Make a Wish (and other organizations) - Wish Trippers UNITE! Volume SIX!

[FaithsWish]

Hi! Just me again.

Thought I would share this with you. Faith went into autoimmune pancreatic failure last March, and she now wears an insulin pump since her beta cells went kaput. I try to make this as fun as possible for her by putting fun designs on her pump each time we change it.

I will be the very first to admit I can't draw well, and I'm not very creative. But look!!!!! I'm so proud of myself!

[/url]Insulin pump princesses. by Allyson244, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[MrsMeow]

Goodmorning everyone!

Even without exact dates, we are starting a very rough itinerary. I have some questions about Legoland.

We are trying to figure out if this is something we should do while we have the GKTW button, or if we should do it during the time we are extending.

Does the GKTW button make the visit to Legoland extra special? Is there anything that we can do with the button that would not happen during a normal visit?

Faith is interested in going to Legoland, but it's the boys who are really REALLY wanting to go. If it is something that is made special by the button then we will hit it on the last day of the Wish Trip, after we check out of GKTW.

Oh man, I wish I had an answer for you! We planned on doing that exact thing (checking out of GKTW and then going to Legoland) but decided against it because it was too effing hot in FL while we were there.

 

[MrsMeow]

We just got back from GKTW late last night! The trip was WONDERFUL. GKTW was amazing, although they definitely have some communication glitches to work out (I'm guessing because of all of the volunteers?). We had multiple instances of being told one thing at one point, and then being told another later. That was pretty frustrating.

Like a lot of people have said, for the most part, Universal goes out of their way to get you to the front of the lines (or as close to the front as possible). Dawson and his brother were picked for wands at Ollivanders and we were treated like royalty at each character we went to meet.

Disney doesn't quite go out of their way as much, but it was still an incredible experience. The boys LOVED Splash Mountain and the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train.

We skipped Epcot and didn't go to SeaWorld.

I'll be doing blog posts soon about the trip. We had SO much fun, and GKTW was priceless. Because of how HOT it was while we were there (I think it was a high of 90 each day last week), we left the parks by 2:00 each day (1:00 a few days), cooled down in our villa, and then swam and did nightly activities at GKTW.

We also took advantage of the carry-ins at Disney and ate almost all of our meals at GKTW. We bought go-gurt (we froze it overnight), apple slices, etc at the Wal-Mart down the road and ate those snacks around lunch time at the parks. It was so hot that the boys refused to eat much for actual meals while at the parks because they were SO hot, so those types of foods were perfect. We saved SO much money with this. We'd eat a late lunch at the villa, and then a late dinner. This allowed us to say "Yes!" to almost every souvenir request from the boys. Of course, we then had to use some of the money to buy a suitcase just to bring everything home, but it was well worth it. And we still technically have money remaining that we will put aside for Christmas.

Anyway, if you have any questions, let me know! Like I said, I will be doing a couple of blog posts about the trip eventually.

 

[FaithsWish]

Oh man, I wish I had an answer for you! We planned on doing that exact thing (checking out of GKTW and then going to Legoland) but decided against it because it was too effing hot in FL while we were there.

MrsMeow I just read your entire blog! Every page! My goodness, I cried the ugly cry and laughed so hard my hubby thought I had lost (more of) my sanity!

Dawson (and all of you) are my heros.

Do you have a FB page for your blog?

 

[SirDuff]

Hi! Just me again.

Thought I would share this with you. Faith went into autoimmune pancreatic failure last March, and she now wears an insulin pump since her beta cells went kaput. I try to make this as fun as possible for her by putting fun designs on her pump each time we change it.

I will be the very first to admit I can't draw well, and I'm not very creative. But look!!!!! I'm so proud of myself!

Wow, those are awesome! I definitely do not agree that you cannot draw very well or that you are not creative. Those must make the pump so much more fun for Faith.

 

[Kristi77]

We just got back from GKTW late last night! The trip was WONDERFUL. GKTW was amazing, although they definitely have some communication glitches to work out (I'm guessing because of all of the volunteers?). We had multiple instances of being told one thing at one point, and then being told another later. That was pretty frustrating.

Like a lot of people have said, for the most part, Universal goes out of their way to get you to the front of the lines (or as close to the front as possible). Dawson and his brother were picked for wands at Ollivanders and we were treated like royalty at each character we went to meet.

Disney doesn't quite go out of their way as much, but it was still an incredible experience. The boys LOVED Splash Mountain and the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train.

We skipped Epcot and didn't go to SeaWorld.

I'll be doing blog posts soon about the trip. We had SO much fun, and GKTW was priceless. Because of how HOT it was while we were there (I think it was a high of 90 each day last week), we left the parks by 2:00 each day (1:00 a few days), cooled down in our villa, and then swam and did nightly activities at GKTW.

We also took advantage of the carry-ins at Disney and ate almost all of our meals at GKTW. We bought go-gurt (we froze it overnight), apple slices, etc at the Wal-Mart down the road and ate those snacks around lunch time at the parks. It was so hot that the boys refused to eat much for actual meals while at the parks because they were SO hot, so those types of foods were perfect. We saved SO much money with this. We'd eat a late lunch at the villa, and then a late dinner. This allowed us to say "Yes!" to almost every souvenir request from the boys. Of course, we then had to use some of the money to buy a suitcase just to bring everything home, but it was well worth it. And we still technically have money remaining that we will put aside for Christmas.

Anyway, if you have any questions, let me know! Like I said, I will be doing a couple of blog posts about the trip eventually.

I can't wait to hear more about your trip! We are going Nov 17-23rd with our 4 year old AJ and 2 daughters. I love hearing about what the boys like and your experience.

 

[MrsMeow]

MrsMeow I just read your entire blog! Every page! My goodness, I cried the ugly cry and laughed so hard my hubby thought I had lost (more of) my sanity!

