It’s been just over a month now since the closing of Snow White’s Scary Adventures, and the first question pretty much everyone asks me is, “How is Ben doing now that the ride is closed.” Well, I ain’t gonna lie to you, it’s been hard on him. I wrote about Ben's first time back a few weeks ago, which happened on an appropriately gloomy day. The entire visit to the park that day consisted of us walking into Fantasyland, Ben examining the construction walls around The Graveyard Of Snow White’s Scary Adventures (TGOSWSA), and then dejectedly leaving the park. The most positive thing I can say about that visit is that Ben did not have any meltdowns, so I guess he handled it fairly well all things considered.

On our second visit back he again went straight to TGOSWSA, and just seemed generally depressed about it. I took him over to the new Dumbo location, and we actually took a spin around. One of the Cast Members working the ride was a...

This morning I was interviewed by Cody Stark on Good Day Sacramento, talking about Ben's last night on Snow White's Scary Adventures. Head over to their website if you would like to see the video. A big thank you to Cody, he was a lot of fun to talk to and he also wears an awesome bow tie (bow ties are cool!).

My friend Robert just posted a very excellent blog entry describing his experience on the last night of Snow White's Scary Adventures, which includes tons of excellent pictures and a few videos. You can read it at:

Scary Adventure's - The End is Here

This video is from that post, but I thought I should include it here as well. It show's Ben's very last ride, the one where he went all alone on a ride for the first time in his life. Click the "Read More" link to see the video.

My friend Robert just posted an excellent blog entry recounting some of his experiences that last night at Snow White's Scary Adventures. He includes several pictures and videos, and I wanted to share some of them here. Please do go check out his blog as well, you'll find the entry here: Scary Adventures - The End is Near

Twelve days ago Snow White's Scary Adventures at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World was closed forever. It seems almost surreal to think that it no longer exists, and that by now the process of gutting the building is well underway. I have yet to see anything show up on Ebay, but that can't be far away. As a matter of fact, I did leave my business card with the folks at Theme Park Connection in case they should happen to acquire any items from inside the ride. In any case, enough time had passed that we figured we should take Ben to the park and let him see with his own eyes that the ride is really gone.The weather in Central Florida has been miserable pretty much all week. It's nice enough in the morning, but by mid-afternoon the storms start sweeping through. I'm a Seattle boy, born and raised, so rain doesn't bother me much. As for Ben, I sometimes wonder if he even notices something as trivial as the weather. Thursday was the last day of school, and...

After Ben completed his final ride on Snow White's Scary Adventures, we gave our heartfelt thanks to all of the remaining cast members, and then we were escorted out of Fantasyland so that the maintenance workers could get on with the task of erecting the construction walls. Ken thanked us for allowing him to share in the experience of those last half-dozen rides, and then he and Robert left to go back to their respective lodgings for the night. Even though it was well past eleven, Ben was still buzzing from the whole experience and didn't show any signs of winding down. We crossed under the castle and then down through the hub, merging with the last of the lingering crowd on Main street.

By the time we exited the park the monorail was already shut down for the night - we had to wait in line for a ferry boat instead. Ben was starting to agitate about Tinkerbell, so I dug out the Tink ornament that we had purchased at the start of the evening. That placated him at least for a while, but it was clear that he was on the edge of tipping over from happy to tired and cranky. I dearly hoped we would manage to get him all the way to the car before that particular time bomb detonated. Fortunately the boat came quickly. Before long we were walking through the Ticket and Transportation Center en route to the car. Ben stopped to take a photo of a Tinkerbell window decoration, which was when I thought to take a glance at his camera to see if he actually took any pictures during that last solo ride. As a matter of fact, he did capture a shot of his absolute favorite moment of the ride - Bashfull in the mine crying, "She's getting away, hurry!"

The crowd was still cheering as Stacey led our group away from Snow White's Scary Adventures following the official last ride. Just like a few hours earlier, we were taken to a spot in front of The Friar's Nook in order to wait. We watched as Disney security helped guide the remaining guests out of Fantasyland, and as the park quickly emptied out we learned that Stacy had another gift for Ben - a photo CD with more than 80 pictures taken during Snow White's visit with Ben along with four prints of some of the best shots. Ben particularly liked the one from inside the ride with Snow White. I particularly liked the one showing Ben laughing and happy.

Having just spent fifteen solid minutes with Snow White, you might think that Benjamin would need to take a few minutes to digest what had just happened, or even that he might try to follow her to the door she disappeared through. No, Ben just let out another laugh and then led us all back for another round on Snow White's Scary Adventures. His mother and I were still reeling from how amazing the visit was, but Ben was ready to keep going full steam ahead. As he took both our hands and pulled us back to his ride, the best we could do was turn back and mouth "thank you so much!" to Stacey while being dragged away. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, the Twittersphere was lighting up.

