Staren
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 24, 2017
Hi DIS Nerds. This is my first PTR, first adult WDW trip, and first solo WDW trip. Here’s the Who, What, Where, When, and Why. We’ll get to the details, but first here’s the background. Heads up, there is a lot of it.
Who
Since this is a solo trip, well mostly a solo trip anyway, this was supposed to be a pretty quick introduction. Just me, myself, and I you know. However, there are a few complications to this trip that I had to figure out as you’ll see below.
Your narrator for this little adventure is yours truly, Chris. Otherwise known online pretty much universally as Staren. The handle doesn’t have anything to do with Disney. It has just been my name online since I was around 12, and considering I’m now 34, I’ve had it for a while.
I grew up a Disney kid, and went to the WDW parks quite a lot growing up. Though by the time this trip finally rolls around, it will have been about 17 years since my last visit.
I grew up in Florida, only an hour, hour and a half from WDW. We didn’t have annual passes growing up, but went once or twice a year for most of my childhood. My last trip to the World was my high school grad night trip to Magic Kingdom. As I said, this is mostly a solo trip. I will be going mostly on my own, but most of my family still live in Florida so some of them will be joining me for a few days of the trip.
I’m a social worker by training, and work in disability advocacy. This will play into my trip quite a bit since I have a physical disability myself, and a big part of this trip be vlogging a lot of the accessibility questions I had when planning this trip. I was born with what is called Cerebral Palsy. I can and do walk most of the time, but my walking range is about 3 blocks comfortably. Defiantly not good enough to come even close to thinking about trying to walk Disney. If that last sentence had too many qualifying words for you, you’re going to hate my writing style. Sorry. Like I said, social worker. I don’t make definitive statements unless I know it’s a 100% sure thing.
So, wheelchair. I graduated to using a wheelchair for Disney and any event where I would be on my feet all day pretty much as soon as I outgrew strollers. For this trip, I will be bringing my own ultralight wheelchair. I did consider renting one for the trip because flying with a wheelchair is annoying and I’m much more used to using my crutches when traveling, but I will be a lot more comfortable and able to move a lot faster in my chair, so I deiced to just deal with the travel days.
So that’s pretty much me going into the trip. Before I move onto how this trip came about, here are some Disney stats about me. Up next, Why??? Before we get there, some of my Disney favorites.
Favorite ride: Haunted Mansion
Favorite princesses: Mulan, Merida, and Belle
Favorite park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite character: Sharon and Susan from the original Parent Trap
Favorite Disney Movie: Live Action: The original Parent Trap, Animated: Mulan, and Moana
Favorite Snack: Mickey Bar, yes they are overrated but I grew up on them
Favorite restaurant: The Lunching Pad (What? Brings back good memories. )
Favorite Resort: Grand Floridian
Why
The idea for this trip came about as a reward to myself. This has been a busy couple of years for me. In 2018 I will finally have a 3rd week of vacation at work. Well, at my main 9 to 5 job anyway. For the last 3 years I have been working 2 jobs, and only taking time off for my birthday and at Christmas to go home and spend time with family. I am also in the process of buying my first condo right now. So, since I will have some extra time off starting next year, and life has been a bit crazy for a while, I decided that I wanted to treat myself to a real vacation.
A lot of people, most of my family included, incorrectly assume that because of my disability I want to take things slower, when the opposite is most often true. Even when I’m walking, I usually find it much harder to slow down to match a groups pace then to speed up. This is doubly true when I am using my wheelchair. I’m also a solo adventurer by nature. I am very much a geek, so what I want to stop and spend time on isn’t usually what everyone else wants to check out. So I’m pretty happy in my own company most of the time.
At this point I knew that I wanted to do a solo vacation somewhere. My first thought was to research one of my other lifelong dream trips, Tokyo. As you will figure out later on in this PTR, considering the choices I made on this trip, that wasn’t such a crazy idea. However, one thing I did not want to do was go to a new place solo that I did not know the accessibility of at all. So, I thought through what would be next on the dream list. A solo Disney World trip of course. I go about the process of reaching my goals in a very well thought out way to get around any barriers due to my disability, but I will admit that the goals themselves are usually pretty big.
When
The quick answer, January 20th through February 3rd 2018.
The long answer, it was a pretty easy decision. I knew I was going to go sometime in 2018 because that’s when I knew I had the extra time through work. Also, being a native Floridian I know the Florida and Disney World heavy and light tourist seasons well.
