Caleb's MAW PTR 1/29/15

[chcmama]

Our trip is around the corner and I have not had much time to plan but thought I would still give a PTR a shot.
This trip is my son's Make-A-Wish trip. He is 9 and has cystic fibrosis.

Also joining us will be my 17yo dd. She also has cystic fibrosis and was granted her wish in 2009, she wished for a cruise. She received a double lung transplant in June 2014 and is doing great! We were waiting for her to be healthy before looking into MAW for my son.

And I also have a 13yo (almost 14yo) dd who is our healthy kids I'm glad she gets to participate in this as she tends to take a backseat to the other two with their special needs.

Here is one of our whole family

When my son talked to his wish granters he told them he liked superheroes and legos and he wanted to go to Universal and Disneyworld. He is so excited to finally be tall enough to ride all the rides at WDW and most at Universal. He is a wild man We decided on the end of January and beginning of February as it will be the easiest for the girls to miss school then. We were just given the confirmed dates a few weeks ago so I have been frantically planning. We have been to WDW one other time and we stayed for 2 weeks so I feel rushed trying to fit everything in a week and a half. We will be at Give Kids the World Village 1/29-2/4 and we extended our trip until 2/8 and we will be staying offsite the last 4 nights.
I hope you enjoy following along as I try to make our plans and get ready for this special trip!

 

[chcmama]

After making myself crazy frantically reading past MAW trip reports, numerous planning websites and a couple planning books, I think I have our schedule for our time figured out. I also have come to terms with the fact that it may change once we get there with a few of the days since there are a few things I don't have control over

We arrive to Orlando on the 29th and I don't know times yet (one of the things out of my control) But, since we are flying from the west coast I assume it will be late afternoon at the earliest. Plan to just explore GKTW and get settled. I am excited that we arrive the day that GKTW does the winter wonderland and Santa because that way I know we will be there and not rushing back from a park or something.

So for the rest of the trip:
Jan 30th Hollywood studios
Jan 31st Epcot
Feb 1st breakfast at Kona Cafe then Magic Kingdom
Feb 2nd Universal-hope to be back at GKTW for Mayor Claytons Halloween
Feb 3rd Islands of Adventure-hope to be back at GKTW for Mayor Claytons Birthday party
Feb 4th -this is the day we leave GKTW and transition to Sheraton Vistana. I think we are going to try and do Sea World because if we miss some shows we will be ok as we visited the one in San Antonio a few years ago and we are mainly going to ride the rides and so DS can feed the dolphins.
Feb 5th-Animal Kingdom then a late dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe.
Feb 6th-not positive but probably go back to Epcot and MK to do anything we missed or our favorites. Have an afternoon ADR at Beaches and Cream, we went there last time and my 13yo dd and my dh can't wait to go back, they are ice cream addicts.
Feb 7th-may do Typhoon lagoon if the weather is warm enough, may go back to parks, may just hang out for the day and get ready for heading home.

I know we want to hit DTT at least once so will have to see how that fits in our schedule too. Maybe on the last few days when we are a little less regimented.

 

[FaithsWish]

Hi! So glad you started a PTR! I'm excited to follow along.

 

[chcmama]

My first purchase for our trip arrived today. I bought 75 pins on ebay so the kids can trade pins when we are there. Can't wait for them to get home and see them

 

[FaithsWish]

Ohhhhh! That is super exciting! I am thinking about doing that for Faith too! I bet they are going to be busy trading all those pins!

 

[ButterflyEffect]

Your plans look like a lot of fun! The pins sound like a great idea too. You must be so excited with his trip coming up so soon!

 

[chcmama]

Ohhhhh! That is super exciting! I am thinking about doing that for Faith too! I bet they are going to be busy trading all those pins!

I got some on ebay last time we went to WDW 7 years ago and the girls had fun.

Your plans look like a lot of fun! The pins sound like a great idea too. You must be so excited with his trip coming up so soon!

Yes, we are getting excited. The kids are funny going through the pins, not sure now ds just seems to want to keep most of them, so we will see when we get to the parks if he decides trading is more fun. Oh well, got assorted pins from ebay so had no idea what we would get and didn't put out too much money on them either.

