Luke's Wish Trip May 16-22

[Corrine 1973]

OMG!!!! I just relized that your trip is tomarrow.

Have a great trip, I can't wait to start reading you TR when you get home.

 

[kdzbear]

Have a fabulous trip!

 

[mlbarbian]

Michelle,

I have enjoyed your trip report and love the pix, your kids are sooo cute!

I just checked, before I head out to work, and the gift for your family is on the fedex truck for delivery.

I hope you have a wonderful trip and can't wait to read all about it when you get back.

Tracie

We did get the shirts today, I love them (and so does Luke, Madeleine doesn't know any difference).

Thank you so much for making them for us!!!
Michelle

 

[mlbarbian]

Well, we leave tomorrow, I can't believe it's already here. I feel pretty confident that everything is packed and ready (except the last minute things, which when you have kids is a lot). The limo picks us up at 10am, and our flight leaves at 12:30pm.

I don't think we will have access to internet while gone, so I will have to update when we get home (we are taking our journal with us to make sure we document everything).

Michelle

 

[that's nice]

Have a great trip!!!!!!!!!!

 

[maroo]

Have an awesome trip!!!!

 

[mlbarbian]

Well, we actually got home on Friday, but it has been crazy getting settled back in. I have written out day 1 of our trip, but that's as far as I have gotten. Here it goes:

Day 1 – Saturday May 16th
A limo picked us up at our house at 10 am to take us to the airport. Luke loved the ride, he didn’t have to sit in a car seat, just a seat belt. We got to the airport and went to the desk to check in for our flight. The man helping us waived our baggage fees since we were on a wish trip, he was so nice. The flight was a little difficult. The plane was set up to have three seats per row on each side, so we were separated. Kevin sat with Madeleine, and I sat with Luke. Pretty much right after take off, Kevin took Madeleine out of her car seat, and she wanted me, so he handed her off to me (I now have both kids). Kevin was able to get a little nap in, must be nice. When we got off the plane, we were met by a man from Give Kids The World (GKTW) (the village we were staying at). He took us to get our bags and then took us to get our rental car.
We checked in at GKTW, both kids had fallen asleep in the car, but they wanted them to come in because they had gifts for each of them. Luke got a Mickey Mouse that talks, and Madeleine got a Shamu stuffed animal. The woman then showed us to our cottage. We had a two bedroom, two bath cottage. These villas are set up so that the wish child gets the master bedroom, so the master bath was in the room with two twin beds. Luke slept with us, so Madeleine’s crib was in the other room. We never even used the master bath, which was very nice.
It was now about 4:00 pm and I had orientation at 7:45 pm, so we decided to stick around the village and check everything out. We first went to the train station, so Luke could ride the train. They also had a huge train display indoors with buttons for the kids to push to turn on different things within the display. I think this was Luke’s favorite thing of the whole week (yes including Disney), he could have spent a whole day in there watching the trains. We rode the carousel a couple times, and then it was time for dinner. All meals at the village were free for us. At 7:30, there was a birthday party for Mayor Clayton at the village (he is the big bunny mascot). Kevin took the kids to the party while I went to orientation. He said the kids had a lot of fun. Madeleine absolutely loved the big characters, she would run up and hug them and lay her head on them, it was too cute (she did this all week at the parks too).
At orientation, I got a packet with all our tickets and info about the parks. We got a 3 day park hopper pass to the 4 Disney parks, a 2 day park hopper to Universal parks, and 1 day pass to Sea World. Parking and stroller rentals were free with Luke’s special button from the village. We also got a VIP pass to wear on a lanyard. This was the most important part because it got us to the front of all lines (even the character lines although in the orientation they tell you it only works at the fast pass rides).
After orientation, the birthday party was over, so I met Kevin and the kids and we headed back to our villa. We put the kids to bed so we could get started early in the morning at our first park.
OK, I know that was long, but there was so much and so many little details I didn’t want to leave out.

Here are some pictures:
In the limo

Our villa

Gifts in our villa

Train display and riding the train

Carousel

 

[goofy5]

WOW! sounds like everyone had a great time

 

[kdzbear]

Great start to the trip. I love the limo pictures!

