Jacob's MaW SWW Pre-trip story and plans, so excited!

[ncarolinababyblue]

Hey Guys, I've been lurking around reading everyone's MaW pre and post trip reports and gathering as much information as possible for our upcoming trip and decided that I should post our Pre Trip plan ect. So.... Here I am :-D

My son, Jacob, is having his wish granted by MaW to go to WDW May 29-June 4. My son was born with a CHD(Congenital Heart Defect) and will be having open heart surgery sometime soon. My son is a warrior and a fighter, besides being a CHD survivor/fighter he's also a child abuse survivor(bio-mom broke his leg, wrist and arm when he was quite young). Knowing that he was going to need surgery soon and after being told by several people that I should look into seeing if he'd qualify for a wish through Make A Wish I decided to send in a referral for him. I honestly didn't think he'd be picked to be a wish, because while he is sick and he doesn't get to do a lot of the same things as a lot of kids, I assumed since his condition wasn't fatal he wouldn't get picked. I was in such a state of shock when the ladies from Eastern NC Make A Wish called us that I seriously didn't know how to react when she called to tell us Jacob was picked to have a wish granted. I was actually at work at the time and Thanked the lady in the same way that I thank any of my patients(I work in a Doctors office) as they leave. I was sitting in my Lab... Staring at my phone when one of the Nurses walked in and asked me what was wrong and I started bawling. It took that long for it to register that my family was getting this trip of a life time granted to us by the MaW program. I immediately picked up my phone and called her right back and Thanked her, cried, thanked her, cried and thanked her again. LOL. I know she was probably thinking I was quite crazy for having such a delayed reaction but it was seriously so unbelievable that this was happening for my son and family that it just... It just... It didn't register.

When I spoke with the MaW team that is around here I told them how Jacob and the rest of us are HUGE Star Wars fans. Ridiculously Huge Star Wars fans..... Pretty much all of our animals are named after Star Wars Characters (with the exception of Jacob's gecko Bowzer). Fast forward a few months, and the ladies at MaW call us and let us know the dates and inform us that they have planned our trip to conincide with Star Wars Weekend. When we told Jacob this if he could have he would have done back flips ALL over the place.

So here we are, we're about two weeks away from our trip to WDW. It'll be my son(Jacob 11 wish kid), my daughter (KK 7), my daughter (Irelyn 1), myself (Jackie aka Mom 27), and my husband (Jon aka Dad 29) and we're staying at the GKTW village/resort place. It's our first vacation, our first time flying, our first time ever outside of coastal NC and of course our first Disney trip. I'm so excited and anxious. I'm not a huge fan of surprises so I'm trying to plan as much as possible but I'm not sure of how to go about it. I'm really nervous bc my husband and I, although we both work full time, don't make enough to bring any extra $$ with us so all we will have is what MaW gives us as far as spending money goes. I'm also really nervous because, as I have said we've never been on anything like this before and I know chances are we'll never again be able to do something like this, so I want to make this trip as perfect as possible for my son and daughters. I want them to remember it FOREVER (of course the baby wont, but I know the bigs will). I'm also, absolutely TERRIFIED of flying, but I'm going to conquer this like a champ.... Right? Right....

I will update this as we get closer, any tips, tricks, personal experiences, words of encouragement, ANYTHING at all will be greatly appreciated. Thank you guys so much for all of your great posts, and I hope you all had a great experience when you guys were there!! So excited! Talk to you

 

[ncarolinababyblue]

Sorry to update right away. :-D

So I told my husband that instead of spending alot of $ we dont have on new summer clothes and outfits that we should just get some of those packs of white t-shirts that are sold as undershirts. Those would be thin and cool, easily cleaned, we'd all match and I could decorate them if I wanted. We can also get the baby a pack of white onsies for the same reason.

I was also thinking of sacrificing a few Teddy Bear ears and making the girls and I some homemade Ewok headbands to wear. I was thinking of writing on some of the shirts something Star Wars related such as "The Force Is Strong With Me" with our last names and make a wish written on it. It'd be relatively simple with a few pretty sharpies.

I called and made reservations for the Hollywood and Vine Star Wars Dinner with Jedi Mickey for Jacob. He has NO IDEA, and will be completely thrilled. I plan on this being our only "special" dinner. I figured we could use our passes for Disney World May 31, June 1 and 2.

I'm thinking the day we arrive, May 29 we'll just hang out around the Village and rest after traveling. I'm trying my best to remember where we'll have our tickets too but for some reason Sea World and Legoland are what stick out in my mind. So I was thinking May 30 we'll go to Sea World and June 3 we'll go to LegoLand. I know that on May 31, June 1, or June 2 I want to get to WDW early enough for the Storm Troopers Storming the gates show. Oh boy do I need to get better organized.

Ok... this is all for now... I almost promise. ;-)

 

[karebear23]

So exciting!! I hope you have a great trip!!! Try not to stress about it too much. Everything will come together and you will have a great time! LEGOLAND is pretty low key and not very busy like WDW.

Not sure If you have tickets yet. If you do schedule your FP+!
I think we are going Sat for SWW. We are going the 1st weekend in June too!

 

[ncarolinababyblue]

13 days!!!!! How do you schedule the fp+? You'll have to tell me how you enjoyed SWW!!! I hope you have a great time!!!

 

[ncarolinababyblue]

Only 9 days!!!! Our wish granters came to Jacob's last soccer game on Saturday to cheer him on and give us everything related to our trip. The kids are getting excited and I'm getting anxious. Can't wait to go. I am a little concerned about the heat since Jacob has been having some issues with becoming quite tired rather quickly when being out in the heat. I'm just going to hope that with frequent breaks and lots of water we'll be fine while waiting in line.

 

[karebear23]

Only 9 days!!!! Our wish granters came to Jacob's last soccer game on Saturday to cheer him on and give us everything related to our trip. The kids are getting excited and I'm getting anxious. Can't wait to go. I am a little concerned about the heat since Jacob has been having some issues with becoming quite tired rather quickly when being out in the heat. I'm just going to hope that with frequent breaks and lots of water we'll be fine while waiting in line.

Woohoo 9 days! How exciting. FP+ is like the old FP but now you have to schedule them online or in the My Disney experience app. So you can have a shorter wait in line. But if you are going on a MAW trip they usually give you a pass so you won't have to wait as long.

We had fun at SWW. But the kids wanted to play on the HISTK playground lol. So we did that half of the day! Here are 2 pics I snapped. DS was too afraid of most of the SW characters. We are going back in a couple weeks and we will try to meet more SW people .

 

[mamamaleficent]

Joining in! Just a few more days till your big trip!!!