Where have your Tips and Suggestions moved to?

We have been working with Autism Double-Checked in order to get airlines, visitor attractions, hotel and resorts to become more autism-friendly. We have moved Tips and Suggestions to their site: Click here.

Will you charge me for your services ?

We charge nothing. We are paid by the vendors and there is no price difference between us and any other booking method. We are able, in most cases, to access the same deals as the mega-sites.

For our Groups, our aides charge nothing. They are all volunteers. Of course, there is a cost to getting the volunteers to the destination and to accommodating them while they are there. Those costs are kept to a minimum and are shared between a number of families, again so as to limit the cost impact on your family.

Since you are paid by the vendors, does this affect your choice of resorts or cruises that you will recommend to me ?

Absolutely not !The travel industry is more dependent on repeat and referral business than most. By putting client needs first, we get those in plenty. Our choices are built around who provides the best facilities for our families and, even more importantly, who will adapt their standard offering to tailor to the individual needs of our guests. Your needs are our sole basis for our recommendations.

My child doesn’t have a formal diagnosis of ASD. Can you still help me ?

Yes, we can and we’ll do so with pleasure. We give you the same level of service and care whether your child has a formal diagnosis or not. Come to that, we do that even if your child has some other disability or issue rather than ASD.

How customized are your vacations? Will they be tailored to my family’s needs or is there just a list to choose from?

Absolutely every family gets their own customized vacation. If you choose to travel with a group, we can still customize all aspects of the experience to work with your family’s needs.

Your advantages with a group are that support costs are shared between a number of families and it provides a chance to meet similar families. This is especially great for typically developing siblings. Nobody else knows how their lives are impacted quite so well as another sibling in the same boat. We still tailor to the individual special needs guest and your family, taking into account degree of disability, communication needs and special dietary needs to name just three areas. Of course, you can choose when and if you join in group activities.

We also arrange for totally customized vacations for individual families. This will work better if you find the group dates inconvenient or prefer, for any reason, not to be with a group. Here, obviously, anything is possible in terms of dates, destination and support. Our experience in serving the luxury travel market really pays off for you here. We are totally tuned in to looking at every detail to make sure that it matches your needs precisely.

Are these vacations only offered at certain times or can my family arrange for such a vacation any time?

Group vacations are for set times and places. Where we can, we try to arrange them so that they fall during school breaks so that you don’t have to take your children out of school. However, if those dates don’t work and you have friends that wish to travel with you, we can build you your own mini-group.

Individual family vacations can be for any dates that work for you.

You offer respite care but I worry and find it difficult to trust others to care for my child. How can you put my mind at ease ?

Our expertise is in vacations and not in Autism. That’s why we work in conjunction with partners who are experts in caring for people with Autism. For Beaches all of the child care staff have been trained by IBCCES. For Tradewinds, we work with C.A.R.D. and for cruises we work with Autism on the Seas. Their part of this is the recruiting, screening and training of our aides. In every case, they are the sort of organization that you work with at home for support and you can absolutely rely on them.

That said, remember that we live with Autism on a 24/7 basis. We’ve dealt with the indifference, even hostility, of school districts, government departments and health insurance companies. That indifference is as unacceptable to us as it is to you. We do everything possible to ensure that your child is safe and has appropriate fun. We know that this is the only way that you’ll be able to relax and make use of the respite time.