney World involved some no-brainers. Nova will absolutely be over the moon during her princess transformation at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. Duh. Orson and Nova will both be ecstatic about eating Mickey waffles. Obvi.
But there were all these whimsically magical moments of surprise and fascination, too.
Never in a million years would I have guessed that Orson would be the one absolutely “gotta-catch-em-all” obsessed with character meet and greets! Like, full-on devastation if we saw a character in passing on our way to a reservation or as the cast member was heading toward break.
A good portion of a couple of our days in the parks was spent in lines collecting autographs. I’d brought our Disney deck of cards as more of an if-it-comes-up afterthought than a blocked-out plan. It was a nonnegotiable for Orson.
And the character interactions themselves?
Soooo good. Except for one… I’m looking at you, Olaf. You were weird.
Everyone else just intuitively seemed to get what each of my kids needed from them, and they completely delivered. Gentle, calm, respectfully playing with Orson while Nathan held him up so that he’d feel safe. Allowing Nova to rush in for big, jovial squeezes! Balancing all needs so well in a single interaction.
We got to see Orson grow more comfortable and even emboldened by the security we afforded him. If he really didn’t want to ride something, he had the right to refuse. But we’d see him, more than once, feel safe enough in that freedom to give something a try.
First time he rode Frozen Ever After? Cried after the slide at the end. Our second Epcot day? Even though we’d planned to Rider Switch to allow his refusal and take Nova twice, he decided last minute to try again. Next time around, he LOVED it!
Even after the previously mentioned trauma of Smuggler’s Run, the Rise of the Resistance drop, and the “scary” elevation of Soarin’, he wants to ride all of them again on our next visit. Lord willing.
Also, Lord willing, he forgets that Journey Into Imagination is his favorite Epcot ride…
And though Nathan and I would agree that the cruise was the hardest part of the trip, Orson blossomed the most and had the time of his life. He absolutely adored Oceaneer’s Club and would have happily spent every moment aboard there. We’d do it all over again to see that alone.
Where Dreams Come True
And, miracle of miracles, we saw that our girl, Nova, is capable of a sound, uninterrupted, full night of sleep. When she’s given Disney-level stimulation. Orson and Nova would crash hard every night, and although Orson’s body clock would rouse him with precise consistency each morning, Nova required a slow, coaxing start.
While Orson would quietly slip out of bed to peek through the hotel curtains like a little, old man surveying the weather, Nova needed multiple visits, kisses, whispers of good morning before she’d finally full-body stretch and slowly blink open her eyes.
It was also inspiring to see both of our kids befriend any and every other little kid in any queue, regardless of language differences. And watching Nova boldly participate, likely the youngest child who did, in Enchanted Tales with Belle, spinning happily in her Queen Elsa dress… It’s fun to watch your children be their truest, most-authentic selves.
Our Disney World Family Vacation
On our Disney World family vacation, we made memories to last a lifetime and learned so much more about Orson and Nova than we could have anticipated. My kids are funny, bold, courageous, spirited, sensitive, and if I had to guess… Now, just as in love with Disney as their Mama is.
Check out some of the highlights!