Please be aware that while I will be showing family photos from this trip, I am not comfortable publicly sharing photographs of my children and their faces will be obscured or they will be facing away from the camera in these photos. Don’t come after me, this is the internet and my kids are allowed this privacy.
The First Airport
Our adventure began super early on 3/21/23. My wife and I had stayed up pretty much the whole night packing and doing a last-minute preparation scramble. We realized the night before that our original plan to have her mom drive us to the airport in my van wasn’t going to work. It’s a seven-seater minivan, which would be fine… except for the fact that we had an enormous amount of luggage, a stroller, and a rollator that all had to make it to the airport with us. There was no way we were fitting all that into the van. So we did the best we could, and my wife got a Lyft to the airport at 3:45 am with as many bags as she was able to bring, while my mother-in-law, the kids, and I filled the van with the rest of our stuff and ourselves and met her there about a half hour later.
When we arrived, we checked in with the SkyCap and headed for the TSA line. They had a separate line setup for individuals with disabilities and their families, and that made things much easier for me, as it takes us a significant amount of time to go through taking out electronics and our toiletry bags, declaring medications, folding up the stroller, and setting aside my rollator for them to swab. We moved as quickly as we could, but it still took a while. After making it through TSA, we went downstairs and found our gate.
We fly Southwest, and I use the Customer of Size policy and preboard due to the extra time it take me to gate check my mobility device, request a seatbelt extender, and storing my luggage in the overhead compartment. I let the gate agent know that I was going to need to use the COS policy and get preboarding, and they were great. They also gave my wife a preboard designation for that flight so we didn’t have to worry about splitting our family up with the kids all being so young and having little-to-no experience flying.
The Flight
We made it onto our flight and were in the air on-time at 6:40 am. I let the middle kid have the window seat on our row – normally I will fight for that seat, I love to watch takeoff and landing, and see the clouds go by below. But I knew it would be super cool for the kids to watch too. (The other kids swapped window and middle seats between the trip down and back so they each got a turn.) During the flight, my row-mate and I chatted about how things looked from above, and took turns drawing on our tablet.
(pictured: the middle kid drawing on the tablet, the middle kid taking photos through the plane window, the toddler looking out the window on takeoff)
Arrival at MCO
We arrived at MCO slightly early, but I had to wait for my rollator and the stroller we had gate checked. Without thinking, I told my wife to go ahead of me (one of the kids was on the verge of a bathroom emergency) and I would grab both of our gate checked items, along with the few bags I had on me. I clearly was not thinking, because I was struggling to get the rollator and stroller up the ramp. Thankfully a kind woman offered to help me, and I made it out of the ramp in one piece, only dropping my medical bag off the rollator once.
I went ahead of my wife on the train from the gates to the main terminal, but she moves much faster than me and got to baggage claim first. After gathering all our checked luggage, we quickly realized that there was NO WAY we could maneuver all of our stuff through the airport without extra help. (Hey, Disney, if you’re reading this PLEASE bring back the Magical Express! It would have saved us so much trouble, confusion, and most importantly, PARK TIME.) We rented two of the luggage carts, and went down to the ground floor… where we were informed by an airport employee that we were on the entirely wrong side of the terminal for our MEARS Connect bus to our hotel. Oops!
(pictured: the toddler on the train ride from the gate to the main terminal at MCO)
MEARS Connect
We went back upstairs, crossed the enormous lobby area, and took the elevators down on the opposite side. The MEARS Connect bus area is located in the Ground Transportation in the same space that was previously occupied by Magical Express. We scanned our boarding pass, entered the bus line (same as it was with Magical Express) and were almost immediately sent out to a waiting bus. We were the first group on board. We waited maybe 20 minutes to collect a few more travelers for the All Star Resorts, then drove over to Terminal C to gather one more group heading for Animal Kingdom Lodge. Then we were off, stopping at All-Star Sports first before arriving at All-Star Movies where we were staying.
Honestly, the MEARS Connect experience is pretty much the exact same as anyone familiar with the Magical Express would remember. You go to the same place in the airport, load up the same way, and it still takes about the same amount of time to get to your hotel. The only differences here are that 1) you pay MEARS, not Disney, 2) the theming on the bus is different, 3) there’s no Disney character movies playing on the ride to the hotel, and 4) there is no luggage service available (though the MEARS website suggests that may be an option in the future.)
All-Star Movies and Checking In
We made it to the hotel around 11:30 am. It took a while to get through the airport. I’d had issues in the past with my online check-in not working properly, so I had made the decision to check in at the hotel. It seemed like it went smoothly at the time but there were issues later on.
