Autistic son advice required re planning

[Guest]

Hi my 10 year old son has high functioning Autism. I wondered if anyone had any advice re quiet places to watch evening shows. Restaurant recommendations as he is quiet restrictive of what he eats. Pasta mainly. He struggles with sensory overload so any help or advice would be great.

[Megandllsmum]

My little girl is 10 and also has high functioning autism, we really struggled with watching shows in the evenings, the only one she was comfortable with was fireworks at magic kingdom, but then even with ear defenders she had her hands over her ears the whole time but did enjoy them. The other night time shows we have never managed to see, the daytime shows in parks we were fine unless they were in the dark and again we struggled, anything 3d she refused to wear the glasses... Despite being a glasses wearer herself.
Eating we found buffet style best that way she could study the food and pick what she wanted, even if that meant dry pasta and crusty bread it was what she wanted to eat so didn't mind... She didn't seem so picky with deserts lol. Seating for shows most places have designated areas to sit, this was never a problem when we mentioned our DAS or similar in other parks, we often preferred to sit near to exits just in case we had to make a quick getaway.

[Guest]

Thank you were there any restaurants you could recommend.

[Mylittleminion]

I found my 6 year old struggled with the waiting for the evening shows to start even with fastpass/priority seating you can still have a 30 mins plus wait. We sat as close to the back/exit as possible so if we needed to leave we could do so with minimal disruption to others but he coped ok once they actually started. We did use ear defenders and took a fleece blanket he used to cover his head which is one of our go calming methods.

Food wise buffets can be a good option but the character ones can be really noisy at peak times plus it can take a long time for all the characters to come round.We ended up doing crystal palace at 9pm later than I'd wanted but all they had left when I rescheduled last minute however it actually worked really well it was really quiet we saw all the characters in about 20 mins if that I actually waited longer for my chef cooked allergy meal and we were out in time for the fireworks.
Most places are happy to accommodate needs where they can and asking for things plain/no sauce ect is usually no problem.
Places like the grand floridan cafe are a bit less popular and as such tend to be less busy/quieter
Also planning meals outside of the main/peak dining times can be helpful if he struggles with too many people.

We had a really great meal at yak & yeti but he did struggle with wait (35 mins past adr)and the noise level which did trigger a small meltdown but thankfully we were seated upstairs so it was not as busy and not as loud as I think had we been downstairs we would have had to leave.

The other big trigger for us was the large crowds when entering/ leaving the parks. We worked round this by going a bit later or leaving a bit earlier when possible but I did have a very flexible plan with all our adrs/fastpasses booked for lunchtime on wards so we didn't have to rush first thing allowing him time to get ready at his own pace which makes for a better start to the day.

[Guest]

Thank you thats really helpful. Have put the yak and yeti on our planner. X