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

[Topdogie01]

Our send off party isn't until 1/3/14. Is it typical to get the spending money and Make a Wish t shirts at the send off party? Does just the child get a shirt? I've seen pictures with everyone in the family having them and just the children. My daughter loves to match her dad and brother, so I thought I should get a shirt for them. Do you think I should order them online? It is too late to have them sent to our home, but could I send them to GKTW directly? I tried emailing our wish coordinator, but she is out of the office for the holidays. I think our wish granters who is organizing the send off party only has a shirt for our daughter.

My daughter is so excited for this trip.

we got a pre-paid debit card (with my name printed on the card, had to use it for verification for will call tickets at universial, GKTW orientation will explain it), and was told the card would not be funded until 1-3 days before our trip. we decided to use a local atm to withdraw the money and move to our own checking accounts so we did not have to deal with the fees associated with the prepaid card.

for my sons trip, everyone in the party got Make a Wish shirts (although im not sure if our local MAW voluteers bought them for us or not).

if you dont all get a shirt, you could also buy matching shirts inside the gift shop at give kids the world.. i mean who DOESNT want a ice cream for breakfast shirt?!

 

[chcmama]

I have a question as I am trying to plan our trip. From what I understand reading peoples trip reports, we get front of the line at WDW. Is it the same at Universal and Sea World? I have only been here one other time and I did a lot of planning on which days we went to which parks and followed the touring plans and we had a great time and not a lot of lines. Seems like with the perk of the front of the line i don't need to do quite so much planning. I really just want to make a few ADR's at a handful of places so I am just trying to figure out what days we plan to be at what parks for that. Thanks for any tips you can give, I love planning our family trips but usually have a lot more time than I am this time. We leave 1-29! So excited but feel like I'm cramming for a test

 

[FaithsWish]

I have a question as I am trying to plan our trip. From what I understand reading peoples trip reports, we get front of the line at WDW. Is it the same at Universal and Sea World? I have only been here one other time and I did a lot of planning on which days we went to which parks and followed the touring plans and we had a great time and not a lot of lines. Seems like with the perk of the front of the line i don't need to do quite so much planning. I really just want to make a few ADR's at a handful of places so I am just trying to figure out what days we plan to be at what parks for that. Thanks for any tips you can give, I love planning our family trips but usually have a lot more time than I am this time. We leave 1-29! So excited but feel like I'm cramming for a test

From reading trip reports it seem to me that the FOTL also applies to Universal and SeaWorld.

 

[SirDuff]

I have a question as I am trying to plan our trip. From what I understand reading peoples trip reports, we get front of the line at WDW. Is it the same at Universal and Sea World? I have only been here one other time and I did a lot of planning on which days we went to which parks and followed the touring plans and we had a great time and not a lot of lines. Seems like with the perk of the front of the line i don't need to do quite so much planning. I really just want to make a few ADR's at a handful of places so I am just trying to figure out what days we plan to be at what parks for that. Thanks for any tips you can give, I love planning our family trips but usually have a lot more time than I am this time. We leave 1-29! So excited but feel like I'm cramming for a test

We've never done a MAW trip to Universal, but, from what I've read, Universal is even better at FOTL than WDW.

 

[WendyLou]

We've never done a MAW trip to Universal, but, from what I've read, Universal is even better at FOTL than WDW.

Yes, this is what I've read as well.

 

[WendyLou]

I have a question as I am trying to plan our trip. From what I understand reading peoples trip reports, we get front of the line at WDW. Is it the same at Universal and Sea World? I have only been here one other time and I did a lot of planning on which days we went to which parks and followed the touring plans and we had a great time and not a lot of lines. Seems like with the perk of the front of the line i don't need to do quite so much planning. I really just want to make a few ADR's at a handful of places so I am just trying to figure out what days we plan to be at what parks for that. Thanks for any tips you can give, I love planning our family trips but usually have a lot more time than I am this time. We leave 1-29! So excited but feel like I'm cramming for a test

Congrats on your upcoming trip! It's so soon! I love planning Disney trips as well. Hope you are able to get all the ADRs you would like.

 

[SirDuff]

Thought you might enjoy this story that a friend posted on FB…

Yesterday at the Halifax airport I spotted a family at the WestJet gate going to Orlando. All the family were wearing blue "Make-A-Wish" shirts. A little boy, maybe 4-5 years old was in a white one with a gorgeous metallic superhero cape. He was running around like he was on top of the world. Given that they were going to Orlando, I assume they were headed to Disney. While eating lunch, I heard a peculiar announcement saying that the keys to the plane had been "lost" but all was well as "Super Pete" had "found" the keys and they could fly to Florida. When I looked over at the desk the pilot had lifted up Pete for everyone to see and everyone was clapping.

 

[chcmama]

Thought you might enjoy this story that a friend posted on FB…

That is really neat, thanks for sharing.

