Cruisin’ with Autism

You know that feeling of going on vacation where you just picture yourself with your toes in the sand, drink in your hand, peaceful and relaxed? Yeah, me neither, it’s a dream of mine. However, we took the short stacks on their first cruise. We were excited and nervous. How would Brayden do on the ship? How will he eat? We can barely go to a restaurant and we have to bring his own food. The ship is a floating restaurant! Will he fall over the side of the ship trying to get into the water? All things Autism parents have to think about. We just think “differently”. And we are on guard…all the time.

We arrived and saw the Autism on the Seas crew there. We booked this cruise specifially to see what this was all about. Unfortunately, we learned pretty quickly that our travel agent did not book us correctly and we were not registered with their group. Not her fault, but I was pretty disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, we hung on their shirt tales and I asked TONS of questions. This is a fabulous program and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you check out autismontheseas.com. But, it’s not about them…not this time…

We had an AMAZING time and experience. The boys did great in the restaurants. Ok, by great I mean Brayden brought his iPad and did some verbal stimming but stayed in his seat, success! We all slept like champs (for those who know us, Bray has sleep issues and slept until 9:30am every day) AND they both went to the KIDS CLUB! EVEN BRAYDEN…4 times on our little 3 day cruise. The hubs and I walked around the ship at one point like we had lost an appendage. Don’t get me wrong, it was great being by ourselves but we were a little…lost. I went to a couple shows at night and the hubs gambled. Nolan even outlasted us by wanting to stay at the Late Night Party until 2am to take part in the Gagaball (whatever that is) tournament. Needless to say we picked him up by 11pm since we were fading fast but he brought home a bronze medal!

I could go on and on. My point to this is we overcame a fear. We did this…together! We trusted each other and I feel like I bonded with my buddies again. As a family “WE” have AUTISM but we won’t let anything stop us! Can’t wait to do it again!

Now, to help fund our next cruise please message me at http://www.facebook.com/mixingtheautismcocktail. JK! 😉