Misty Krueger

We spent four official days at Disney World and visited three parks. We knew we’d need two days at Magic Kingdom (MK) because there are so many rides at that park we wanted to ride at least once. So, on May 14 and 16 we went to MK. I also love that the abbreviation for that park and my own initials are the same. 🙂

We took as many pics as we could at the parks, and here are a couple from the first few moments of our first day at MK as well as one from the last few moments of our second day at MK.

Before we went to Disney World our planner told us about a special kind of pass I might be eligible for–the DAS pass. DAS stands for Disability Access Service. There’s no one way to be eligible for the pass, but it focuses mostly on providing a service to people who have difficulty standing in a line for a long time. This does not apply to everyone with a physical disability, though. A person who is in a wheelchair, for instance, is not automatically given a pass. Said person might even request one and be denied.

So, how did I get one? It has to do with the side effects of my cancer treatment–not the cancer in my bones, which make it painful to stand for a long time. I have some unpleasant gastrointestinal side effects of my treatment, and I won’t go into them here, but let’s say that sometimes I need to get to a restroom ASAP. Disney mostly gives passes to people with neurological and developmental disabilities, but if you tell them about conditions such as mine they are open to providing this pass for free. Thanks to the pass I was able to reserve a place in line and return later to enter that line. It helped me in so many ways, and I am grateful that the planner let me know about it. Otherwise, I would have not gotten a pass. It’s not apparent on the website that this is an option.

I rode favorite rides I had been on before, such as Jungle Cruise and Haunted Mansion, but I also rode new-to-me rides, including the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and TRON. Here are some pics from the rides.

The pics below are of the Seven Dwarf and TRON rides. The Snow White ride typically has a long queue–like an hour! But when you use the pass or ride during the fireworks spectacular you can get on without much of a wait.

To even get a spot in the queue for TRON you have to get up before 7 a.m. and try to get a reservation window. It’s that popular.

Note that most people ride the TRON ride leaning over the lightcycle, but because of my back pain and chest port I asked if I could ride in the back car where I could sit up straight. For reference I’m including pics of my sis and me and one of my bro-in-law.

I had a lot of fun on the TRON ride and realized something about myself. I used to be scared of “thrill rides” (that’s what they’re called). I’m not scared anymore. I attribute this to all the shit I’ve been through with cancer. I mean, I get poked in the chest with a huge needle on a biweekly, sometimes weekly, and sometimes more than once a week basis. How’s a silly roller coaster gonna scare me now?

Going to Disney World is not simply about the rides. There are character meetings, too. Of course, one must get a Mickey pic–or ten! 🙂 Here’s one of the fam while I played a trick on Mr. Mouse.

And there’s the dining! On our first day we had lunch at the Skipper Canteen in Adventureland. It’s got that Jungle Cruise vibe going on.

On the second day we had lunch in the Liberty Square part of the park, and can you believe I ate a lobster roll at Disney World? Yup.

On our second night at MK we had dinner at Tony’s–modeled after the restaurant Lady and the Tramp went to on their first date.

You might notice that in this blog I haven’t talked about a second dinner. Well, that’s because we didn’t eat dinner one night due an unfortunate event at a quick meal restaurant.

We were all set to eat some burgers and Mexican food at Pecos Bill in Frontierland, and we decided to sit along the wall next to the walkway in the restaurant. Lacy and her family sat at one table, and my mom and I sat at an adjacent table. We had ordered our food through the app and were waiting for the notification that our food was ready for pickup when a guy walked by and mom and I suddenly got wet.

We thought the guy had a drink in his hand and dropped it thus spilling the drink on us, but no, that was just the first moment the guy was actually throwing up on us. He threw up three times on us. THREE TIMES.

My mom was covered in it. I was covered in it. My phone was covered in it. Everything my mom and I had with us was covered in it. And there was a lot. I mean, I was shocked that much fluid and pieces of food could come out of one person at a time.

So there we sat looking like we’d been slimed in the film Ghostbusters. Alas, we didn’t take any pictures. I sat there yelling for someone to get napkins to clean up and disinfectant to help wipe off the vomit. I could go into the details of how hard it was to get the employees to help due to a language barrier and how many expletives that dropped from my mouth, but I’ll just say that this was an event that traumatized me for a day.

I kept thinking: I have cancer. I have cancer. I have cancer. I kept thinking: what if this guy has Covid or some stomach illness. What if I get it. What ifs were aplenty. My bro-in-law went to the bathroom to get some paper towels to help clean up and he ran into the vomiter who said he had motion sickness. He said to my bro he was sorry. That made me feel a little better.

We got the restaurant to comp our food, and they gave us a pass for new t-shirts to replace the ones we wore. And we left. I was pretty freaked out. I cleaned myself off in the bathroom as best I could. I walked as fast as I could to the bus to get to the hotel. And I stripped down those clothes and went swimming and took a shower. My sister and brother-in-law washed my clothes. And eventually I ate a sandwich that night. For the next three days I made a joke about not getting thrown up on.

In the end, despite the wtf moments of being barfed on, we had a great time at MK.

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In my next blog post I will talk about my birthday at Epcot! 🙂