Happily Handicapped at the Happiest Place on Earth

We left for Disneyland on Tuesday morning (the 10th of June, 2008). Ashton had arranged for an aiport shuttle to pick us up at home -- parking at the Seattle airport is so horribly expensive, that it was about the same cost to get picked up at home. He suprised Jacob with having a limousine pick us up instead of the van. It was fun -- we kind of felt special. The little kids were thrilled to not have to be sitting in car seats and wanted to try out all of the buttons and knobs.

We had a couple of hours to kill at the airport before our flight left. We sat in front of the windows and the kids watched the airplanes take off and land.

Our flight to LAX went really smoothly, and we got there earlier than planned. We met Ashton's mom, Jane, at the baggage claim area. What a nice reunion! We used to see her weekly, so seeing her every few months isn't quite the same.

We took another shuttle to the hotel. We arranged the shuttle through the Disney travel company and paid for it before we left -- we just had to present our vouchers to the driver and give him a little tip :).

As Ashton already mentioned, we stayed at Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel. We got two rooms, and hooray, all the phone calls paid off, and we had adjoining rooms. While Ashton and Jane were checking in, Josh and Anni mauled the Goofy statue in the lobby.

After getting all checked in, we went to dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. One of the things that we did that were great, that saved us a little money, were signing up for a club membership at the Rainforest Cafe. I think we paid $15 for the membership, and it gets us a free appetizer or 10% off our bill -- everytime we go. So, that's where we ate the first night.

We had a good night sleep, and got ready to go to Disneyland for our 1st day! This was Annikah and Joshua's first trip to Disneyland, so we didn't know how they'd react to many things. The breakfast we went to was a character breakfast at our hotel, at the PCH grill. It's the Lilo and Stitch breakfast, but we also go our pictures taken with Goofy, Minnie, and Daisy. Anni loved meeting them all, and the food is really good there, although expensive. Another thing Ashton did to help us save money was to apply for the Chase Disney Reward Visa card. It gave us 10% off on a lot of our purchases, which was great!

How exciting to be at Disneyland, yay! The first thing we did was to go into the town hall at Disneyland. We knew that we could get a Guest Assistance Card because of Annikah and Joshua's handicapps, so we went to Town Hall to plead our case. We have read that some people who try to get this special card are turned down, so I was nervous. I told Ashton I would do the talking -- I think, so that if it didn't go well, it would be my fault, and I wouldn't be able to blame him. It went so well though -- they gave us these fabulous Guest Assistance Cards -- one with Josh's name on it and one with Anni's name on it. It allowed up to 6 of us to go with them on rides.


We got to skip the whole line with these great cards. We just went in the exit and showed our card to the person running the ride, and they'd put us in a line right next to where the ride loaded. The longest we waited in any ride line was 10 minutes, but most were 5 minutes or less, some we just walked right on.


That's why I named this post happily handicapped. I have never felt so great about having handicapped children as I did going on this trip. These people at Disneyland got it that it was hard for us to be there with handicapped children, and they gave us really special accomodations because of it. Yay! What a blessing.


The first day of rides was tough -- Ashton and I didn't agree on whether or not we should get strollers for the kids :), so we didn't. Anni and Josh cried a lot of the day because we took them on rides that were too scary for them. We didn't know what would be scary for them until we discovered it while we were on it. For example, Anni is afraid of the dark and Josh is afraid of thrills, so Pirates of the Carribean and Splash mountain were horrifying for them. They both cried. It was sad.


The next day, Thursday, was much better. We went to Disney California Adventure, and realized that because of our Chase Disney Rewards Visa that we could get two free strollers every day we go to either park! Yay. Each of our little kids got a stroller, and things were much smoother. Another perk of the card was a free 5x7 photo every day. They had a photo op every morning with different characters. These are the photos we had taken.





Thursday, we went to the Aladdin show -- which Josh loved and had so much fun going on the rides at "a bug land."



Anni and Josh loved going to see the Princesses at the Fantasy Faire, and I'll have to admit, that it was nice for me to have them somewhere where they were happy and it was shady. We stayed there for over an hour, with Grandma, seeing the princesses tell stories and attending the coronation ceremony.




We were thrilled to find out that we could go on the new Woody ride -- Toy Story Midway Mania at California Adventure. It's official opening date wasn't until the 17th, but we went on it on the 13th and 14th. Hooray! Don't you love soft openings? It was Annikah's favorite ride, but I'll have to admit that we all loved it. Ashton was just like a little kid -- as soon as we got off of it the first time he said, "Let's go on it again!!" So, we did.



All in all, it was the most fabulous trip. We used up a lot of kleenex and sunblock, and had really sore feet, and there was one point where I just wanted to walk away from the family and not look back, but we all had such a good time. I'm so glad we went, and we will still be talking about it for years to come.

Disney Trip Photo Album