Caleb's Wish trip!

[maroo]

Great party!!!

The Mayor!! How cool is that?!? He will have to tell Mayor Clayton that the Mayor from his town named a whole day after him! Mayor Clayton will think THAT is pretty cool!!


Tomorrow, Tomorrow...You're only a day away!!!!

Have a BLAST!!!!!!!

 

[jenb1023]

Looks like a great party! Have a wonderful trip! I will be looking forward to hearing all about it and to seeing all of the pictures!

 

[WishMom09]

Great party!!!

The Mayor!! How cool is that?!? He will have to tell Mayor Clayton that the Mayor from his town named a whole day after him! Mayor Clayton will think THAT is pretty cool!!


Tomorrow, Tomorrow...You're only a day away!!!!

Have a BLAST!!!!!!!

It was VERY COOL! He will have to tell Mayor Clayton that!

I know...22 more hours!!
I had my suitcase mostly packed on my bed...and it slid off and stuff went EVERYWHERE! I was sooo MAD!
Then I thought...who cares...you are going to DISNEY WORLD!!!!

 

[WishMom09]

ANOTHER BIG GIVE from Maroo

Today the ladies of the house got the prettiest bracelets!
Thank you soo much Maroo...we LOVE them!!

 

[jessica52877]

What cute bracelets! Maroo does such a good job!

 

[maroo]

You guys are very welcome!

Thank you so much for posting pictures for all of The Big Give stuff! I know you guys must be very busy getting ready to leave and it means a lot that you would post pics!

And thanks for the compliments, guys.

 

[myasma]

Welcome Back. Hope you guys had a great time and looking forward to the post trip report.

 

[WishMom09]

We are home!! We had a BLAST...so much to share with you all!!
Good times, tips, and a few not so good times!!
I hope to share more tomorrow!!!

 

[WishMom09]

So today is the BIG DAY.....I couldn't sleep last night! I tossed and turned all night! No one had to wake the kids up this morning!!! The hopped right out of bed

Here they are putting on their last stickers on the countdown charts!

So off to the airport! They were super excited since it was their 1st plane ride!

They flight went pretty quick (2 1/2 hrs)
Then off to find our greeter!!

We actually flew with 2 other MAW families!
So she had 3 families to get together and on their way!

Now off to GKTW!

We met in the House of Hearts for some arrival info....the gift giving begins!
Caleb got a Mickey Mouse

And the girls both got Shamu's!

Then off to our villa!!!!!

Where we found more gifts waiting!!!

Now for a tour.....

Kitchen (fridge stocked with drinks....and dishes...dish washer...microwave...coffee maker w/ coffee)

Living room (with a pull out bed)

Kids room (the extra bed was in the closet)

and the HUGE bathroom!! (with giant shower and tub big enough for 2 to sit side by side!)...they called it their spa!

And our bedroom had a king sized bed, and tv....guess I didn't take any pics of it?? (a crib was in the closet)
Oh...and the master bath is in the hall...and pretty tiny compared to the kids "spa"

 

[WishMom09]

So here is where the 1st of my plans fell through! I had PLANNED on us eating a light breakfast @ home...lunch @ the airport (since our flight was @ 11:00) and then eat dinner @ GKTW after orientation!

WRONG!!!

We ate donuts on the WAY to the airport....so no one was hungry AT the airport....so by the time we landed at 2:30 (Orlando time....1:30 our time) we were STARVING!!! But we had to meet our greeter.....get our luggage...rent our car....and drive to GKTW! So now by the time we get into our villa it is 4:20! SO we ordered Katie's kitchen (Boston market)...it was DELICIOUS!!! They delivered it right to our villa. We even had leftovers!

SO we made a quick run to Downtown Disney....it was super packed!

Here is Aubree w/ her favorite Princess

And Caleb at the Lego display outside of the Lego store

We only made it to World of Disney (which is HUGE) before we had to leave so I could make it for orientation (7:45)

While I was at orientation (about 1 hour)...the kids went to the Park

They had LOTS of fun playing there!

