Make A Wish to Disneyland, CA

[Bullardbaby]

This is Lila Claire's mom and we just got confirmation that her Make A Wish was granted! She wished to go to the "princess castle."
Now our family lives in Georgia and we visit Disney World in Florida at least once a year. We've even been on a Disney Cruise. We knew the child loves Disney Princesses, so we figured we'd be headed back down there when they spoke with her about her wish. When Make A Wish called however, they told me she said her favorite princess was Aurora and that Sleeping Beauty's castle was on the west coast in California. I almost screamed because we'd never been to Disney Land!!!!
Our travel dates are Sunday, October 7-Saturday, October 13. We're flying into LAX. Originally it was for 6 days, 5 nights, but we added a night at our expense because we heard you could do that. We have 3 days at Disneyland and the rest on our own.
We'd really like any suggestions anyone has that has been on a MAW trip to Disneyland.

 

[kjmommie]

I am excited to follow along on your journey. We too, visit WDW at least once a year. My son has decided that he wants to go to Disneyland to see CarsLand for his Wish. There aren't a lot of WISH trip reports out there for DisneyLand so I am excited to follow yours!!

 

[Bullardbaby]

We're going tomorrow on our trip! I was worried about the plans since we just got our itinerary just a week and a half ago!!!

Here's how the wish is granted:

We didn't get booked into a Disney hotel, but we're thankful that we're going and will be able to see the park from where we are! We're scheduled to stay in Homewood Suites Anaheim which is 1.5 miles away. I looked at the website of the hotel and it says there is a shuttle that stops at all the hotels in that area to take you to Disneyland. It costs $3.00 per person. We may drive the van back and forth, but if anyone knows any details about this please let us know. When we fly from ATL to LAX on Sunday we'll probably just hang out at Downtown Disney and swim at the hotel.

MAW scheduled for us a rental van for the entire time for us there. Paperwork says for us to take our insurance card with us, so we've got to remember to stick that in our wallet!
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[/LIST]We've got 2 days at Disneyland with hopper tickets and since our daughter is 5 and a true Disney fanatic, we really didn't know too much about Knotts Berry Farm, we chose to do a 3rd day at Disneyland. We love Disney World and go to Florida almost every year, so you can say we are all Disney fanatics really!
Our first day (Monday) we're having her "WISH" granted when we meet Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty) at Ariel's Grotto Restaurant in California Adventure at noon. We'll probably start the day early by starting at Disneyland Park (since we'll be on East Coast time), then "hop" over to Cal. Adv. for lunch, then "hop" back to Disneyland for the rest of the day. Then Tuesday spend the whole day at California Adventure.

Wednesday we'll have a free day and we're going to take it easy. Maybe we'll drive to Huntington beach or play it by ear. We'll see how everyone is feeling Anyone have any suggestions?

Thursday we'll go back to Disneyland and enjoy our last day in the park. Did you know that there's a MAW Lounge? I've read that sometimes there's characters in and out to greet kids. Maybe even snacks. We'll see...

Friday we check out of the hotel because that's when our MAW trip is supposed to end. We told MAW ahead of time that we wanted to extend our trip a day and pay for another hotel and the rental car ourselves. We heard you could do this from other MAW boards. They said no problem! They simply scheduled the flight a day later and let the rental car agency know we'd be paying for the van the extra day ourselves.

We really wanted to stay on the north side of Los Angles and look around Beverly Hills and Hollywood, so we booked a swanky hotel in Beverly Hills. We splurged, but when again would we ever have the chance to do this? Again, any suggestions as to what we should do would be grateful!

Of course we'll let you know how everything goes with the trip. The check came (generous) with the stickers for everyone in the family to wear. She got a MAW Barbie, a crown, a MAW button from our chapter, a pin, 2 tshirts to wear on the trip, a guide book of Disneyland, a video (although it was outdated), and her complete MAW itinerary personalized for our family! Our wonderful little princess is going to be overjoyed!

We'll check back in when we get back!