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

[FaithsWish]

Question for prior Wish Trip families!

I am considering getting a bag to attach to the back of Faith's wheelchair. It would hold her extra clothes and some of her equipment.

My concern is when we are actually on rides, how safe will the bag be? I've heard of backpacks being taken out of strollers and such that are left in stroller parking. Does this happen to bags on wheelchairs also? Did many of you leave the bag attached to the chair?

Related....what kind of bag do you have?

 

[FaithsWish]

A while ago I had asked a question about afternoon orientations at GKTW. I contacted GKTW directly and just in case anyone else has the same question, here is the response:

We have family orientation every day at 9:00am and 7:45pm. Sometimes there is an afternoon orientation scheduled, but we determine that each day based on the time and number of arrivals for the day. More than likely there will be a mid-afternoon orientation, but like I said, we won’t determine a time for that until the day of. Orientation will last about 45 minutes. Once you arrive, if the scheduled orientation times don’t work for your family, please feel free to ask our front desk staff or Manager on Duty about the possibility of a private orientation. If we are able, we will certainly do that for you!

Hope it can help someone else.

Hope everyone is doing well during this bitter cold!

Someone needs to let Elsa know that this cold bothers some of us.

 

[that's nice]

Question for prior Wish Trip families!

I am considering getting a bag to attach to the back of Faith's wheelchair. It would hold her extra clothes and some of her equipment.

My concern is when we are actually on rides, how safe will the bag be? I've heard of backpacks being taken out of strollers and such that are left in stroller parking. Does this happen to bags on wheelchairs also? Did many of you leave the bag attached to the chair?

Related....what kind of bag do you have?

How heavy do you expect the bag to be? I carry or connect to our stroller a backpack and when we get to a ride I bring it with me. I usually keep electronics, chargers, clothes, etc in the bag.

 

[chcmama]

Just heard from our wish granters tonight about flights and changing our flights home. They booked our flights for returning on Feb 4th which is when Caleb's wish trip would end and since we want to extend it, it is up to us to call and change it. I called tonight to change it and it is $125 per person change fee plus the difference in ticket price I was not expecting this big of charge. We wanted to extend to the 8th but the ticket prices are higher so if we do still extend our trip we will probably come home the 7th instead because the ticket price is lower. Just feeling a little frustrated because I didn't really expect the plane change fee, I guess I thought they would just book our return flight home for the day we wanted to come home and avoid change fees. I guess they really don't like people extending their trips.

 

[FaithsWish]

chcmama, awwww....I'm sorry that this is turning into quite a hassle.

Our chapter of MAW doesn't allow families to extend. At first we thought they did so we made all our plans based on being able to extend. I was so sad when they told me that they didn't. But now when I look at what we have planned, I'm not sure we would have the energy left for those extra days.

I hope you can get some resolution on it. Be sure to keep us in the loop!

 

[WendyLou]

A while ago I had asked a question about afternoon orientations at GKTW. I contacted GKTW directly and just in case anyone else has the same question, here is the response: We have family orientation every day at 9:00am and 7:45pm. Sometimes there is an afternoon orientation scheduled, but we determine that each day based on the time and number of arrivals for the day. More than likely there will be a mid-afternoon orientation, but like I said, we won’t determine a time for that until the day of. Orientation will last about 45 minutes. Once you arrive, if the scheduled orientation times don’t work for your family, please feel free to ask our front desk staff or Manager on Duty about the possibility of a private orientation. If we are able, we will certainly do that for you! Hope it can help someone else. Hope everyone is doing well during this bitter cold! Someone needs to let Elsa know that this cold bothers some of us.

Thanks, this is the info I was needing. I am hoping we will have an early flight and can possibly utilize this afternoon option if it is offered that day. It is freezing here, but no snow my oldest had a 2hr delay yesterday due to the cold. Elsa is not listening

 

[TheRustyScupper]

. . . Our chapter of MAW doesn't allow families to extend. At first we thought they did so we made all our plans based on being able to extend. I was so sad when they told me that they didn't . . .

1) Different chapters function differently.
2) MANY do not have/allow extensions, because it simply causes hassles.
3) In several instances, families were stranded because they didn't fully work out the extension details.
4) Even though not their issue or problem, MAW took the bad publicity hit.
5) Now, many simply have the arrangements and let them stand.

 

[FaithsWish]

3) In several instances, families were stranded because they didn't fully work out the extension details. 4) Even though not their issue or problem, MAW took the bad publicity hit.

I think I remember one of those instances. Now that I am finished with our itinerary, I don't think we would have the energy for extending!

 

[chcmama]

We decided to still go ahead and extend our trip, with 2 days of travel we would only have 5 days in Florida and just felt we wouldn't have as much time as we would like to have and coming all the way from the west coast seemed like it was worth it. So we will come home on the 7th and just had to pay change fee to airline no difference in ticket price. Everything has been taken care of for our extension except getting home from the airport. DH is going to check with a friend to see if they might be able to pick us up. Not a lot of people to ask since there are 5 of us and the airport is 1 1/2 hours away from home. There is a shuttle we can take but with 5 people will be about $200.
I can see why some chapters of MAW wouldn't allow extensions, as glad as I am that we can do it, it is becoming more of a hassle than I was expecting.

 

[WendyLou]

Question for prior Wish Trip families!

I am considering getting a bag to attach to the back of Faith's wheelchair. It would hold her extra clothes and some of her equipment.

My concern is when we are actually on rides, how safe will the bag be? I've heard of backpacks being taken out of strollers and such that are left in stroller parking. Does this happen to bags on wheelchairs also? Did many of you leave the bag attached to the chair?

Related....what kind of bag do you have?

