This week we went on our unexpected Disney trip to spend time with Darren’s sister and her family. It would be the first time Ethan would be able to spend time with his cousins, and we have no idea when this will happen again. This trip was made possible by The Family Fund and our Virgin Atlantic Air Miles, we are very grateful.
We had travelled to Paris the day before on the Eurostar, but as there wasn’t any seats left on the direct train we had to travel into Paris and then make our way to Disneyland. I didn’t capture any photos of our travel day, as you can imagine it was very tiring and we felt like we have travelled half way round the world by the time we had made it to our hotel!
After a good nights sleep we were up and ready to explore Disneyland.
I had emailed the hotel before our arrival and told them who we were travelling with and they booked us into rooms next door to each other so it was easy to find our family and have breakfast with them.
Ethan found breakfast overwhelming and wouldn’t eat or drink anything. This was for two reasons, the first being the breakfast room was too much for him. The second being that he didn’t know how to take his baby cousin D. Ethan hasn’t been around young children and he doesn’t understand them, so he was very nervous and even tried to bolt at one point. This was an ongoing issue during our trip but Ethan got better as time went on. It did mean that Ethan didn’t eat anything for breakfast which of course caused concern but what could we do.
With full tummies, well everyone except Ethan, we jumped on the bus to the Disneyland Park.
I was so glad that this trip was during the Christmas season as I have always wanted to see a Disney park dressed for Christmas and I never thought that I would. So I was very excited to be welcomed into the park with this.
Our first stop was at City Hall so that we could get Ethan his Access Card. This was quite a simple process and we were able to have it stamped so that four other people could ride with Ethan, this meant that he could go on the rides at the same time as his cousins. They also gave us an information booklet that listed all the rides we could use the card for, because Ethan has Autism there was a few rides that wasn’t suitable for him and his needs.
We were then ready to make our way to the Buzz Lightyear ride, stopping to take a few photos on the way.
After losing miserably to the boys we made our way to Fantasyland. We took Ethan for a spin on Le Carrousel de Lancelot…
…and Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Ethan bounced up and down in his seat with excitement when we got onto Dumbo, he must have remembered the ride from last year.
The boys then headed off to Peter Pan’s Flight to go on an adventure to Neverland.
It had been raining all morning, thankfully not heavy rain but enough to make the kids feet wet, we forgot to take a change of socks so thought it a good idea to take the kids back to the hotel but it was only 10am. We did want to visit Mickey Mouse but at 10.05am it still wasn’t open so we decided to take the kids to the baby centre to warm up and see if they wanted some snacks.
After Ethan had had his fill of chocolate buttons, thankfully I packed some snacks to bring with us, we made our way back down Main Street as we thought it might be a good idea to go to the other park for a bit as they have shows undercover. We stopped for some hot drinks along the way and another visitor informed us that the Christmas Cavalcade was about to start so we thought we would find a spot to watch it.
As we waited it started to snow, not real snow but magical Disney snow, and it wasn’t long before the parade started.
By the time the Christmas Cavalcade ended it had stopped raining so the guys decided to make their way to Big Thunder Mountain for one more ride before lunch.
We decided to grab a quick lunch in the Disney Village before heading back to the hotel to warm the kids up and let them have a much needed rest.
Wow wow it all so magical and what a brilliant time to go too. Hope you’re all having a really brilliant time. It definitely looks like you are! 🙂
We are back now and had a great time, it was so much better than we thought it would be :0)
What an action packed day and so much to see and to thrill even in the rain. Sounds like the chocolate buttons were a great idea after Ethan missed out on his breakfast. Christmas does look like a special time there. Thank you for joining me on Country Kids.
Oh wow. That is so magical and wonderful! I am so happy for you that you got to go and see Disney in Christmas time.
A little envious, but mostly happy 🙂
I read about that access card when we were looking at going to Disney world. Was it helpful? Did Ethan find the park itself to be “too much”? (look at me trying to pump information just so I can figure if it’s worth the money to take Yon there…)
I think we went at the perfect time of the week and year, in term time. It wasn’t busy at all and to be honest we didn’t need to use the card on some rides but it really did help as you can just walk right on, more or less. You can even use it for the Characters, which you can’t in Florida, this meant that our wait for Santa was about ten minutes and the actual queue time was over an hour. Also because it is so quiet you aren’t crowded too watch the parades. I would never take Ethan in a peek season I would rather take him out of school, which I know is a no no! I also think Paris isn’t that good at handling lots of people, it’s so much better when quiet, the downside is out of season they close things down (places to eat) and maintain rides. I don’t feel they do this quite so much in Florida.