Hayley's Magical Make A Wish Trip

[rcq925]

So as promised I am starting Hayley's trip report!! I will not have any of the photo pass pictures, but I have over 700 of my own!

If you would like to read the back story, please read the PTR linked in my signature before reading the TR!

Day 1- Saturday November 13th

We woke up very excited for the day to begin. We finished last minute packing and then got a visit from one our our Make A Wish volunteers, Karen. She made us some yummy chocolate chip cookies and some candy snack to have in the hotel and on the plane!! So sweet of her!

We then went out to late breakfast/lunch with Grandma and ran into our other Make A Wish Volunteer, Kathy, at the restaurant! How funny!

The limo arrived right on schedule at 1:00pm. It was a black limo and Hayley was hoping for a white limo, but once the kids got inside, she did not care about the color of the limo anymore! They were so excited. Grandma was there to see us off and several of our neighbors came out and took pictures and helped send us off!

We arrived in Indianapolis after a fast 2 hour drive in the limo! Our driver made great time and we got checked into our hotel near the airport for the night. I forgot to take pictures of the hotel room, it was nothing special, just a room. My sister and nephew came to visit and take us out to eat because we had no vehicle and no restaurants in walking distance of the hotel. I did take this picture in the hotel room.

We ate a nice dinner and then back to the hotel for an hour of vest and breathing treatments and were off to bed early! We had to be at the airport at 5am the next morning for our flight and the airport shuttle was leaving at 4:30am!

 

[rcq925]

Day 2- Sunday, November 14th

So the alarm went off at 3:30am Up we got and got all ready! We were SO EXCITED!! We hopped on the airport shuttle van with all 5 of our suitcases and all of our carryons, plus Hayley's vest, we must have looked like we were moving in!

Arrived at the airport and the driver dropped us off at the door right out side Air Tran. Bags were checked in with no problems and no line! Baggage fees were waived due to it being a Make A Wish Trip! (Saved us $85 each way!!)

We then made it to McDonald's in the airport and grabbed a quick bite to eat, we were hungry!! Then made our way through security. It was pretty uneventful, but we took up about 12 bins with all of our stuff going through! We had Hayley's vest and hubby's CPAP machine, a lot of meds, Nintendo DS's systems, MP3 players, cameras, ect. But we made it through!

We talked with a nice woman at our gate who offered to take a picture of all four of us!

We met so many nice people along the way, in lines or at the airport! Just friendly people everywhere!

The plane boarded and left on time and actually landed about 7 minutes early! Then it was time for our first ride, the tram at the Orlando airport!

We got off and out the door and found our Give Kids the World (GKTW) greeter right away! I totally forgot to write down her name, but she was very nice and from the United Kingdom with a really cool accent! She was fast and really trucking through the airport to the baggage claims, we were practically running to keep up with her

We waited for what seemed like FOREVER and finally collected all five of our suitcases. We then crossed the street, grabbed our white minivan, a booster seat and we were off! A quick pit stop at Wal-Mart by GKTW for some Pepsi products (does everyone in Florida only drink Coke?) We love Pepsi! And we loved Sea World because it was the only park we could get Pepsi prodcts! Also picked up a few snacks and some water and then we were off again for our 1 mile drive down the rode to GKTW!!!

Finally we saw this!

Then this!

Woo Hoo!!! We were FINALLY at Give Kids the World!!

Wow, it was so amazing! We quickly checked in, got our keys to the villa and were off to our home for the next week.

We stayed in villa 216, which was in the perfect location! Right next to the large new pool and splash pad and practically right across the street from the Gingerbread House on one side and Keaton's Corral (where they do the horseback riding on Wednesdays and Saturdays) on the other side.

Following are lots of pictures of the inside of our villa.

http://s958.photobucket.com/albums/ae62/rcq925/Make A Wish trip/?action=view&current=IMG_5617.jpg

See next post as I could only post a certain amount of pictures in each post!

 

[brookerene]

Sounds like a great trip! I look forward to following it al!

 

[rcq925]

Continued ...

Short note, I loved this large stand up shower! Wish I had one at home!