Dawson (and all of you) are my heros.

Do you have a FB page for your blog?

Aww, thank you so much! We don't have a FB page set up...just the dwindling blog. I'm glad D's story gave you the feels, lol. He's a pretty special kiddo.

I'm working on getting caught up on the blog - I've started a post about Make A Wish (not the trip itself, but an experience with MAW before D's trip) and hope to finish it tomorrow night. We'll see though, I'm still lazy from vacation!

 

[FaithsWish]

Wow, those are awesome! I definitely do not agree that you cannot draw very well or that you are not creative. Those must make the pump so much more fun for Faith.

Thank you for the kind words SirDuff! I made two more for this week.

[/url]Two more insulin pods for Faith. by Allyson244, on Flickr[/IMG]

We are still (no so) patiently waiting for dates for Faith's wish trip. It's been just about a month since her Wish Granters were here so I am hoping it will be soon.

 

[FaithsWish]

I posed this question on my PTR, but I thought that this might also be a good place to ask.

I have a question about the JTA. From the reading I have been doing on it, it seems like at rope drop, people run to get signed up for it. Literally run.

I'm wondering if there is any way for Wish Kids, who simply do not have the ability to run at RD to get signed up beforehand?

JTA is slowly becoming one of her "must-do" items. I'm just not sure how it works if a child can't get there fast enough and all the spots are taken before we get there.

Any ideas?

 

[FaithsWish]

A few days ago Faith came home from school and told me about a girl on her bus who loved Frozen. She told me that she loved it all but didn't have an Elsa doll. Faith was pretty upset that this girl didn't have a doll so she went into her room and brought out her singing Elsa doll and told me that she wanted to give this girl her Elsa doll because she would get to see Elsa in person so she didn't need the doll.

So she gave the doll away.

Faith's heart and kindness just blows me away sometimes.

So, we took her to Frozen on Ice this weekend.

It didn't go very well.

Faith got very sick right before intermission. We actually almost called for an ambulance to come get us. Her glucose levels tanked and we couldn't get them back up. Then she started vomiting. Poor girl got sick in every bathroom in Giant Center between our seats and our car.

She spent yesterday resting on the couch talking about how lucky she was that she got to see Snow White and Anna.

That she was the luckiest girl ever.

It's all in the perspective....

[/url]Frozen by Allyson244, on Flickr[/IMG]


I think I am going to start an itinerary on our PTR (link in my siggy) based on days of the week and working around the set plans of GKTW. Then once we get actual dates, I can start tweaking it.

Still waiting patiently.

 

[FaithsWish]

I heard from Faith's Wish Coordinator and

I think we have dates!!!

She will let us know for sure next week but it looks like we will be March 2-10! (We are extending by 2 days to attend a spring training baseball game)

 

[starearedkid]

Some quick questions in trying to plan our trip:

About roughly how long does it take to get from GKTW to Magic Kingdom? GKTW to Epcot? GKTW to DHS?

Also about how long and what is the process to get from Magic Kingdom to Epcot?

 

[Diegosmom]

If you go onto the GKTW site and download the "handbook" it tell you how long to each park. I think they all were like 15-30 min.

And someone was asking about Legoland. I heard from others that said no special treatment. We are extending our trip a few days and are thinking about doing Legoland the day after we check out of GKTW. The Passport to the world gives you free tickets but not sure how all that works.

 

[MrsMeow]

Some quick questions in trying to plan our trip:

About roughly how long does it take to get from GKTW to Magic Kingdom? GKTW to Epcot? GKTW to DHS?

Also about how long and what is the process to get from Magic Kingdom to Epcot?

Our GPS was a pain in the butt and literally took us a different way each day, but I'd say that on average it took about 25 minutes from GKTW to Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. If I remember correctly, it's only about 13 miles, but with traffic, stop lights, and tolls (on the day our GPS was especially mean), it's not as fast as it could be. We didn't go to Epcot, but it's all in the same general area, so I imagine it's about the same distance from GKTW.

As for travel from MK to Epcot, again, we didn't go, so I can't speak from experience, but there is a monorail that you can take to Epcot from the MK entrance from the parking lot. There are two monorails, one goes to MK, and the other goes to Epcot. I imagine it's pretty easy to hop off of the one and on to the other and leave your car in one spot, but as for actual travel time, I'm not much help.

 

[FaithsWish]

I've posted a preliminary itinerary on my PTR.

Link is in my siggy, I would love to hear y'alls thoughts on it.

 

[Kristi77]

I've posted a preliminary itinerary on my PTR.

Link is in my siggy, I would love to hear y'alls thoughts on it.

Your itinerary is great and you did an Awesome job with reservations!

 

[FaithsWish]

Your itinerary is great and you did an Awesome job with reservations!

Thank you!

Your trip is right around the corner!

 

[MrsMeow]

I have the GKTW recap up on my blog! I'm just too wordy to fit everything into one blog post. I'll get to recapping Disney World and Universal Studios soon, but probably won't have those up for at least another week.

 

[FaithsWish]

I have the GKTW recap up on my blog! I'm just too wordy to fit everything into one blog post. I'll get to recapping Disney World and Universal Studios soon, but probably won't have those up for at least another week.

Loved the blog post! I signed up to get email updates and I am really looking forward to your Disney and Universal posts!

 

[FaithsWish]

Good news and bad news today.

First the good....

We heard from our Wish Coordinator and we have our dates for sure.

Bad news...

Our Wish Granters were mistaken and our chapter is one of the ones that does not allow extending of dates.

We will be at GKTW from March 2-8th.

And we should have flight information within a couple weeks because we are trying to coordinate my oldest daughters flight to land near the same time as ours. We are flying her in to stay with us at our expense.