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

[icecreamforbreakfast]

2lovebugs said, I was wondering if anyone can tell me what they did about booster car seats on their wish trip. (I'm and early planer) I have read several stories but have yet seen anything on them. LJ is 6 and CG is 4 so they both will need to have a booster for the car/van rides. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you![/QUOTE]

Congratulations on your wish trip, it will create many fabulous memories I'm sure

When we went on our trip, we had two littles needing carseats and the rental company had a large collection of bagged, clean seats available and told us to help ourselves to what we needed, no charge. I believe this is done through Make A Wish and GKTW, we were told before we left home that this would be the case.

Happy planning (it's so much more fun then thinking hospital thoughts!)

 

[jaynec89]

I was wondering if anyone can tell me what they did about booster car seats on their wish trip. (I'm and early planer) I have read several stories but have yet seen anything on them. LJ is 6 and CG is 4 so they both will need to have a booster for the car/van rides. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Our MAW coordinator asked if we needed a booster for our daughter. She won't need one as she will be 8 when we go on our trip (and very tall for her age). I believe the booster/carseats come with the rental car/van they provide for you. Ask your wish coordinator to be sure though. Hope you have a good trip!

 

[2lovebugs]

Our MAW coordinator asked if we needed a booster for our daughter. She won't need one as she will be 8 when we go on our trip (and very tall for her age). I believe the booster/carseats come with the rental car/van they provide for you. Ask your wish coordinator to be sure though. Hope you have a good trip!

Thank you to both of you, jaynec89 and icecreamforbreakfast! That is wonderful that they provide them and that they are clean! One less thing to worry about. I am very excited about CG's Wish. We had to put off our trip that we had planned for September 2013. It was going to be a big surprise but God had other plans. This trip I know will be more memorable

 

[starearedkid]

I was reading Reese's story just the other day on here. She is such a Cutie Pie! My little ones love Tangled too! That's just too cute how she wants to meet the lizard. I hope and pray that she is still handling the Chemo well. Cailyn's worst part of treatment, aside from her initial hospital/diagnoses stay was, Delayed Intensification. She spent more time at the hospital then at home through that stage. She had stayed fever free though all of the other stages until that one. Thank God it wasn't anything too serious. One time she spiked a fever during her blood/platelet transfusion and the other two times she had a bad cold. When that stage was over she started Maintenance and I can remember asking the Doc, Are you sure she is ready? Of course that just laughed and said yes. This journey has been hard but there is light and hope too. We will keep little Reese in our thoughts and Prayers along with all of the other Angles we have come to know along the way.

Delayed intensification is next. I heard that stage is the hardest. Luckily--I will be home on summer vacation for most of it (if everything goes as planned). We go back to the doctors tomorrow and hopefully she is good to go for inpatient chemo. Since her diagnosis she has already had 3 fevers. (once the port was majority infected---that was bad and scary! She had to go to PICU overnight because her blood pressure dropped super low) Once she was sick with some type of virus. And once was when she got fluids due to her blood sugar level below low. Hopefully this phase that we are in is less eventful than induction and consolidation.

 

[Kristi77]

We received a call from MAW today, looks like we will be going in November. They will be calling in the next week with the exact dates. I am so excited for AJ and the girls. Any tips would be fabulous!!!!

 

[2lovebugs]

Delayed intensification is next. I heard that stage is the hardest. Luckily--I will be home on summer vacation for most of it (if everything goes as planned). We go back to the doctors tomorrow and hopefully she is good to go for inpatient chemo. Since her diagnosis she has already had 3 fevers. (once the port was majority infected---that was bad and scary! She had to go to PICU overnight because her blood pressure dropped super low) Once she was sick with some type of virus. And once was when she got fluids due to her blood sugar level below low. Hopefully this phase that we are in is less eventful than induction and consolidation.