I have a question for those of you that have extended your wish trips. I asked our granters and they said that they do but don't encourage it because it is complicated since we have to find our own place to stay and return rental car and rent another, these were what I expected but they also said we would have to find our own way home from the airport which is almost 2 hours from home for us. I thought this was strange because we are just coming home a different day I thought they would still get us home from the airport. But, still it is fine as long as we know ahead of time, kind of a pain but we can work it out. But I emailed the wish granter about extending one more day but if things had already been set for the day I said before that was fine. He responded it didn't really matter what day we came back and by me asking if everything was already set up for us on the 7th did I realize that after the 4th everything was up to us including rescheduled air travel back home. I'm a little confused by this so emailed him back to clarify because that was the only thing I thought they were taking care of. Any one else extend trip and feel like MAW left you hanging? Don't get me wrong I think MAW is amazing with everything they do, just a little confused by the way things are handled with extending the trip.
Thanks for any insight

 

[WendyLou]

Thought you might enjoy this story that a friend posted on FB…

Love this!

 

[FaithsWish]

Thought you might enjoy this story that a friend posted on FB…

This made me tear up!! How awesome!

 

[chcmama]

I just started our pre-trip report. Here is the link http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=52834015#post52834015

 

[FaithsWish]

I thought I would share. Here are the 4 matching family shirts I have made for the nights we will be attending the parties at GKTW. Halloween Party, Christmas Party, Surprise Birthday Party and Pirates and Princess Party. Only 56 more days!

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

 

[2lovebugs]

I love the shirts!!!

So we leave in two weeks from today! Very excited and a little stressed. We haven't heard from our MAW Volunteers yet. Is this normal? I'm sure everything will be fine I'm just stressing . We did recieve a pamphlet from Give Kids The World Resort with our check in day so that's good. Thanks for the help!

 

[FaithsWish]

I love the shirts!!!

So we leave in two weeks from today! Very excited and a little stressed. We haven't heard from our MAW Volunteers yet. Is this normal? I'm sure everything will be fine I'm just stressing . We did recieve a pamphlet from Give Kids The World Resort with our check in day so that's good. Thanks for the help!

Two weeks?!? Oh my gosh! That is coming up so fast!

My MAW coordinator told me that once she sent me the flight info, I probably wouldn't hear from anyone again until about 1 week prior to departure. That is when our MAW Wish Granters would most likely give us our papers and a small amount of spending money.

Can you maybe send a little email to put your mind at ease?

 

[2lovebugs]

Ok...we haven't even received our flight information! I think I will email and see.

 

[ButterflyEffect]

That is really neat, thanks for sharing.

I have a question for those of you that have extended your wish trips. I asked our granters and they said that they do but don't encourage it because it is complicated since we have to find our own place to stay and return rental car and rent another, these were what I expected but they also said we would have to find our own way home from the airport which is almost 2 hours from home for us. I thought this was strange because we are just coming home a different day I thought they would still get us home from the airport. But, still it is fine as long as we know ahead of time, kind of a pain but we can work it out. But I emailed the wish granter about extending one more day but if things had already been set for the day I said before that was fine. He responded it didn't really matter what day we came back and by me asking if everything was already set up for us on the 7th did I realize that after the 4th everything was up to us including rescheduled air travel back home. I'm a little confused by this so emailed him back to clarify because that was the only thing I thought they were taking care of. Any one else extend trip and feel like MAW left you hanging? Don't get me wrong I think MAW is amazing with everything they do, just a little confused by the way things are handled with extending the trip.
Thanks for any insight

Did you find out any more about this? Seems odd that your return days wouldn't just be changed by them.

 

[FaithsWish]

Ok...we haven't even received our flight information! I think I will email and see.

We were lucky and received our flight information last month. We needed to coordinate flights with our oldest daughter. While she is officially part of Faith's wish and is listed with us at GKTW, she is not included financially so we needed to buy her tickets and flight.

 

[chcmama]

Did you find out any more about this? Seems odd that your return days wouldn't just be changed by them.

I asked him to clarify about the flights and he said that MAW pays for the flight but i guess they usually leave it to us to reschedule. However, we don't have any flight info to change it. He did offer to check with the people who schedule and see if they could change it for us if we wanted. I told him that would be great so hopefully they are able to do that for us.

 

[FaithsWish]

Since this post has picked up a bit recently, I will ask a question from a while ago again.

Has anyone (or is anyone) used Magicbands with MAW? Can we use it with the GKTW tickets? I can really see the advantage of not having to keep track of a ticket and photopass. It would be very nice to just use the band.

Bueller? Bueller?

 

[chcmama]

Since this post has picked up a bit recently, I will ask a question from a while ago again.

Has anyone (or is anyone) used Magicbands with MAW? Can we use it with the GKTW tickets? I can really see the advantage of not having to keep track of a ticket and photopass. It would be very nice to just use the band.

Bueller? Bueller?

I've been wondering the same thing, wonder if it is worth the extra $ to get them. I know my kids would like them.