I am incredibly lucky.
I know this.
Two years ago, I got to go to Orlando Florida with my family, for the second time.
Florida means Disney World, Universal Studios, Discovery Cove and so much more.
But for this post, I’m going to focus on Disney World, which in itself covers four theme parks and two water parks so we’ve still got a lot to cover.
We first went for Christmas in 2014. Originally, we were going to go in the summer but then my dad was deployed to Afghanistan.
It was amazing the first time but at the same time, we basically went in blind. We didn’t know what the sweet merry heck we were doing and trust me, if you want a trip to Florida to run relatively smoothly, you need to have some idea of how things work.
And what this means is, if you are an anxiety ridden – obsessive compulsive like myself, is that you spend over a year researching anything and everything you can think of and planning the trip to a minute by minute detail.
And I wish I could say I was exaggerating. (I had two notebooks full of notes and a day plan *facepalm*)
And before I go on, yes I know not everyone likes their holidays to run like a military operation, but I would combat that with these three things:
1. My family was used to my kind of crazy before I got the diagnosis to back it up and it didn’t ruin their holiday (I hope lol, if it did they’ve kept very quiet about it!)
2. It is entirely possible to have an amazing time at Disney without planning to the extent I did. We didn’t the first time and it was great.
3. While I have been referring to our trip as a “holiday”… it ain’t. Not in the traditional sense anyway.
When someone says “holiday” you think of chilling out, maybe at the beach or even camping or at a resort, but essentially you think of taking time away from the chaos of normal life.
If you’re going to Disney you are not having a “holiday”. You are just trading one kind of chaos for another.
We went for three weeks in the middle of summer.
Disney in an Orlando Summer is crazy kinds of hot, humid and holy sh*t is it crowded.
You are in for long days and even longer queues (unless you fastpass and even then it may not do much.)
CAITLIN’S DISNEY WORD OF THE DAY: FASTPASS – a special pass/ticket addition where you get to join a priority queue to get on a ride faster.
Now, it occurs to me as I write this, I may not be selling the “Happiest Place On Earth” very well.
Well, let me assure you that that place has thoroughly earned its name.
The attention to detail in the design is insane. The rides are so much fun, even if you aren’t massively into rollercoasters like me, there is so much to enjoy.
Sidenote – if you ever go to Disney World, you HAVE to ride Soarin’ at Epcot and Flight Of Passage at Animal Kingdom. You can thank me later.
I am ninety per cent convinced that the cast members who play the characters are on hypnotic drugs, because I have seen some of the grottiest little kids wreak havoc at their stations and these mother f’ers DO NOT BREAK CHARACTER.
EVER.
Aside from them, all the cast are so happy and joyful and helpful, like seriously nothing is too trivial for them. So, those who know us will know that my family or more specifically, everyone except my mother, are incredibly fussy eaters. One of the few things I didn’t research was the menu for our first booked restaurant dinner in Magic Kingdom, at the Be Our Guest restaurant in the beasts’ castle. We sat down, we looked at the menu and collectively went “aww sh*te” internally. Because while mum was fine, and dad and me could cope, DJ was on the verge of tears because oh my god…
They didn’t serve chips or nuggets!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
But fear not, our server saw his sad little face, asked us if there was anything we needed and then arranged with the kitchen from the restaurant across the way to have a kids portion of fries and chicken nuggets prepared and then sent to the castle just so Daniel could eat something.
I know that might not seem like much but my point is that our server (and I wish I could remember her name) went out of her way to make sure my little brother was happy.
On to something slightly more important than my family’s limited diet.
The disability services at Disney World were amazing.
For those who don’t know, my mum is registered blind.
And guest services couldn’t have been more helpful.
They provided an audio description set, which is almost like those guided tours you get in museums with the headphones and stuff.
It would describe the surroundings and characters for almost every ride. When the first machine became faulty, they replaced it straight away.
They also provided her with a disability pass on her magic band.
CAITLIN’S DISNEY WORD OF THE DAY MARK TWO – MAGC BANDS – magic bands are a wristband you can get that they upload all of your Disney tickets, bookings and fastpasses onto instead of carrying around a card or ticket. You can get them with designs and characters on and if you are staying at a Disney hotel, it also can work as your room key.
The disability pass meant that instead of waiting in the normal queue or even the fastpass queue, you get time period in which you can come back and they will let you straight onto the ride, so that you don’t have to stand in the queue.
This was really great for mum because a lot of the rides that she wanted to do (the rollercoaster nutter that she is) had queues in quite dark, loud and enclosed spaces, none of which are good for her.
And obviously because this is my blog and I am a narcissist (insert devil face emoji here) I have to say that, since the disability pass applied to whoever was with my mum too, it also helped me.
The claustrophobia is real folks.
So….
I did have a solid plan and a big point when I started writing this.
I seem to have gone off the point a little bit. Slight diversion to a few other stops.
I was gonna talk about the fact that we booked this holiday about three weeks after I got out of hospital after a psychiatric review.
I was gonna talk about the fact that I used the planning for this trip as my own calming therapy during the year I spent (like so many others) on a waiting list for someone to give me the help I needed.
But I called this piece the Happiest Place On Earth because that’s what it is. And the whole time I was there I wasn’t thinking about all the bad sh*t in my head. If a plan changed or routine was switched I didn’t spend half an hour hyperventilating. I wasn’t thinking about checking the lock five times or washing my hands red raw because no matter what, they are never clean enough.
I was happy.
So idk if there is a larger meaning to this post.
I suppose if there is a point it’s actually three:
A – It doesn’t matter what other people think, if it makes you happy.
B – Distraction works. If you get a thought in your head that you don’t like, change what you’re doing and do something different until you’re distracted. I’m not saying book a holiday every time you feel sad though. That’s a bad idea.
C – If you are like me and routine is important just remember, change is not the end of the world. You are more adaptable than you think.
I believe in you.
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Oh and if you ever get the chance, go to the happiest place on earth. You won’t regret it.
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