Not a prior wish trip family ( just future ) , but we have always had a bag on the stroller in past trips and have never had a problem with it being stolen or tampered with. However, I also wear a cross body and keep money,cards, tickets etc in it and always take the cameras with me when we leave it to go on a ride and would place the bag in the seat of the stroller, put the umbrella/sun shade down and park up against the barrier so when all the strollers are side by side it would be harder to get to and harder to see. I didn't leave it hooked on the back of the stroller during rides just in the seat. So, i never left anything in the bag that I couldn't afford to loose, usually snacks, sweatshirts, refillable mugs etc. I just used general Disney themed bags that had handles long enough to hook over the handlebars of stroller. Not sure how open a wheelchair would be. Hope that helps a little...

 

[FaithsWish]

We have gone ahead and ordered MagicBands. I will report back after our trip to let everyone know if they helped.

This is the shirt I finished last night, as soon as my tan HTV arrives I will add in the chest hair..

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

Is 49 days too early to start packing????

 

[chcmama]

We have gone ahead and ordered MagicBands. I will report back after our trip to let everyone know if they helped.

This is the shirt I finished last night, as soon as my tan HTV arrives I will add in the chest hair..

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

Is 49 days too early to start packing????

cute shirt!

 

[aaarcher86]

We have gone ahead and ordered MagicBands. I will report back after our trip to let everyone know if they helped.

This is the shirt I finished last night, as soon as my tan HTV arrives I will add in the chest hair..

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

Is 49 days too early to start packing????

This is one of the greatest shirts I have ever seen! LOVE IT!

 

[FaithsWish]

cute shirt!

Thank you!

This is one of the greatest shirts I have ever seen! LOVE IT!

Just wait until I get the "chest hair" part done!!

 

[chcmama]

I heard from ds's wish granters and we will be having his send off dinner on the 27th. I am a planner so it has been hard for me to not know much of our plans until right before we leave but I have been doing ok I know that our flight is early on the 29th so they are taking us up to Portland and putting us in a hotel the evening of the 28th. I will be out of town next week so that is why our dinner is so close to the day we leave. Getting close!

 

[FaithsWish]

I heard from ds's wish granters and we will be having his send off dinner on the 27th. I am a planner so it has been hard for me to not know much of our plans until right before we leave but I have been doing ok I know that our flight is early on the 29th so they are taking us up to Portland and putting us in a hotel the evening of the 28th. I will be out of town next week so that is why our dinner is so close to the day we leave. Getting close!

I'm so excited for y'all! I can't wait to read about it!!


So, I finished Gaston.

[/url]Gaston shirt by Allyson244, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[chcmama]

I'm so excited for y'all! I can't wait to read about it!!


So, I finished Gaston.

[/url]Gaston shirt by Allyson244, on Flickr[/IMG]

that shirt is awesome!

 

[Topdogie01]

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?

oo. another one i can answer!

when we checked into our hotel, we were given magic bands (although, ithink its just because we were staying on site..) that were NOT linked to our tickets. id say to either pick who wants what ticket (goofy, mickey, donald, minnie, pluto, ect) before you get to the parks and attatch them from the my disney app to wristbands if you can. we had a mishap as i was attaching our tickets to bands and ended up attatching grandpas ticket to girlfriends band, and her ticket to his band. they just used thier ticket, or we explained to the castmember letting us in what happened and they laughed, and sometimes did the fingerprint of the correct person.

if you purchased magic bands, you should add them to your disney account. then at orientation you will get your tickets. on the back of the tickets is the code you need to attach them to your account (and magic band!). please make sure you attach the right one to right person if you already have gotten into the parks, if you do it before you get into the parks the first time it doesnt matter who gets what ticket assigned to them really (other than kids wanting X card, which they can have anyways).

i also was tagging all of our pictures on our magicbands. (please. please. PLEASE do not put everyones tickets into a wallet then tap the wallet to the ride photos reader spot.. you dont need ~30 bajillion photos in your account!), and if you do get a photopass card (darth vader from the jedi academy?!) just take a picture with your phone of the back of the card so you can attactch that card to your account, then you dont need to worry about keeping track of the card by the time you get home to review pictures. just look through your phone pics to see all the cards you were given.

 

[FaithsWish]

Now that we have our days and most of our itinerary nailed down, I have a few questions about SeaWorld.

Do we need to enroll Faith in the Ride Accessibility Program when we get there or is there a "Genie" type thing with being a wish child?

If there is a special thing that will reduce the time spent in lines, is it for the wish child only? I know that the older kids and I will want to ride Manta and Kracken, but that Faith will not. Will we be allowed to get on quickly to lessen the amount of time our party is separated?

Can we feed the Sting Rays? Because sting rays are awesome!

 

[Topdogie01]

Now that we have our days and most of our itinerary nailed down, I have a few questions about SeaWorld.

Do we need to enroll Faith in the Ride Accessibility Program when we get there or is there a "Genie" type thing with being a wish child?

If there is a special thing that will reduce the time spent in lines, is it for the wish child only? I know that the older kids and I will want to ride Manta and Kracken, but that Faith will not. Will we be allowed to get on quickly to lessen the amount of time our party is separated?

Can we feed the Sting Rays? Because sting rays are awesome!

i dont remember if we had anything special (any the papers have been filed away, i will look to see if i can find everything to see if there is or not) like front of the line, but i do rememeber wearing the lanyard all day so there must have been something.. (we also stopped by first aid/guest servises to get a stroller as wheelchair tag).

your GKTW button should get you a free feeding with the dolphins, and stingrays if you want it. my child could not reach low enough into the pool to feed the stingrays (and im afraid he would either try to go swimming with them.. or pull one out).

me and girlfriend rode kracken, but i dont remember if we had a pass to use or not. i think we didnt because the line was short (<5min).