If you’re a born and raised Floridian, you’ve heard this saying. “It’s called tourist season. Remind me again why we can’t hunt them.”. Seriously though, I would never go to Disney World during the height of season. Especially using a wheelchair solo. I would prefer not to be trampled by the hordes thank you. We all know that Disney World doesn’t have much of an off season any more. They’ve filled in most of the calendar these days, but there are a couple of quieter times. I didn’t want to go in September because it can still be pretty hot, so I decided on the end of January, after the holidays, and before the 3-day weekends and the Run Disney events start.
That ended up being a pretty easy decision all things considered. Then I started thinking about how long I wanted to stay, and that was harder. I already knew that I didn’t want to do a quick trip. I had a full week of vacation coming, so I was originally thinking I’d go for a week to 10 days. That would give me enough time to do what I wanted to do, plus a little down time. Then I went on YouTube and started watching a lot of the Disney vlogs, the U.K. Disney vloggers especially. A lot of them do two-week trips or longer trips, and that schedule sounded interesting. Granted, most of them have a lot more vacation time available then I do. But I started thinking about how I might be able to make it work, both in terms of time and money. I was able to shift a few things around to swing a 14 night / 15 day trip.
Curious about what I plan to do with that time? Keep reading.
What & Where
This isn’t a trip for the major attractions. I’m not planning to hit as many of the big rides and attractions as I can. The plan is to experience the smaller and lesser known attractions at Disney World. Right now, the plan is to spend 2 days in each of the 4 parks. Though I have the schedule set-up so that the second Hollywood Studios day is flexible so that I can change that up without messing with things like ADRs. Then I will be spending a couple of days resort hopping, visiting Disney Springs, and a couple of more relaxing resort days. I will also be doing the Keys to the Kingdom Magic Kingdom tour one day.
I won’t be trying to fit in the water parks, Universal, or any of the other Orlando attractions into this trip. If this first solo trip goes as well as I think it will, I am tentatively planning a shorter Universal trip at some point, but that is for another discussion.
When I first started planning this vacation, it started out as purely a solo trip. However, I’ve had different family members say they wanted to join me for parts of the trip since I started talking about it. So that’s what we’re going to do. My mom and one of my aunts are going to join me at AKL for 2 nights, and will join me for Disney Springs and one of my EPCOT days. My two sisters are also planning to drive over for a day or two as well, probably for a Magic Kingdom day with their husbands and children. They both have a toddler under 3.
As of now, I have also booked a couple of extras for this trip. I’ll be doing the Keys to the Kingdom tour near the end of the trip. I have also snagged a ticket for Disney After Hours on January 30th.
And that’s where I’m at with planning for the trip right now. Up next, dining plans, and Fastpasses.
Who
Since this is a solo trip, well mostly a solo trip anyway, this was supposed to be a pretty quick introduction. Just me, myself, and I you know. However, there are a few complications to this trip that I had to figure out as you’ll see below.
Your narrator for this little adventure is yours truly, Chris. Otherwise known online pretty much universally as Staren. The handle doesn’t have anything to do with Disney. It has just been my name online since I was around 12, and considering I’m now 34, I’ve had it for a while.
I grew up a Disney kid, and went to the WDW parks quite a lot growing up. Though by the time this trip finally rolls around, it will have been about 17 years since my last visit.
I grew up in Florida, only an hour, hour and a half from WDW. We didn’t have annual passes growing up, but went once or twice a year for most of my childhood. My last trip to the World was my high school grad night trip to Magic Kingdom. As I said, this is mostly a solo trip. I will be going mostly on my own, but most of my family still live in Florida so some of them will be joining me for a few days of the trip.
I’m a social worker by training, and work in disability advocacy. This will play into my trip quite a bit since I have a physical disability myself, and a big part of this trip be vlogging a lot of the accessibility questions I had when planning this trip. I was born with what is called Cerebral Palsy. I can and do walk most of the time, but my walking range is about 3 blocks comfortably. Defiantly not good enough to come even close to thinking about trying to walk Disney. If that last sentence had too many qualifying words for you, you’re going to hate my writing style. Sorry. Like I said, social worker. I don’t make definitive statements unless I know it’s a 100% sure thing.
So, wheelchair. I graduated to using a wheelchair for Disney and any event where I would be on my feet all day pretty much as soon as I outgrew strollers. For this trip, I will be bringing my own ultralight wheelchair. I did consider renting one for the trip because flying with a wheelchair is annoying and I’m much more used to using my crutches when traveling, but I will be a lot more comfortable and able to move a lot faster in my chair, so I deiced to just deal with the travel days.
So that’s pretty much me going into the trip. Before I move onto how this trip came about, here are some Disney stats about me. Up next, Why??? Before we get there, some of my Disney favorites.
