It is a regular cruise, and essentially "Autism on the Seas" is a bunch of assistive services that parents can buy while on the ship. It includes communicating with the cruise line and organizing whatever accommodations the person needs, and up to 4 hours of respite services per day, plus a single 3-hour respite session during a dinner service so parents can have a dinner alone. The caregiver-to-client ratio is usually 1:2 but parents can request a 1:1. There's also additional services they can provide like planning accessible activities for the client/family, helping with boarding and disembarking, and supervised pool times. (There's a note on the AotS website that most cruises require people to be potty trained to use the pool...so keep your eyes peeled for Abbie in the pool with respite, that will be an indicator of whether A&P are claiming she's potty trained or not.) Interestingly, parents can also request AotS staff for extra respite hours, and the AotS staff cannot charge for this but parents are encouraged by AotS to tip. Wonder if any of these volunteers will see a dime from the Maasses for all the extra time I'm sure they'll book.
Last time they did one of these cruises, Abbie seemed to prefer respite to pretty much everything else...it was the only quiet place on the ship, where she could be away from all the flashing lights and noises and her parents' whew-hewing. I hope for her sake that whatever deal Ass struck with AotS includes extra time in the respite room for Abbie. She's the only member of the family who actually deserves a vacation.
To be fair, in a lot of fields, the beginning of a job is usually the easiest time to get off, because your vacation plans are pre-existing...you tell them up front that you won't be available at that time when negotiating your start date. Especially fields that are hiring new grads, and especially especially fields that are hiring new grads who need to obtain some sort of certification before they can start working. For example, spring graduate nurses usually graduate in late May, take their NCLEX in early June, and get their licenses approved in mid-to-late June if they pass on the first try. They will interview for positions during that time period with any job offers being conditional on passing the NCLEX and getting a license without issue...since people might need to re-test, send in additional paperwork for licensing, attend classes, etc. start dates can be a bit of a moving target, so organizations are pretty flexible about exactly when new hires will report to work. I had a few chunks of time off when I started my job, some for education, and some for pre-existing family vacations/events. One of my friends recently started a new job at a nursing home, but had also agreed to work at a summer camp for two weeks later in the summer...so the nursing home let her work for like a month, then let her go off to summer camp for two weeks, and then come back and continue the rest of her orientation.