 

[chcmama]

Slight change of plans…got flight info from wish granters tonight. They scheduled our return flights for returning on the 4th and since we want to extend I had to call the airline to reschedule. What I wasn't counting on was $125 per person change fee, so for 5 of us to change flight costs $625, plus any difference in flight we had to pay for. So dh and I discussed for a bit to try and decide what we wanted to do. We decided to go ahead and still extend but until the 7th because there was a flight that day that was cheaper and wouldn't cost us anymore than the change fee, on the 8th it would cost us over $1000! So at this point I am pretty sure that Typhoon Lagoon will not be part of our schedule, but at least we should be able to do most everything in the parks we want to do.

On the fun side got the lanyards I ordered that the kids picked out and bags for the park that the girls wanted. I will post pictures of those in the next few days

 

[WendyLou]

Just found your PTR,subbing in!

 

[chcmama]

Just found your PTR,subbing in!

Yay! The more the merrier

 

[chcmama]

Here are the lanyards I got the kids. Caleb wanted one from Big Hero 6, 13yo dd wanted stitch and 17yo dd wanted Peter Pan.



Here are the bags the girls wanted for the park



Fun to start getting some stuff for the trip! We also got something in the mail from GKTW so starting to feel like it is getting close

 

[FaithsWish]

The lanyards and bags are adorable! It sure makes it feel real when you start seeing the Disney stuff.

 

[chcmama]

I'm going to attempt making shirts for the kids using the bleach spray method today. I will post pics of how they come out. Last time we went I made mickey head tie dye shirts and they came out so good. But my 14yo dd will not wear tie dye anything so I am trying out this method. Luckily the shirts were pretty cheap at Joanne's so if they don't turn out I won't be out too much

We heard from Caleb's wish granters and we will be having his send off dinner on the 27th. It is getting so close!

 

[chcmama]

Caleb has been sick and was getting better, but his doctors decided to admit him on Tuesday for IV antibiotics. Kind of worried about still going on his trip since we leave on the 29th. But, it is looking fairly likely that we will be out of the hospital and able to go but he will have to be on IV antibiotics while we are on the trip, which will cause some inconveniences for us. Not what we were hoping for his trip. We really don't want to reschedule because we have already put money out to extend the trip that we can't get back and with my other 2 kids this was the best time to miss school, will be really hard later and we have a much busier schedule coming up too. So still hoping to be leaving next week for Disney!

 

[ForeverDance]

Just found your PTR and wanted to pop in and say hi

I'm so sorry to hear about Caleb being sick. That would be my worst nightmare. Hopefully he will bounce back and be healthy enough to enjoy the trip. How does he do on IV antibiotics. I know some people have a really hard time with them.

 

[chcmama]

Just found your PTR and wanted to pop in and say hi

I'm so sorry to hear about Caleb being sick. That would be my worst nightmare. Hopefully he will bounce back and be healthy enough to enjoy the trip. How does he do on IV antibiotics. I know some people have a really hard time with them.

Welcome, he has been feeling fine, just have to wait on doctor's ok to go. He does fine with IV antibiotics so not worried about that aspect of going on the trip with them.

 

[WendyLou]

So sorry he has been feeling bad. Big prayers he will be great by trip time and IV antibiotics will be easy peazy! Y'all are so close!

 

[chcmama]

Caleb did his pft (pulmonary function test) this morning and it was better, not quite as good as the doctors were hoping for, but they are still going to let us go So he will be discharged tomorrow, have his send of party tomorrow night, leave wednesday night for the airport hotel and fly out thursday morning. The discharge coordinator is getting everything set up for us for IV's while we are down there. So with some more inconveniences, but the trip will still happen!

 

[ForeverDance]

So glad to hear that Caleb is getting out in time for his trip. Here's hoping everything goes smoothly for you.

 

[chcmama]

We are home from the hospital. Tonight is Caleb's send off party with his wish granters. We will find out all our details tonight.