Favorite ride: Haunted Mansion
Favorite princesses: Mulan, Merida, and Belle
Favorite park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite character: Sharon and Susan from the original Parent Trap
Favorite Disney Movie: Live Action: The original Parent Trap, Animated: Mulan, and Moana
Favorite Snack: Mickey Bar, yes they are overrated but I grew up on them
Favorite restaurant: The Lunching Pad (What? Brings back good memories. )
Favorite Resort: Grand Floridian
Why
The idea for this trip came about as a reward to myself. This has been a busy couple of years for me. In 2018 I will finally have a 3rd week of vacation at work. Well, at my main 9 to 5 job anyway. For the last 3 years I have been working 2 jobs, and only taking time off for my birthday and at Christmas to go home and spend time with family. I am also in the process of buying my first condo right now. So, since I will have some extra time off starting next year, and life has been a bit crazy for a while, I decided that I wanted to treat myself to a real vacation.
A lot of people, most of my family included, incorrectly assume that because of my disability I want to take things slower, when the opposite is most often true. Even when I’m walking, I usually find it much harder to slow down to match a groups pace then to speed up. This is doubly true when I am using my wheelchair. I’m also a solo adventurer by nature. I am very much a geek, so what I want to stop and spend time on isn’t usually what everyone else wants to check out. So I’m pretty happy in my own company most of the time.
At this point I knew that I wanted to do a solo vacation somewhere. My first thought was to research one of my other lifelong dream trips, Tokyo. As you will figure out later on in this PTR, considering the choices I made on this trip, that wasn’t such a crazy idea. However, one thing I did not want to do was go to a new place solo that I did not know the accessibility of at all. So, I thought through what would be next on the dream list. A solo Disney World trip of course. I go about the process of reaching my goals in a very well thought out way to get around any barriers due to my disability, but I will admit that the goals themselves are usually pretty big.
When
The quick answer, January 20th through February 3rd 2018.
The long answer, it was a pretty easy decision. I knew I was going to go sometime in 2018 because that’s when I knew I had the extra time through work. Also, being a native Floridian I know the Florida and Disney World heavy and light tourist seasons well.
If you’re a born and raised Floridian, you’ve heard this saying. “It’s called tourist season. Remind me again why we can’t hunt them.”. Seriously though, I would never go to Disney World during the height of season. Especially using a wheelchair solo. I would prefer not to be trampled by the hordes thank you. We all know that Disney World doesn’t have much of an off season any more. They’ve filled in most of the calendar these days, but there are a couple of quieter times. I didn’t want to go in September because it can still be pretty hot, so I decided on the end of January, after the holidays, and before the 3-day weekends and the Run Disney events start.
That ended up being a pretty easy decision all things considered. Then I started thinking about how long I wanted to stay, and that was harder. I already knew that I didn’t want to do a quick trip. I had a full week of vacation coming, so I was originally thinking I’d go for a week to 10 days. That would give me enough time to do what I wanted to do, plus a little down time. Then I went on YouTube and started watching a lot of the Disney vlogs, the U.K. Disney vloggers especially. A lot of them do two-week trips or longer trips, and that schedule sounded interesting. Granted, most of them have a lot more vacation time available then I do. But I started thinking about how I might be able to make it work, both in terms of time and money. I was able to shift a few things around to swing a 14 night / 15 day trip.
Curious about what I plan to do with that time? Keep reading.
What & Where
This isn’t a trip for the major attractions. I’m not planning to hit as many of the big rides and attractions as I can. The plan is to experience the smaller and lesser known attractions at Disney World. Right now, the plan is to spend 2 days in each of the 4 parks. Though I have the schedule set-up so that the second Hollywood Studios day is flexible so that I can change that up without messing with things like ADRs. Then I will be spending a couple of days resort hopping, visiting Disney Springs, and a couple of more relaxing resort days. I will also be doing the Keys to the Kingdom Magic Kingdom tour one day.
I won’t be trying to fit in the water parks, Universal, or any of the other Orlando attractions into this trip. If this first solo trip goes as well as I think it will, I am tentatively planning a shorter Universal trip at some point, but that is for another discussion.
When I first started planning this vacation, it started out as purely a solo trip. However, I’ve had different family members say they wanted to join me for parts of the trip since I started talking about it. So that’s what we’re going to do. My mom and one of my aunts are going to join me at AKL for 2 nights, and will join me for Disney Springs and one of my EPCOT days. My two sisters are also planning to drive over for a day or two as well, probably for a Magic Kingdom day with their husbands and children. They both have a toddler under 3.
As of now, I have also booked a couple of extras for this trip. I’ll be doing the Keys to the Kingdom tour near the end of the trip. I have also snagged a ticket for Disney After Hours on January 30th.
And that’s where I’m at with planning for the trip right now. Up next, dining plans, and Fastpasses.