I hope that Reese is doing well. I'm so sorry that she has had such a hard time with fevers. I can not imagine how scary that was for you guys for her to have an infection in her port. Cailyn has been having trouble with her blood sugar dropping too. We have been very lucky that she hasn't had it drop that low. Cailyn's doctor told us it was a side effect of the Chemo. Praying that Reese can get through Delayed Intensification without any fevers and that her blood sugar stabilizes.

 

[2lovebugs]

We received a call from MAW today, looks like we will be going in November. They will be calling in the next week with the exact dates. I am so excited for AJ and the girls. Any tips would be fabulous!!!!

Yay!! How exciting! On the Give Kids the World site there are some helpful ideas. They even have a video. http://www.gktw.org/pre/
We are still waiting on our volunteers to become available. I hopefully we will get the call soon! We are so excited for CG! She even has asked for her big brother LJ to be included in her MAW!

 

[chcmama]

Hi all, I just wanted to introduce myself and ask a couple of questions. I have 3 kiddos 17 yo daughter, 13yo daughter and 9yo son who is the wish kid. My 17yo and 9yo both have cystic fibrosis and my 17yo had her wish granted about 6 years ago to go on a cruise. We went on a Royal Caribbean cruise and had a fabulous time. My son has been wanting to do his wish for a while and he has really been wanting to go to Disney World and Universal Studios. We have been waiting because my oldest was not doing well and had been listed for a double lung transplant, she just received her new lungs 4 weeks ago and is doing fabulous! Now we are starting to think about our son's MAW and he has definitely been asking about it because he knew he had to wait until her transplant.
I think for my son he would be most excited about meeting the superheroes at Universal Studios, we have never been there before and don't know what exactly to expect from them. Has anyone else's kid had their wish been more for the superheroes? Just curious on what we might expect from Universal.

 

[hey_jude]

I think for my son he would be most excited about meeting the superheroes at Universal Studios, we have never been there before and don't know what exactly to expect from them. Has anyone else's kid had their wish been more for the superheroes? Just curious on what we might expect from Universal.

Many families that have gone on wish trips to Disney/Universal have reported being treated very well at Universal - some even say better than Disney treated them.

A specific wish at Universal that I remember is in this trip report: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=44659089#post44659089.

I hope you'll start a PTR to let us know how things are progressing with your son's wish!

Judy

 

[michiml03]

Hi we are a returning family and we are going to be FL in Nov and want to visit GKTW. I have some ?
Can we participate in the parties that they have at night?
Can we eat on the premisses?
Can we use the pool and get icecream?
TIA

 

[michiml03]

Hi we are a returning family and we are going to be FL in Nov and want to visit GKTW. I have some ?
Can we participate in the parties that they have at night?
Can we eat on the premisses?
Can we use the pool and get icecream?
TIA

 

[Moodyzblu]

Hi we are a returning family and we are going to be FL in Nov and want to visit GKTW. I have some ?
Can we participate in the parties that they have at night?
Can we eat on the premisses?
Can we use the pool and get icecream?
TIA

Good questions, I'd like to know too ! We will be there in November as well.

 

[nesser1981]

Check this PDF out from Give Kids the World for alumni. Looks like you can get one free meal, and attend activities. You can buy vouchers for meals.

http://www.gktw.org/pdf/alumni/WelcomeBackFamily.pdf

 

[TheDisneyDoll]

Hi all, I just wanted to introduce myself and ask a couple of questions. I have 3 kiddos 17 yo daughter, 13yo daughter and 9yo son who is the wish kid. My 17yo and 9yo both have cystic fibrosis and my 17yo had her wish granted about 6 years ago to go on a cruise. We went on a Royal Caribbean cruise and had a fabulous time. My son has been wanting to do his wish for a while and he has really been wanting to go to Disney World and Universal Studios. We have been waiting because my oldest was not doing well and had been listed for a double lung transplant, she just received her new lungs 4 weeks ago and is doing fabulous! Now we are starting to think about our son's MAW and he has definitely been asking about it because he knew he had to wait until her transplant.
I think for my son he would be most excited about meeting the superheroes at Universal Studios, we have never been there before and don't know what exactly to expect from them. Has anyone else's kid had their wish been more for the superheroes? Just curious on what we might expect from Universal.

