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Marathon Weekend 2021

SAFD: @PrincessV mine is similar to yours. My younger DS has Aspergers and some of the other developmental disabilities that can come along with that. One of the reasons we love to vacation at Disney so much is that we know what we are getting: DS likes everything *THE SAME* and we are usually guaranteed that at Disney. Also it is one place where we are guaranteed staff will be kind and understanding when our kids acts "odd" or is a little short-tempered. He may look "unusual" but not everybody outside Disney associates that with a disorder, and even people who work in hospitality don't always understand.
Be Our Guest is a favorite that we had been doing for dinner once a trip. DS always got the steak frites and he looked forward to it. When they moved to a prix fixe menu, I looked it over before the trip, but somehow didn't notice that they didn't have "frites" on the menu anymore! I know this was my bad but there we were. Honestly he is not somebody who is in love with fries so I don't know that I would have expected a problem. Long story short, DS was a little put off and rude to the waiter over the surprise (to him) menu change. I was embarrassed and apologized but was sure the waiter was (rightly) annoyed. DS is getting better all the time with therapy and maturing but for whatever reason this was a roadblock for him. I was ready for our night to be ruined and maybe have to deal with a little meltdown and have to skedaddle out of there.
When our entrees came out, our waiter produced a plate of fries for DS on the side! He must have sent out to Casey's to get them for him. Instead of meeting rudeness with rudeness, which he had every right to do, he chose to be kind and went out of his way for my DS. It turned our evening around. DS changed in a heartbeat and was able to pull himself together to apologize to the waiter himself for being curt, and thank him profusely. It was such a small thing but it really did mean the difference between a magical night and a maybe $200 disaster. And just the show of kindness and understanding bouyed the rest of our evening.
 
@SheHulk I understand everything about your story! My son is 18 now and wasn't diagnosed HFA until he was 16 - he grew up visiting WDW often because he always seemed so comfortable there. I've only recently started to realize and understand that it was in large part because WDW does so much to assist those who need some extra help, even when we didn't know we needed it!
 
SAFD: (warning:tear-jerker ahead)
I always will remember during Tink Weekend, eating breakfast at the Plaza with my mom and sister after my half which also happened to be Mother's Day. At this meal you pay at the door before you sit down and I lunged my card in before my mom could stop me. She mentioned to the lady behind the desk that her daughters were taking such good care of her while she was sick. She didn't go into detail, only said that quietly. My mom was 3 years into various battles with cancer and she was in between treatment so had just enough strength to join us for our long weekend, she was in a wheelchair but probably the strongest she had been or would be again. That kind CM gave us a table right by the buffet so we didn't have to go far and also near where the characters came out. She went and got my mom drinks and gave her a minnie button. I got up to go to the bathroom and came back to her holding hands and talking with the fairy godmother at the table. My sister was hanging back from the table and said they'd been talking for some time. It's the happiest I had seen my mom in a long time. To this day I don't know what they said to each other but my sister and I got the longest bear hug from the fairy godmother and I'll always remember it.
 
SAFD: Disney cast members are the best and I've had so many great interactions. One of my favorites was when we took my daughters to Akershus for the Princess breakfast. It was just after Curse of the Black Pearl and instead of a princess, my oldest daughter wanted to dress like Elizabeth Swann. The morning of breakfast she was kind of upset thinking that nobody would recognize who she was supposed to be. We went into EPCOT at the World Showcase entrance and were walking around towards Norway and there was just one cast member walking around and he yelled out to her, "Good morning, Miss Swann!" It made her day.

We were on another trip in December and it was very cold for most of the trip. My oldest daughter really wanted to go to Blizzard Beach, but the highs were mostly in the 40s. One day it got to a high of 55, and so I took her. For some reason, we had the place nearly all to ourselves. We went to the kiddie area and they had an inner tube race area. We rode it about 8 times and the cast member would help her get into the tube and then hold it while I got ready and then he'd give her a push down so we could race. And he'd tell her things like ok, this time, I'm sending you down early so you can beat him, so she was laughing and having a good time.
 
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SAFD: I've had a few, but the one sticking out now (possibly because I changed back to CSR for Marathon Weekend so I'm thinking about it) is from my first solo trip probably 20 years ago. My sister was working at Disney (either a trainer in WoD or as a scheduler...I can't remember what jobs she did when) but I paid for my own room and tickets and was on my own most of the time.

I'd scheduled Dolphins in Depth one day and was so looking forward to it as I had had to cancel it due to a stomach bug when I was scheduled to do it before (actually that was the first bit of magic as I had to cancel within the 24 hours of it and they still refunded me because I was sick - I don't know if they checked the logs at Epcot First Aid, but I offered that up as proof if they needed it as I'd spent a couple of hours napping in there.) I had gotten up and ready and was so excited about the upcoming experience. Went out and got the first bus almost immediately. We were pulling up to Epcot and I realized that in my excitement I had left my ID in my room (I'm not a big drinker, so carrying it for alcohol wasn't a big deal for me). I asked the driver how long I'd have to wait for another bus to get back and since these were pre-park-opening busses, it would have been long after I needed to check in. I was trying so hard not to burst into tears as I started down the steps, and then the driver said "Do you know right where it is?" I nodded, and he said "Sit down. We're going to get it." He flipped the bus sign to "Special" or something and got me back to CSR super fast and pulled as close to my building as possible then waited while I ran in to get it and then he got me back to Epcot just in time for me to get to the meeting point for the tour.

He didn't have to do that, but it meant so much to me that he did! And the Dolphins in Depth tour was great! The dolphin I got to interact with, Bob, liked me and tried to take me out into the deeper water. The trainers said he didn't even try to swim with every trainer.
 
SAFD: Guest Experience Team Member has been excellent and made our experience at Disney almost perfect, two times. First time they dealt very nicely with our lack of experience with My Disney App and not having photo filter so we could all see all the pictures. Second time they over heard us after a pin trade that we only need on WDW tenant pin to have all 5 colors. They said they had it and to come back later in the day so they could pick it up on their break.
 
SAFD: In 2018 we had already planned a Disney trip before I decided to run the marathon. Since the marathon was on my oldest son's' birthday we decided to bring him along. We had already bought 7 day passes but the Saturday before the marathon was going to be 15 days before the 14 day window for the passes. We just wanted to switch from a 7 day pass to 8 day pass (much cheaper than buying three one day passes) but knew we had only 14 days from the first use to use all the days. The CM at the resort went in the back and came back with three park hopper passes for my son, wife, and myself for that extra day, no charge. I had another great experience in Italy where I wanted to get a polo shirt but they were having computer problems. After 10 minutes or so of patiently waiting the CM came over and said the shirt is on us, thanks for waiting patiently.

On another note, any idea when runDisney will make the call about MW? Given the timing with the W&D announcement I thought it would have happened already. I just mapped out my training plan and this weekend starts the long (> 13 miles) runs.
 


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