Hi,
I am new here. I am the wife of a soldier, mom of four incredible kids, dd age 14 (some hearing impairment and learning difficulties), ds age 10, ds's age 8 and 8, yes we are blessed with twins! All three boys have mitochondrial disease, eosinophilic esophagitis and high functioning autism (along with a myriad of other medical issues, including increasing cardiac issues, but all are likely related to the mitochondrial disease, as we are realizing more and more now). We just returned from Ethan and Aidan's Wish Trip this summer, which was an amazing two weeks in California. Their wishes were to go behind the scenes at Lego Land (Ethan), and Learn to Surf (Aidan), AND both wished to see family and cousins. We had moved away from our home and family in California seven years ago, to pursue better medical care for the boys, and because my husband joined the Army. We had no doctors in CA who had ever seen children like ours eight years ago, and have been blessed with amazing care out here, and thus have not been "home" more than once since. We had an amazing two weeks in California! LegoLand was fun, but the behind the scenes with the Master Builders made Ethan's day! As did the exclusive Darth Maul mini fig all the kids were given by the Master Builder. Aidan, and all of us, loved learning to surf! He was on his feet right away and LOVED the whole morning...he tired and was too exhuasted and cold to go on within two hours, so we didn't finish the morning out, but what an amazing morning! We also had an amazing week driving north to spend a week with family! We spent four days with my husband's family, and had cousins camp with eight other cousins besides our four! Then we drove farther north and spent three days in a cabin with my family, three sisters, two husbands, one boyfriend, ten children under ten, with a cousins camp party, day at the lake and a wonderful cabin experience! It was truly the trip of a lifetime and the boys, and we all, made memories for a lifetime! Make A Wish truly blessed us beyond belief!
Then we had enough money set aside, to use our military discount to do three days at Disneyland as well. I grew up going to Disneyland, as has our daughter, but this was our first time back in eight years, now with three boys with special and medical needs. It was hot, tiring, confusing with no plan, and while there were bits of magic, it was frustrating, until we gave up and simply enjoyed being there and the reality of literally only doing 3-4 things per day and then leaving. By the end Colin, our third son - who's wish is to do Jedi Training and go to Give Kids the World, was hysterical and said to cancel his wish. Thus why I'm on these boards, trying to do everything we can to make sure his trip is a success for him, and all the rest of us! Our trip to Orlando is the end of this month, and this time, the daughter gets to bring a friend, so the two teen girls can head off on their own to enjoy roller coasters, while we do what the boys can handle. We learned a hard lesson regarding wheelchairs for the boys, and have asked Make A Wish to rent them ahead of time for us, or else we will, we don't want to spend an hour each day renting and returning them...We need one regular size for Ethan and then one large size one for the twins to share...since there are only two of us to push them. And thankfully after reading through all these boards, it appears that the parking is very far from the actual entrances, so we definitely need the wheelchairs ahead of time.
I've been busy reading these boards for the last four days. Thank you so much to everyone before me who's posted so many tips and answers! I've saved several pages of tips along the way! I've also spent two days with Colin, just watching all the videos on the park websites, and on youtube, of all the parks and rides, so Colin knows what to expect and can make decisions of what he'd like to do. One of the hardest things about DL was that the boys didn't know what to expect for rides, and one boy would like one ride/show, but it would terrify the other two, and so we are working to figure out what each child wants.
I am slightly frustrated with the flights MAW chose for us, it has us arriving to GKTW at 530pm on the first day, and leaving for the airport at 715am on the seventh day. That leaves us only five days for the parks. Colin has decided on a day at Discovery Cove (we'll use this for our "rest" day, hopefully in the middle of our trip), one day or half day at Islands of Adventure to see Harry Potter world and the Marvel characters. He really wants to do Ifly, Swiming with the dolphins, the Disney Parks, and Harry Potter. His actual wish is Jedi Training, but now after a weekend of watching videos, he's actually excited about the rest as well. We have no illusions of spending the entire day in any of the parks. The teen girls we'll let go off on their own. We'll use our tickets to get them FP's for the rides they'd like to do before we leave a park, unless we can leave the GKTW GAC pass with them? We'll take the three boys to each park they want to do, and then leave when they are tired. We have a couple things per park that are must's and then whatever they are up to after that. Discovery Cove will be the day we all spend together, and evenings at GKTW. Colin's decided he wants to be sure we are back in time for the Santa night at the Big Splash Bash. Our days for the parks are Thursday, Sept 27 to Monday Oct 1.