NOW....2nd problem.....the meal we ate earlier was considered our dinner(you have to give them your meal ticket....you get a breakfast, lunch and dinner ticket for each day of your stay)
NO PROBLEM.....we will just have ICE CREAM for dinner!!!

That was the 1st of MANY visits to the ice cream parlor! YUMMY

Then it was off for baths in their "spa tub"....they LOVED that!

That was the end of day 1!!

Up next DAY 2......Animal Kingdom!!!

 

[maroo]

Wow!!!

Awesome start!! And you are FAST! I can't believe you got Day 1 up already!

Good call to go to Downtown Disney! And thanks for the info about the meal tickets!! That sounds pretty important! (Seems like they should have let you have "lunch" huh! )

Sounds like a wonderful start!

 

[jessica52877]

Well, dinner looks delicious! I would be happy with ice cream for dinner BUT knowing how it is on flying days and how hard it seems to be to eat I probably would have been hungry too.

I love downtown disney. It seems so crowded all the time now a days. The morning is so quiet and relaxed but it is so hard to get there in the morning for us.

I love how each kid had their own countdown calendar. No fighting who gets to put the sticker on then! Great idea!

 

[Andreaswish]

Loving your trip report so far. Sounds like a great first day. Can't wait to hear more and see more pictures. Love the pictures.

Wow the villas look great, very spacious.

Lunch and dinner sounded great. I am sure we will be visiting the ice cream shop a lot when we are there. Matt loves ice cream and so does his dad, I guess we all do.

Thanks for the heads up on the meal tickets that helps we will be arriving around lunch time, so I will double check on the meal tickets used.

Keep up the great work on your trip report.

Diane

 

[kmparrish5]

First day sounded like fun! I can't wait to come over to your house tomorrow night to hear about the trip in person!

 

[Matt1026]

I have really enjoyed reading your pre trip and now your report from your trip. We are waiting for our dates and we are getting so anxious. I have taken alot of great notes from your report. Can not wait to hear more from your trip.:

Ice Cream for dinner!!! Boy I can not wait!!!!

 

[WishMom09]

I have really enjoyed reading your pre trip and now your report from your trip. We are waiting for our dates and we are getting so anxious. I have taken alot of great notes from your report. Can not wait to hear more from your trip.:

Ice Cream for dinner!!! Boy I can not wait!!!!

Great! Glad you are enjoying it and glad you are getting some tips from it! That was what I was hoping for!

 

[WishMom09]

So this is where my plans that I had made really started to go down hill! I had planed out which parks to go to on which day. Today was supposed to be MK! Well today was Mother's day....and I got to thinking it might be super crowded at MK...so we decided to go to AK/HS.

Now I know that I had read everywhere on here about how to go about parking....and even the Bunny book (from GKTW) tells you about parking!
BUT....I wasn't driving....so we got into the parking area without a hitch by showing Caleb's GKTW button...then we follow the cars ahead of us and come to another parking attendant...show him the button, and he has us follow all the other cars in front of us parking WAY back in the "normal" parking area! I kept telling my hubby "this is not right, we are supposed to park close!" And he tells me "this is fine.....we got to park for free...and there is a tram to take us to the gate". So I gave up and we rode the tram...at least we didn't have to walk all that way! (parking tip coming!! keep reading!!)

So the tram takes us to the main gates! We get off and begin walking to the gates....and there are characters!!! (Timon and Flick)
We walk up and a CM sees us and takes us right to the front of the line!!

SO I had read on here about going to guest relations and getting a sticker to put on your stroller so that it can be used as a wheelchair and taken right up to the rides! (I highly recommend this!!!! I will share more later!)
SO we got one and head in to get our double stroller....absolutely free!
(now this "sticker" is red and about 8" long....you fold it around the handle of the stroller....I suggest having the end pointing up so it can be easily seen! another family used a safety pin to just pin it on and reuse it at each park....I just got several at the 2nd park we went to)

Now onto the fun part....lots of fun rides!
Being summer time (at least for colleges) I think a lot of the cm's are newly hired college students....they didn't seem to know what the GKTW button meant! A lot of them had to ask someone else what to do with us!