 

[mlbarbian]

Day 2- Sunday May 17th - Universal Orlando and Islands of Adventure
After hearing many recommendations to avoid Magic Kingdom the first day of your trip, we decided to head to the Universal parks. This day was very sunny and the weather was wonderful, but hot. We started at Universal Orlando, and planned to head straight for Woody Woodpecker’s area, which is geared more toward young children. It has Curious George, Barney, Woody Woodpecker, etc. On our way we ran into the Scooby Do clan and had pictures taken with them. Next we saw Curious George (Luke was very excited). We hung out with George for a minute and he then walked Luke across the street to see Woody Woodpecker, this was very sweet. The CM there informed us that the Madagascar characters would be coming soon and walked us over to the place where we could meet them. There was the lion and 2 penguins. Madeleine was in love, she just kept walking back and forth between the 2 penguins saying “hi” and hugging them, it was too sweet. After this, we headed to the Woody Woodpecker area to find out that it doesn’t open till 11:00am, it was about 10:30, so we just walked around for a little while. The first thing Luke did when we got in was ride the little Woody Woodpecker roller coaster (4 times, 2 with each of us), he really liked the ride. We then went to the Curious George water play area. The kids got really wet before I realized I had brought their swimsuits, so I went ahead and changed them so their clothes could dry out (I also had a change of clothes though). Luke loved playing in the water, he probably could have stayed there all day. Madeleine wasn’t too sure about the water, but she sure did love picking up all the leaves on the ground, whatever makes you happy right. We finally rounded up the kids and dried them off and headed over to the Barney area, just in time for the next show. Madeleine didn’t enjoy the show too much, I think it was too loud and too dark for her (plus it was about time for her nap), but she did ok. After the show, a CM asked us if we were with Make-A-Wish and told us to stay in the theater. There was one other family that stayed. Barney came back out to meet the kids, it was very special. Madeleine loved this, she kept hugging Barney. Luke was very excited as well. When we were done with Barney, it was time to get some lunch so Madeleine could (hopefully) fall asleep in the stroller. After we finished eating I took her for a walk while she drank her bottle, and she did fall asleep. Kevin took Luke to the Fievel water play area.
Next we headed to Islands of Adventure (IOA), there really wasn’t anything else geared toward the small children at Universal. This was just a short walk (compared to the walk in from the parking lot) to IOA. This park also had limited things available for the little ones, so we headed to Seuss Landing and rode a few things. We went ahead and walked around the rest of the park. In the Jurassic Park area, Luke and I rode the Pteranodon Flyers. I think Luke enjoyed the ride (I would definitely say it was not worth the wait for the length of the ride, and there was no shorter line for wish families), but I was completely freaked out the whole time because Luke was on the seat in front of me (I could not reach him) and we were literally flying pretty high up, not held in by much. Wow, that was longest 30 seconds of my life! A tip for anyone going to this park, this is a very slow loading ride, only 2 people can ride at a time, and I think they had 3 sets going, it took forever to get on, and the line wasn’t really that long. We finished walking through the park and then headed back to our car (did I mention the long walk).
Both kids fell asleep in the car ride home. Once we got back to GKTW, we headed over to Katie's Kitchen (Boston Market Food) to get our dinner. This is just a window, no seating inside, so we took the food to our villa to eat. It was so good.

Here are some pics:
Universal Orlando

Islands of Adventure

 

[Lisarh]

oh how fun!!

Cant wait to hear more!

 

[mlbarbian]

Day 3 – Monday May 18th – Magic Kingdom
We started by visiting some Disney characters that had come to our village. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and Goofy. Madeleine was fussy most of the morning, partially because she was a little sick and lacking sleep. Well, it started raining as soon as we got through the parking pay booths, which we knew was inevitable based on the weather report and the looks of the sky. Once we parked, we had to get from the parking lot to the monorail via a tram, and then take the monorail to the front gate. This was our first day in the rain (and I mean pouring rain), so we weren’t as prepared as we were toward the end of the week. The first thing we did once we got inside the park was Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, the show was ok. As we left the building, it was pouring rain, so we decided to take advantage of the Wish Lounge ( a lounge area just for Wish families) to dry off and plan the rest of the day. Our map was wet and beginning to disintegrate, so Kevin found a new one. We were able to conquer most of things on our “must-do” list. We had a rain cover for the stroller, Madeleine wasn’t too fond of it though. Stroller parking for the attractions was rarely covered, so we had to master getting Madeleine and the cameras out of the stroller without getting too wet. Some of the things that stuck out were: Mickey’s Philharmagic show (Luke kept grabbing for the 3D images), meeting the Princesses and Fairies (we were able to forgo the long line with Luke’s pass, Luke also got kisses from all the princesses). We did a couple other things and then called it a day. We had dinner at Katie’s Kitchen (this was probably our favorite, we had it 4 nights, it’s also nice because they will deliver it to your villa).
I'll have to add some pics later, most were taken by Photopass and I don't have the CD yet.

Here are a couple pics, you can see how dark the sky was in the background as we were driving in:

 

[kdzbear]

I like your new updates. The lion and the penguins are from the movie, "Madagascar". I think the lion's name is Alex. I completely understand the problems with the rain and uncovered stroller parking. The last time we went we used an extra rain poncho just for the stroller. The photos of your family together are great!