buzzlightyear1977
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2017
Our family is going a Make a Wish trip to Florida for our daughter, Amelia.
We are staying at Give Kids the World.
Our story might as well start at Disney World - in November 2015 my family enjoyed a truly magical vacation together at Disney. We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort and had an amazing week together in the parks and in the hotel pool. Just a few months later our lives changed forever, our daughter Amelia was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma in January 2016 and we spent the year fighting back against the cancer with 12 rounds of chemotherapy and surgery to remove her left clavicle. Treatment was hard and Amelia had 41 blood transfusions to support her throughout, we THANK everyone who gives blood and encourage you to donate if you are able.
But now we are going on her Wish Trip! And this is our plan so far -
We fly in on Saturday Feb 11 and return home on Feb 17.
On Saturday Depending on what time we get to the GKTW resort and do their orientation we might try to go to Universal Florida since they have a Mardis Gras party and are open until 9pm that night. Our flight comes in at 12:30 so we should be able to get something fun in on Saturday.
On Sunday We plan to visit Epcot and have a dinner reservation for someteen people at the Biergarten for a victory party. We have a number of close family in Florida and we plan for this day to have a lot of people joining us. They are all Disney regulars, one drives the monorails, so we are not too worried about them feeling like they are missing out if we use our pass to get right onto rides and maybe they can't come along. Epcot has a lot of stuff that works with a group anyway.
On Monday we plan to either SeaWorld Discovery Cove or do the morning in Hollywood Studios and then head to the Magic Kingdom. Whatever we don't do monday, we would do Thursday.
At Hollywood Studios Amelia wants to do Toy Story, Rock'n Roller Coaster, and the Tower of Terror - on our trip just before she was diagnosed she did her first looping coaster ride and wants to do it again.
At SeaWorld we get passes to the theme park with our Wish Trip, but we plan to splurge and spend a morning at Discovery Cove. So we will get there are 7:15am, eat breakfast, and go swimming. We will get the Dolphin experience for Amelia and it should be an amazing day. I'm a little worried because it is February, but they do provide wetsuits. And their website says the water is 70 and up. In New Jersey that's about how warm the ocean gets in the Summer. The plan was to do Discovery Cove in the morning and go to Sea World in the afternoon to catch a couple of the shows. There is the dolphin show at 4:30pm and the Orca show at 6pm, or 1 and 3:30 if we get wrinkly or cold early at Discovery Cove. I hear the dolphin show is better than the Orca show? Depending on when we finish at Discovery Cove we could possibly see both if we can get to the show by 1pm.
On Tuesday, Valentines Day, we have breakfast reservations at CRT at 8:25 (worried about when to leave GKTW - by 7:15?), we have dinner reservations at Tony's with Grandpa and Grandma.
On the last trip they have saved prime spaces for us to view the fireworks, hopefully they will do the same for us this time!
On Wednesday our plan is to go to Islands of Adventure and Universal, but this day could be interchanged with either Monday or Thursday easily.
On Thursday the plan was SEE Monday. I am leaning toward making Thursday a Disney day. It will balance out our trip better and I just noticed there is an After Hours event at the Magic Kingdom that night, so we could splurge and get 3 hours in the park with virtually no lines to cap off our trip. Seeing it in writing here makes me really want to do it.
On Friday we go home around 4pm, we plan to spend the day exploring the Give Kids the World resort, and maybe even possible to catch a 12:15pm show at Sea World on the way to the airport if we felt like we missed something on our Sea World day, that might be a stretch.
We have been to Disney before a bunch of times, we're not really worried about missing or seeing any particular thing. This trip is about Amelia, a chance for our family to heal and enjoy life, a chance to feel like things can be like before and more.
We are staying at Give Kids the World.
Our story might as well start at Disney World - in November 2015 my family enjoyed a truly magical vacation together at Disney. We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort and had an amazing week together in the parks and in the hotel pool. Just a few months later our lives changed forever, our daughter Amelia was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma in January 2016 and we spent the year fighting back against the cancer with 12 rounds of chemotherapy and surgery to remove her left clavicle. Treatment was hard and Amelia had 41 blood transfusions to support her throughout, we THANK everyone who gives blood and encourage you to donate if you are able.
But now we are going on her Wish Trip! And this is our plan so far -
We fly in on Saturday Feb 11 and return home on Feb 17.
On Saturday Depending on what time we get to the GKTW resort and do their orientation we might try to go to Universal Florida since they have a Mardis Gras party and are open until 9pm that night. Our flight comes in at 12:30 so we should be able to get something fun in on Saturday.
On Sunday We plan to visit Epcot and have a dinner reservation for someteen people at the Biergarten for a victory party. We have a number of close family in Florida and we plan for this day to have a lot of people joining us. They are all Disney regulars, one drives the monorails, so we are not too worried about them feeling like they are missing out if we use our pass to get right onto rides and maybe they can't come along. Epcot has a lot of stuff that works with a group anyway.
On Monday we plan to either SeaWorld Discovery Cove or do the morning in Hollywood Studios and then head to the Magic Kingdom. Whatever we don't do monday, we would do Thursday.
At Hollywood Studios Amelia wants to do Toy Story, Rock'n Roller Coaster, and the Tower of Terror - on our trip just before she was diagnosed she did her first looping coaster ride and wants to do it again.
At SeaWorld we get passes to the theme park with our Wish Trip, but we plan to splurge and spend a morning at Discovery Cove. So we will get there are 7:15am, eat breakfast, and go swimming. We will get the Dolphin experience for Amelia and it should be an amazing day. I'm a little worried because it is February, but they do provide wetsuits. And their website says the water is 70 and up. In New Jersey that's about how warm the ocean gets in the Summer. The plan was to do Discovery Cove in the morning and go to Sea World in the afternoon to catch a couple of the shows. There is the dolphin show at 4:30pm and the Orca show at 6pm, or 1 and 3:30 if we get wrinkly or cold early at Discovery Cove. I hear the dolphin show is better than the Orca show? Depending on when we finish at Discovery Cove we could possibly see both if we can get to the show by 1pm.
On Tuesday, Valentines Day, we have breakfast reservations at CRT at 8:25 (worried about when to leave GKTW - by 7:15?), we have dinner reservations at Tony's with Grandpa and Grandma.
On the last trip they have saved prime spaces for us to view the fireworks, hopefully they will do the same for us this time!
On Wednesday our plan is to go to Islands of Adventure and Universal, but this day could be interchanged with either Monday or Thursday easily.
On Thursday the plan was SEE Monday. I am leaning toward making Thursday a Disney day. It will balance out our trip better and I just noticed there is an After Hours event at the Magic Kingdom that night, so we could splurge and get 3 hours in the park with virtually no lines to cap off our trip. Seeing it in writing here makes me really want to do it.
On Friday we go home around 4pm, we plan to spend the day exploring the Give Kids the World resort, and maybe even possible to catch a 12:15pm show at Sea World on the way to the airport if we felt like we missed something on our Sea World day, that might be a stretch.
We have been to Disney before a bunch of times, we're not really worried about missing or seeing any particular thing. This trip is about Amelia, a chance for our family to heal and enjoy life, a chance to feel like things can be like before and more.
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