Went went on the Safari ride 1st...then we walked through the trail (I might skip the trail if given the opportunity again)

Then it was onto the Kali River ride (Emilee's fav)...they sent us to the fast pass return lane. Here we encountered our 1st RUDE park guest! The FP return line goes right along the regular line....but without a rope in some areas.....so as we passed these people a man started yelling "Hey..where do you think you are going?? The line is back here...Hey you can't just skip in front of all these people" We just held our heads up and kept walking! Some people can be so rude!!!

We rode every ride at AK! Caleb LOVED Expedition Everest!
Aubree loved the petting zoo....

Here is Caleb enjoying the Dinosaur ride (like Dumbo)

And I suggest you save your shows for the heat for the day!
We saw the Nemo show at 3:15....and we felt renewed after that....sitting in the air conditioning!
We didn't see the Lion King show. I had planned on only being there until around 3.....be we ended up staying until 5..which is when they closed!

We saved Camp Mickey for last....
Caleb finally got to see Goofy!!

And of course Mickey Mouse!!

Stay tuned for Day 2 ....Part 2

 

[jessica52877]

I love how you have so much advice for others. Little tips and tricks make it so much easier. Glad Caleb saw Goofy!

 

[maroo]

Caleb saw GOOFY!!


I am so sad that a guest was rude. I guess the Fastpass line was not running at that time of the morning...because people walk through that line all the time?

Your tips are awesome!!!!!

Can't wait for more!!

 

[WishMom09]

We didn't leave AK until 5:00.....and by the time we got to our car...drove to HS and got into the gate it was pushing 6:00!
The online park hours said HS closed at 7pm....but the paper they gave us from GKTW said 10 pm. SO we were excited!

**********************************************************
Parking tip we learned! Follow the blue stripe on the ground.....this takes you right to the medical/handicap/diamond parking (different names at different parks) where they had us park...right outside the gates! Just like I told my hubby!!
**********************************************************

Here is our famous hat picture!

Well a little advice...all the shows (stunt show, Indiana Jones show, Playhouse Disney, etc)....all end at 6pm. ( and character meets end around then also)
SO we were bummed!

We went straight to Buzz and Woody

The line was HUGE...but we just walked right into the back door! SO AWESOME!

Then we rode the Toy Story ride....my fav!!

Then it was off to the tower of terror...funny story!
So Caleb and Tom were gonna ride it....Emilee and I were too chicken! (and I wouldn't let Aubree go...so the boys could enjoy it more!)
So I asked the lady where they would come out..she said well you can go up with them so you can see all the stuff before the ride...there will be an exit right before you get on the ride! So we thought COOL! We saw the little movie clip and walked through all the neat stuff. Well Emilee was afraid they were tricking us! She kept asking "is this where we get out?" And they kept telling us no, not yet..keep going!
We get right up to the ride and they direct us to an elevator also....I thought she was gonna faint! It was a regular elevator...but she thought they were tricking us onto the ride! When we got to the bottom she said "hey...I can tell everyone I rode the elevator in tower of terror....it would be true!! Just not the real elevator!" ha ha!

Then onto Rockin' roller coaster...Caleb LOVED it!

Then they rode the Star Wars ride and Caleb made a light saber

The park was pretty much empty...I think a lot of the reason why was because most people thought the park closed at 7!
But it was very nice!

Aubree picked out a Princess hat

I LOVED looking at all of the beautiful plants, flowers, and sculpted bushes!
It was such a beautiful time of year to visit!

We decided to head home after that! We were pretty tired! I do wish we would have been able to see and do more at HS....but there is always next time!!

When we got home the gift fairy had visited

And we ordered pizza ....it was delicious!!
They delivered 3 pizza's and 5 drinks right to our villa!

Now time to rest up for Day 3.....wonder where we will go since we pretty much threw my schedule out the window!!