Trip Plan:
Sept 26 Day 1 - arrive, enjoy GKTW, orientation
Sept 27 Day 2 - IOA for Harry Potter/Marvel Characters and then Aquatica in afternoon if the kids don't want to stay at IOA?
Sept 28 Day 3 - Disney MK?
Sept 29 Day 4 - Discovery Cove (for a day of downtime, possibly Ifly in pm?)
Sept 30 Day 5 - Disney HS?
Oct 1 Day 6 - Disney AK for the safari, Lion King show, and get FP's for girls then Epcot in afternoon with boys
Oct 2 Day 7 - fly home early
(PS - by no means will we spend a full day in any of the parks above, we'd leave around 2-3 at the latest to go back and relax at GKTW. Even with wheelchairs, the boys simply don't have the energy for a full day and evening out)
Somewhere in there we'd like to catch Wishes or Illuminations if possible. I'm calling Make A Wish on Tuesday, to see if we can possibly get the itinerary sooner, as our volunteers can't give it to us until three days before we leave due to their schedule, and I know I'll need to book Discovery Cove and make a couple reservations before then. I know that MAW is setting up Jedi Training, and something special (hopefully meeting Darth Vader) for Colin one day, and they are possibly also treating us to MNSSHP one night as well, which would move some of my days around. Oh and to add to all of this, this will be our last week together as a family for quite awhile, as my husband will deploy not long after we return. So we want to relax and enjoy this week together. If we don't get to do everything we have planned, oh well, we just want Colin to have a blast and spend time together!
I'm sorry if I've combined my intro and PTR in the same post, but I'm realizing we have not much time left till this trip and we have a lot to accomplish before we leave, not only for this trip but also in preparation for my husband leaving. Any advice, especially about which days for which parks, would be incredibly appreciated! OH and our boys are not able to eat food by mouth at all! They have only two safe foods, a certain brand of potato chips and apples...I know we can find apples at Disney, what about IOA? Or Discovery Cove? Any thoughts or help would be appreciated!
Thank you,
Jennifer
I am new here. I am the wife of a soldier, mom of four incredible kids, dd age 14 (some hearing impairment and learning difficulties), ds age 10, ds's age 8 and 8, yes we are blessed with twins! All three boys have mitochondrial disease, eosinophilic esophagitis and high functioning autism (along with a myriad of other medical issues, including increasing cardiac issues, but all are likely related to the mitochondrial disease, as we are realizing more and more now). We just returned from Ethan and Aidan's Wish Trip this summer, which was an amazing two weeks in California. Their wishes were to go behind the scenes at Lego Land (Ethan), and Learn to Surf (Aidan), AND both wished to see family and cousins. We had moved away from our home and family in California seven years ago, to pursue better medical care for the boys, and because my husband joined the Army. We had no doctors in CA who had ever seen children like ours eight years ago, and have been blessed with amazing care out here, and thus have not been "home" more than once since. We had an amazing two weeks in California! LegoLand was fun, but the behind the scenes with the Master Builders made Ethan's day! As did the exclusive Darth Maul mini fig all the kids were given by the Master Builder. Aidan, and all of us, loved learning to surf! He was on his feet right away and LOVED the whole morning...he tired and was too exhuasted and cold to go on within two hours, so we didn't finish the morning out, but what an amazing morning! We also had an amazing week driving north to spend a week with family! We spent four days with my husband's family, and had cousins camp with eight other cousins besides our four! Then we drove farther north and spent three days in a cabin with my family, three sisters, two husbands, one boyfriend, ten children under ten, with a cousins camp party, day at the lake and a wonderful cabin experience! It was truly the trip of a lifetime and the boys, and we all, made memories for a lifetime! Make A Wish truly blessed us beyond belief!