My Day In Disney
@24HoursInDisney
Ben is riding #SWSA with Snow White herself. pic.twitter.com/OQWnV7YO
- 7:15pm

Earlier in the week, a few days before the final night of Snow White's Scary Adventures, I had a telephone conversation with Disney cast member Stacey Patrone. We were discussing what might be possible for creating a Magical Moment for Benjamin on the last evening, and coordinating times and such. She couldn't give me any specifics, but we did arrange that whatever happened would be at 7pm. I was very careful to stress to her that my family did not expect Disney to do anything for Ben, and that we were extremely grateful for anything that they did do. My one concern had to do with expectations - I was a little worried that whatever they did, Ben might not seem like he was enjoying it. If you don't know Ben it can be kind of hard to read him, and he can also get overwhelmed if too many people are focused on him. I warned her not to necessarily expect anything like a Kodak moment, but reassured her that whatever she put together I was sure that Ben would enjoy in his own way.

I remember vividly the day, a couple of years ago, that the Fantasyland Expansion was announced at D23. Ben and I were in the park when the news broke, in fact we were standing in the alternate/wheelchair entrance for Snow White's Scary Adventures. I had known the announcement was coming, it was a very poorly kept secret, but the real question was what exactly the expansion would entail. I was so relieved when the detailed announcement did not include any changes to SWSA - I figured that if Disney was spending that much money in Fantasyland and not touching Ben's ride, then she would be safe for at least a decade. I remember having a conversation with the area manager for Fantasyland that afternoon, talking about the big plans and what a relief it was that SWSA was safe. You can imagine my family's distress when, several months later, the expansion plans were radically modified. The space that was going to contain a big Princess meet & greet was scrapped and replaced with the Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride, and SWSA was going to be gutted and turned into a smaller scale Princess meet & greet instead. There were other changes, but that was the only one I cared about. We didn't have a closing date (and wouldn't have one for over a year), but we knew that the end was coming. Ben was losing his favorite place on Earth, the place for which our family had moved cross-country from Seattle to Orlando back in '03.

Before I start telling the story of Ben's final farewell to Snow White's Scary Adventures, I have a long list of people that need to be thanked. Without the efforts of these folks, Ben's last hours with SWSA would have been mostly sad and disappointing. Instead it became one of the most remarkably joyful events that I have ever experienced.

First on the list is Disney cast member Carl Bond. I have known Carl for several years now, having sung with him in the Garden Community Choir. He is a great singer, a great father, and an all around stand-up kind of guy. He also happens to work as an area manager over at Epcot. It was Carl who got the ball rolling on making the 31st a special day for Ben. He might try to say that he didn't do much, he's that sort of person, but he was the initial spark that set things in motion. Without Carl, nothing would have happened.

7/9/10 – 6
7/16/10 - 5
Running total of the number of time Ben has ridden Snow White's Scary Adventures, as of 7/16/10:
3,083

6/24/10 – 12
7/3/10 - 12
Running total of the number of time Ben has ridden Snow White's Scary Adventures, as of 7/3/10:
3,072

6/16/10 - 12
Running total of the number of time Ben has ridden Snow White's Scary Adventures, as of 6/16/10:
3,048

5/08/10 - 9

Running total of the number of time Ben has ridden Snow White's Scary Adventures, as of 5/08/10:

3,036

Before I start the actual story, I need to specifically thank three people who made this all happen. Carl Bond is the Area Manager for Entertainment at Epcot, and it was his initial involvement that got the ball rolling. Without his help none of this would have ever happened. Scott Cook is Carl's counterpart at the Magic Kingdom, and he jumped into action as soon as Carl contacted him. Finally, David Storm is one of the lead Dream Team members at the Magic Kingdom. He really took this story to heart, and created an event that so far exceeded our wildest imagination that I cannot even begin to thank him enough. All three of them will be getting personal letters of thanks from us this week, both directly and to their supervisors so that they can get the recognition they deserve. Yesterday was simply an amazing day all around, a piece of magic that neither Ben nor the rest of our family will ever forget.

In case you somehow missed it, Ben made his 1000th ride on Snow White's Scary Adventures back on April 16th. It was a gala event that featured a meet-and-greet with Snow White herself, who then actually went on the ride with Ben.The week after the big event Ben and I were in the park when we were stopped by one of the regular CMs we see, and she asked me when Ben was going to hit the big 1000. I told her it had already happened, and told her about how it went off, and she said that the Fantasyland cast members still wanted to do something special for Ben. She asked for my phone number, and told me to expect a call in the next few days.Early last week I received a call from Theo Porter, the manager in charge of Fantasyland. He told me that all of the people in Fantasyland were very excited to hear about Ben's acheivement, and wanted to do something special for him. We agreed that Ben would stop by City Hall on Main Street yesterday at 1:30 for a special treat.So yesterday Ben, Kris and I arrived at City Hall...

Buckle up, folks, this is going to be a long one.

Last weekend between Saturday and Sunday, Ben rode Snow White's Scary Adventures 33 times - bringing his running total to 987 and effectively ensuring that this weekend would see his 1000th ride.  Everybody was very excited about this but Ben, who probably thinks in binary and doesn't see any particular value in the number 1111101000.