make a wish

[billym70]

anyone with any info on the villas of the make a wish foundation would be helpfull! me and my family will be going their in feburary hopefully and it will be the first time for all of us. me and my wife are parents of 7 kids 4 of them are special needs children , and they are all under the age of 10. any spcial tips and advice is appriciated

 

[SueM in MN]

Welcome. Glad to hear you might be going on a special trip to WDW.
The disABILITIES Board has quite a few posters who have stayed at Kid's Village on Make a Wish trips.
Click here for the website for Give Kids the World. They operate Kid's Village and most Wish kids stay there. The website will tell you almost everything you might want to know and also has some pictures of the village. We have never been there, but it looks like a really magical place.

You can just look thru the questions that other people have asked on this board to get a lot of good advice. Otherwise, it would be helpful if we knew a little more about your kids special needs. What are you most concerned about or what are they biggest challenges you are worried about dealing with? That way, we can give you a little more helpful information.

 

[billym70]

Thank you for your speedy reply! That web site is excatly what we were looking for! I have read some of your other postings, you really know what your are doing. Thank you. Three of our seven children are wheel chair bound, we are mainly concered with the accesibilites. I am sure as we get more into the actual planning of our special trip more questions will arise. Because of the wheelchairs, is there any spots that you know we should avoid all together? Our children range in age of 4 to 10. The hole excersion looks somewhat over whelming. Where do you start?

 

[SueOKW]

Where do you start? Somewhere is a spot on this board with all the info for guests with disabilities. Terri made a super link - and hopefully Sue M will jump in with it. If you do a search on SueOKW on the trip reports board you may find some of my trip reports from march.

One of our 3 kids is in a wheelchair, and we actually had a wish trip this March. We stayed at Give Kids the World. I can't tell you how much fun you will have - just trust that everyone involved with your wish will take really good care of you. Everything there is accessible. WDW and Universal are very handi-friendly. You guys will all be treated like kings and queens everywhere you go, and will be likely to be close to tears at least once or twice a day just because everyone is SO nice.

Have fun. Keep a small journal - 4 or 5 lines a day is fine - just to remind you about all that happens. The ONLY real downside - if there is one - - is that they give you more ideas of things to do than time to actually do them! Sea World, Universal, WDW... you get tickets to all. I'm not going to give more away than that - but it would be a very good idea to check out the parks via the postings on this web site and pick.

I will say one more thing - - we actually spent one full day just at the resort - the pool is so nice and easy to use. It was extremely relaxing. I really worry about families going down there with just GO GO GO on the mind. We are a pretty experienced Disney group so we felt it was ok to miss a day out in the parks. The choice is totally yours, but I just wanted to make sure you realized that you can't be running marathon races everywhere! On the other hand, you will save a lot of time as you will get through lines at the parks VERY quickly - make sure you have all your paperwork from GKTW.

have fun - enjoy - relax - - it's soooo cool!
Sue

 

[SueM in MN]

I'm glad I helped you find what you were looking for.
And SueOKW has the village stuff very fresh in her mind since her family was there in March.
There is a frequent poster named Michigan who has 2 kids using wheelchairs, so she is a good expert on travel with more than one wheelchair user. My youngest DD uses a wheelchair. She has cerebral palsy (mixed type, but mostly spastic quad) and can't walk or stand, is non-verbal, but understands well. Over the years, she has been on everything at WDW except Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Rock N Roller Coaster and Kali River Rapids. So, I can say that there is a way to even get someone with pretty severe disabilities on most of the rides if they really want to go. Some won't be easy, but there are enough rides/other attractions that the person can stay right in the wheelchair for to make WDW a great place to go.
Here is a link to the disABILITIES FAQs. A frequent poster named teri compiled them from the questions and answers we had to the board. The FAQs are not meant to stop you from asking questions; they are to put a lot of the stuff we collected together in one place and help you so you can ask questions that will be the most helpful to you.

Now, for the advice: My personal least favorite park in MK. Because it is over 30 years old, it was not built with as much accessibility as the newer parks. There are rides where you can stay in a wheelchair for the whole ride, but you have to get out of the wheelchair and into a ride car for more rides there than at any other park. Since the rides are mostly short (like literally less than 3 minutes), it makes for a lot of moving back and forth quickly and everyone is likely to tire faster at MK.
I think AK and the Studio are the most accessible. There are a lot of good shows at both. Don't miss the Festival of Lion King at AK. There is also a good bird show in Asia at AK (my DD liked the birds flying RIGHT OVER people's heads - large birds, very close) and the Pocohontas animal show there is pretty cute.
At the Studio, the Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback shows are really great. If your kids are in to thrills, Star Tours is not one you can stay in the wheelchair for, but it is pretty easy to get into.

One of the probelms we have is bathrooms. Again MK is the worst. Most of the regular handicapped stalls are more made for a person who can walk into the stall, but needs handrails. There are some family bathrooms, made for someone who needs assistance to go in with a helper. Those are great. The studio and AK have the best bathrooms (more family bathrooms and big wheelchair stalls).
Come back with more questions and hopefully, we can help you out with answers.

 

[Piglet]

Hi billym70,

Our family just returned from a Make A Wish Trip to Disney November 3 and stayed at the Village. Please feel free to ask any questions you want. You can also PM me if you like

Melinda

 

[SandraC]

Our family stayed at Kids Village (Give Kids the World) thru Make a Wish in June 1998. Our dd was only 4.5 years old. It was sooooooooooooooo magical! The whole family is treated like royalty. dd and I cried like babies come time to leave. Goofy was at Kids Village at the time and ran up the path, scooped up dd and myself with big hugs! SOOOOO COOL! On the plane home I promised dd we would return in 18 months. Well, that was January 2000 and plans changed because we had a second child Jan 2000! Still wanting to go, I saved and saved and saved like crazy! I knew the GKTW trip was a one of a kind trip but I wanted dd to be able to have ANYTHING she wanted. So in April 2001, dd was 7.5 years old and her new brother was only 15 months old and we went again! Because dd's condition was exactly the same as the wish trip, she was treated with the same respect as the wish trip. ds was only 15 months old and he loved it too! Well, we returned home and started saving again. If everything is okay with dd (she go to hospital in two weeks), we are going again April 2002! I thought about going every year, because as you well know with a sick child, life and time is precious, so annual Disney trips to most seems very luxurious, to me, they are memories in the making! Like I said we were going to go every year, but dd would like to see other places, and so do we! So we are planning lots of other trips too. The travel insurance gets expensive (last trip was $250.00 ~ we are in Canada), but it's worth it! I work PT and all my $$$$ goes for trips and leisure.

If you have any questions, please let me know! OH BY THE WAY! Look for the blond doll all dressed in red and white with lots of maples leaves. dd and I spent a year making the doll for the dinning room ~ wait until you see all the dolls from around the world! We wanted to add one!

DO NOT MISS THE CHARACTER MEALS AT KIDS VILLAGE! GOD BLESS! Sandra

 

[luv2boys]

We also went on a Make A Wish trip in May 2001. Had a great time. Will answer any questions.

 

[SueOKW]

Hi Sandra - i just sent you a PM - let me know about your second trip. In the meantime, we are going to WDW in April too! Can't wait!