While we were sitting in the lobby debating what to do (leave our stuff with bell services and head out? Go grab something to eat in the food court? Stay put in the lobby until we had a room?) I received a call FROM the hotel, asking if I’d be okay in a room that was still wheelchair accessible, but did not have a roll-in shower. They explained that they were trying to put us in a room as soon as possible, and there was a room available with the same “preferred” status and still wheelchair accessible, but had a tub instead of the roll-in shower. Otherwise, we would have to wait until later that afternoon to get into a room. I asked a couple questions about the shower situation, though not nearly enough, because I accepted the room and it was honestly not a great decision on my part for my personal needs. I’ll have a full review of the room up soon. Either way, we walked our stuff over to the room, changed into our park clothes (this was my first time EVER as an adult wearing a dress in public without long pants underneath!), put valuables in the safe, put our drinks into the beverage cooler, and headed out to Magic Kingdom for the afternoon.
(pictured: my first selfie of the trip with my ears on)
Arrival at Magic Kingdom and the Disability Access Service
The first thing we did once we got off the bus to Magic Kingdom was head for Guest Services. We had to renew my wife’s DAS (Disability Access Service) and I needed to get my own (I used to just use my daily Fastpass+ selections for the things my wife didn’t like to ride, but I wasn’t planning on paying for Genie+ and I qualify just as much as she does for the DAS.) I’m NOT going to go into “what to say/do” to get a DAS here. The only advice I can give is to be open and candid with the cast member about why you are unable to wait in a traditional queue. They aren’t looking for a diagnosis, they are looking for what your limitations are. My DAS is NOT for a mobility-related issue whatsoever. It is for a separate medical condition. (Again, because I know there are people out there trying to get DAS specifically because they don’t want to pay for Genie+ and are trying to “beat the system” I’m not going to go into what my reason for the DAS is.) Once we had the DAS set up, we started heading for Liberty Square, where we had reservations for an early dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern. We ran into the Festival of Fantasy Parade on the way down Main Street, U.S.A. so our group split up – I stayed for the parade with the oldest kid and the toddler, while my wife took the middle kid through the Emporium all the way up to Casey’s Corner to avoid the noise as best they could. We met back up by Casey’s after the parade and continued on our way to Liberty Square.
Dysautonomia Crash & Lunch
We made it to Liberty Square and were discussing whether we had enough time to ride Haunted Mansion when I noticed I was starting to feel… not great. I realized I hadn’t eaten a full meal all day, which meant I hadn’t taken my morning medication, and here it was after 3:00 pm, and I was starting to shake and crash. My wife got a popcorn bucket and we all ate some popcorn (it was allergy safe for me!) but it wasn’t enough to prevent me from having worse issues. The all-too-familiar feeling of impending doom set in. I needed to use the restroom and I was starting to get pre-syncopal. Sound was fading, color was draining, and I was in a full panic trying to just will myself to not pass out in the middle of Magic Kingdom.
I’m not super clear on how I ended up over at the Adventureland Breezeway restrooms, but this was where I learned there’s no companion restroom there. I was terrified to use the bathroom without my wife around in case I fainted on the toilet (it wouldn’t be the first time, and how I was feeling wasn’t a great sign), but I wasn’t going to make it to the Fantasyland bathrooms. I could barely keep myself upright. Thankfully, I made it in and out of the restroom okay, and we scrapped all notion of hitting the Haunted Mansion before lunch. We went straight to Liberty Tree Tavern where I got some food in my system and took my meds. There’s a full review on Liberty Tree Tavern here.
(pictured: me and the oldest at Liberty Tree Tavern)
After Dinner in Fantasyland
After we ate I was starting to feel better, though not great. I took the big kids onto the one and only ride we made it on that day, “it’s a small world”. The middle kid still has the song stuck in his head. Afterward, they both needed to use the restroom, so we walked back over to the Rapunzel Tower area restrooms. We decided to stay there for a little bit, waiting for the lantern Photopass photo to become available just after sunset. Then as we tried to head out, the area around the castle and down past Mad Tea Party toward Tomorrowland were closed off for a private event.
(pictured: a Photopass photo with my oldest and I holding one of the Tangled lanterns, two photos of my by myself, both with and without my rollator, and one photo of me and the big kids in the Tangled area of Fantasyland)
Tomorrowland, Enchantment, and Heading Back to the Hotel
We ended up having to go the long way around the closure, and ended up inside Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe. We got a bunch of ice water and sat listening to Sonny Eclipse for a while. Then we headed back out, coming up to the Tomorrowland bridge as Enchantment began. My wife had hoped to be out of the park before the fireworks to avoid crowds, but at that point, there was no getting through, so she sat on a bench with the toddler asleep in the stroller, while the big kids and I watched the fireworks. We didn’t have the best view, but it was still pretty great to experience.
Afterward, we followed the huge crowd back to the resort busses and headed back to our hotel room to get some much needed rest before the next day.
(Pictured: our partially obscured view of Enchantment, and a selfie of me and the middle kid in front of Cinderella Castle.)
Day two will be posted later this week.
Access the Mouse 