So that is a short tour of our villa. I forgot to take pictgures of the treats on the table and in the fridge. But we did have goodies waiting for us in the villa. We basically unpacked all of our stuff and ordered some food from Katie's Kitchen for lunch. To be honest the food was not that good We do not have Boston Market in our city and had never had it before, needless to say, we were not impressed and this was the one and only time we ate a meal from Katie's Kitchen.

Coming up the rest of day two. Our exploration of GKTW, a short trip to Downtown Disney and dinner at T-Rex! We also received our first pixie dust!

 

[Happy Dreams1]

Very great start! Im soo excited to read and see the rest of your trip report! You family is soo beautiful!

 

[xanphylus]

Wahoo! Great start! I have to agree on the Boston Market thing..... if you hit it on a good day- it can be very yummy, but hit it on an off day, and you never wanna go back.

Love all the pics & can't wait to read more!

 

[Emilyswish]

ooooh, great start.

I'll be following along!

 

[Bearshouse]

Awesome start!!

Bearshouse

 

[HeatherSP]

Thanks so much for posting so many pics. This is the first time I get to follow along on a trip report so I am so excited to see everything. It looks like you guys were off to a great start. You mentioned a booster seat for the rental car and I never even thought of that. I have 3 kids in car seats. Do they supply them for free?

 

[rcq925]

Thanks so much for posting so many pics. This is the first time I get to follow along on a trip report so I am so excited to see everything. It looks like you guys were off to a great start. You mentioned a booster seat for the rental car and I never even thought of that. I have 3 kids in car seats. Do they supply them for free?

Yes they did supply the booster seat for free. MAW rented our car from Alamo/National and they had all kinds of booster seats and infant/toddler seats. They were all wrapped in plastic bags and they told us just to grab one!

 

[Mom2mitokids]

Great start to you TR. I can't wait to read the rest.

 

[cajunfan]

I can't wait to hear more! And I LOVE the pictures!

 

[15isto2]

Great report so far

 

[kaileighbug]

I love seeing all the pictures of GKTW. I used to volunteer there in 1994. We used to go down on Friday nights to help with dinner in the gingerbread house. I had so much fun. I hope your trip went well.

 

[rcq925]

Sorry for the delay. I came back to add more to my TR and it somehow got moved to the completed trips and I could not add anything to it! I got ahold of a moderator and it is all fixed now!

So after unpacking a little bit we went to explore the village. We stopped first at the Castle of Miracles. Wow is it cool inside!!

Then a ride on the carousel and a trip to the Ice Cream shop for our first of many ice creams! Then onto Amberville, where we played games and rode the train!

The kids were dying to swim, so off we went to the pool! They were the only ones who got in and they did not stay in long, as something was wrong with the heater on the pool all week and it was freezing!! So back to the villa we went. I went to the 2:30pm orientation and everyone else took a nap.

When I got back from orientation, I woke everyone up and we hopped in the rental van and headed for Downtown Disney. We decided we were hungry, so we walked up to the guest stand at T-Rex. Guess what, no wait!!

This place was really cool inside and I am so glad we got to eat there. The food was okay, a little pricey, but we also received some wonderful pixie dust

FREE KIDS MEALS!!! Because we were on a MAW Trip! Our server was fantastic and we really enjoyed it!

Then we explored Downtown Disney very quickly, looked in the Lego Store and explored the wonderfully huge World of Disney Store!

It was then back to the villa because we wanted to catch the Candyland Game. It was okay, but nothing too exciting. The kids loved the play ground. We hoped to get back to it, but sadly this was our only visit

They had all kinds of things going on! Life size games of Jenga, Connect Four , and Checker. Nathan and I played a fun game of checkers!

And we met the gingerbread man, Murphy!!

Then it was back to the villa to get ready for bed! We had to be up early the next day for our 9am ADR at Cinderella's Castle and we could not wait to get to Magic Kingdom!!

 

[Mom2mitokids]

Yeah!!! More TR. I will have to check out T Rex. That place looks cool. Is it simular to Rain forest Cafe?

 

[hollie1974]

Just subbed! Your kids are so cute! Can't wait to read more about your trip!

 

[bamaslp]

Enjoying your report so far! How exciting for your family!

 

[kaileighbug]

woo hoo an update The kids look so cute with Murphy. Too bad the heater wasn't working the pool looked like fun.