Then we had enough money set aside, to use our military discount to do three days at Disneyland as well. I grew up going to Disneyland, as has our daughter, but this was our first time back in eight years, now with three boys with special and medical needs. It was hot, tiring, confusing with no plan, and while there were bits of magic, it was frustrating, until we gave up and simply enjoyed being there and the reality of literally only doing 3-4 things per day and then leaving. By the end Colin, our third son - who's wish is to do Jedi Training and go to Give Kids the World, was hysterical and said to cancel his wish. Thus why I'm on these boards, trying to do everything we can to make sure his trip is a success for him, and all the rest of us! Our trip to Orlando is the end of this month, and this time, the daughter gets to bring a friend, so the two teen girls can head off on their own to enjoy roller coasters, while we do what the boys can handle. We learned a hard lesson regarding wheelchairs for the boys, and have asked Make A Wish to rent them ahead of time for us, or else we will, we don't want to spend an hour each day renting and returning them...We need one regular size for Ethan and then one large size one for the twins to share...since there are only two of us to push them. And thankfully after reading through all these boards, it appears that the parking is very far from the actual entrances, so we definitely need the wheelchairs ahead of time.
I've been busy reading these boards for the last four days. Thank you so much to everyone before me who's posted so many tips and answers! I've saved several pages of tips along the way! I've also spent two days with Colin, just watching all the videos on the park websites, and on youtube, of all the parks and rides, so Colin knows what to expect and can make decisions of what he'd like to do. One of the hardest things about DL was that the boys didn't know what to expect for rides, and one boy would like one ride/show, but it would terrify the other two, and so we are working to figure out what each child wants.
I am slightly frustrated with the flights MAW chose for us, it has us arriving to GKTW at 530pm on the first day, and leaving for the airport at 715am on the seventh day. That leaves us only five days for the parks. Colin has decided on a day at Discovery Cove (we'll use this for our "rest" day, hopefully in the middle of our trip), one day or half day at Islands of Adventure to see Harry Potter world and the Marvel characters. He really wants to do Ifly, Swiming with the dolphins, the Disney Parks, and Harry Potter. His actual wish is Jedi Training, but now after a weekend of watching videos, he's actually excited about the rest as well. We have no illusions of spending the entire day in any of the parks. The teen girls we'll let go off on their own. We'll use our tickets to get them FP's for the rides they'd like to do before we leave a park, unless we can leave the GKTW GAC pass with them? We'll take the three boys to each park they want to do, and then leave when they are tired. We have a couple things per park that are must's and then whatever they are up to after that. Discovery Cove will be the day we all spend together, and evenings at GKTW. Colin's decided he wants to be sure we are back in time for the Santa night at the Big Splash Bash. Our days for the parks are Thursday, Sept 27 to Monday Oct 1.
Trip Plan:
Sept 26 Day 1 - arrive, enjoy GKTW, orientation
Sept 27 Day 2 - IOA for Harry Potter/Marvel Characters and then Aquatica in afternoon if the kids don't want to stay at IOA?
Sept 28 Day 3 - Disney MK?
Sept 29 Day 4 - Discovery Cove (for a day of downtime, possibly Ifly in pm?)
Sept 30 Day 5 - Disney HS?
Oct 1 Day 6 - Disney AK for the safari, Lion King show, and get FP's for girls then Epcot in afternoon with boys
Oct 2 Day 7 - fly home early
(PS - by no means will we spend a full day in any of the parks above, we'd leave around 2-3 at the latest to go back and relax at GKTW. Even with wheelchairs, the boys simply don't have the energy for a full day and evening out)
Somewhere in there we'd like to catch Wishes or Illuminations if possible. I'm calling Make A Wish on Tuesday, to see if we can possibly get the itinerary sooner, as our volunteers can't give it to us until three days before we leave due to their schedule, and I know I'll need to book Discovery Cove and make a couple reservations before then. I know that MAW is setting up Jedi Training, and something special (hopefully meeting Darth Vader) for Colin one day, and they are possibly also treating us to MNSSHP one night as well, which would move some of my days around. Oh and to add to all of this, this will be our last week together as a family for quite awhile, as my husband will deploy not long after we return. So we want to relax and enjoy this week together. If we don't get to do everything we have planned, oh well, we just want Colin to have a blast and spend time together!
I'm sorry if I've combined my intro and PTR in the same post, but I'm realizing we have not much time left till this trip and we have a lot to accomplish before we leave, not only for this trip but also in preparation for my husband leaving. Any advice, especially about which days for which parks, would be incredibly appreciated! OH and our boys are not able to eat food by mouth at all! They have only two safe foods, a certain brand of potato chips and apples...I know we can find apples at Disney, what about IOA? Or Discovery Cove? Any thoughts or help would be appreciated!
Thank you,
Jennifer
I can't wait to hear about Colin's trip! 