Hi CF Momma! I also have Cystic Fibrosis (i'm 22). I went on my make @ Wish back in 2003, i've been on and off the lung transplant list since i was 8 and when the wish was presented to me i knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I wanted a farm with Cows and chickens. i was tragically let down when the make a wish people told me I couldn't have a long term possession so I settled for a week long disney cruise.
I was sick when i was originally supposed to go so they had to cancel my wish and reschedule it a year later.
Disney does wonderful things for Make @ Wish kids. We were invited to special lunches and dinners, and had VIP treatments for a week, and that was for my whole family not just me.
I don't know how universal would treat their guests, but disney whether it be in parks or by sea is top of the line.

On a separate note, I put this warning to ALL wishers. If it's something you have the potential to do in the future without a wish, don't spend your wish on it.
At the time I made my wish, my family wasn't in a place to afford vacations or trips so it seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity, but now my family has done it several times.
I don't regret using my wish on my cruise though. It gave me my first taste for disney and a love for it. I have since returned many times and even earned my ears as a cast member. I intend to go back in the future after i finish my degree

Best of luck to you and your family, i hope your Xer continues to make wonderful progress!

 

[starearedkid]

No dates yet


We probably won't know until early September unfortunately.

I have a question though. My parents are thinking about going with us (but not with us). They wouldn't be staying at GKTW or anything, but would be joining us in the park. If they do this, would they be able to get on the rides with us? I know we would have the MAW pass, so we would get easy access, but would they? Do we have to make arrangements with MAW before or is it taken care of at GKTW?

 

[wendygrace]

Wow! So nice to see these still running. We still think of our Wish Trip fondly as well as the return trip we make 18 months later. I can't answer any recent questions since our trip was over 7 yrs ago but it's nice to see people still asking and answering and writing trip reports.

 

[LindaBabe]

Wow! So nice to see these still running. We still think of our Wish Trip fondly as well as the return trip we make 18 months later. I can't answer any recent questions since our trip was over 7 yrs ago but it's nice to see people still asking and answering and writing trip reports.

AND it's SO nice to see YOU, my dear! How are the children? I will never forget them!

New folks - you need to read WendyGrace's trip report! Her kiddos are the sweetest - and Peter Pan is totally who pushed me into volunteering at GKTW.

 

[sarahtar]

Hello, all. I'm Sarah and I've started planning our not quite yet completely approved MAW trip, lol. I'm a planner and I don't deal well with, well, NOT planning. It's totally stressing me out that they told us we probably won't know for sure until a few weeks - WEEKS - before we go. My son's been approved for a Wish, but because of some interesting conflicts between our local MAW chapter's policies and GKTW policies, I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen. (Our local MAW requires wishes to be completed within a year of an organ transplant, but when the child is at least 2.5 years old; GKTW requires Wish kids to be 3. He won't be 3 until closer to Christmas, but DH can't get off work around Christmas... it's kind of a mess. His transplant was actually a year ago last week, but we requested to go in the fall because he gets dehydrated so easily.)

I started a pre-trip report and have already begun obsessive reading about what's changed since I was last at WDW in 2000.

 

[wendygrace]

Kids are well. Growing like weeds. Boy is 12, can you believe it? Never thought he'd still be with us. Both are dancing and he starts middle school here soon. Possible surgery coming up. Maybe. Well, in any case, we are seeing new surgeons next month to see if anything more can be done for him. He hopes so. Me, not so much. I hope all is well with you!

Sara, welcome and good luck with your wish trip!

 

[Fairy Dreamfinder]

Hello,
I am a new poster here. We have our MAW trip coming up in November. I will have to see what I need to do to start a pre-trip report. I just wanted to say thank you to wendygrace, I just read through your TR. Although I am sure things have changed a LOT since then, it was very helpful to get some idea of what to expect. I think that is the hardest thing for me, I am so detail oriented, that it's difficult just anticipating the unknown. So, thank you Wendy!