Megan's trip to see Mickey Day 1

[Megan's Mom]

Day 1 We are off.
I have been trying to get motivated to write my trip reports but I think I have been suffering from "Post vacation depression syndrome" and then after reading Delswife's **** I just knew we wouldn't compare.
There have been other mitigating factors as well such as work, preparing for DH trip to Germany and oh yea Megan's two trips to the ER. But I digress.

Cast of characters
DH Beginning to become a Disney nut
Me The planner
DD 10
DGF otherwise called "the Spoiler"
DGM

Day one. I am up before daylight, actually around 4:30 and can't sleep. I get up and watch a little TV and mentally go over my checklist of things packed and needed to be taken care of before we left. About 6 I decide to start assembling the troups. I do this by starting breakfast. I is amazing what a glass of oj and sausage balls will do. Finally we are up, ready and out the door by 7:45 my target ETD! yea. We make the drive to the airport without a hitch. Alittle aside here. We are only having to check one bag because my parents are driving down and have taken our other luggage but we still had Megan in her wheelchair, car seat, laptop and camera bag that we were dragging through the airport. We made it through security without them doing any cavity checks and we were off to the gate. We also had a small problem. When we ordered our tickets; seat assignments had not been made yet so we could not request the bulkhead seats and when we went back they had been taken. So get ready for some Pixie dust because this wonderful family of four swapped seats with us. I was beginning to think that this would be the perfect vacation. Also met up with another family of four traveling to WDW. They were staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge. I was asking the girls what they were going to be doing and the poor parents obviously do not read the DIS because they thought they could walk into CRT. As I left them dad was frantically calling trying to make reservations.
The flight down was uneventful. Those traveling with children I recommend Ear Planes. They work. We get our bag and then hop on the Thrifty van to go get our van along with half of Orlando. AFter much discussion about taking the back seat out of the van they finally let us take an upgraded van--with no discount- that we could fold the backseat down. Finally after an hour we were off. Just as we were leaving the parking lot my mother calls "where are you?' they had already made it to the big Orange. The office building next door was home to Elite homes our home away from home for the week. Next to find our house. It was a nice house not too far from things and close to Walmart etc. AFter a quick run to Steak N Shake for lunch we made our list for Walmart and headed out. This Walmart was increadable. You can stir those people with a stick and it didn't matter what time you went by it was crowded.
That night we went over to visit Give Kids the World Village. If you ever get the chance to visit I would highly recommend that you do it is truly a unique experience. Saturday night is mayor Clayton's birthday and they always have a big party. This night it was really big because some clowns that had just graduated clown College were there to perform and they were great.
When we leave there we head home to get a good night's sleep. We are headed to Epcot in the morning. This is the park that we didn't visit last year.

 

[Byrd]

Thank you for posting. I can't wait to hear more. I never heard of Give Kids the World Village. Can you tell me more about it.
Thanks,
Byrd

 

[Megan's Mom]

Give Kids the World Village is near WDW. They have 90 or so villas that families of children with life threatening conditions can stay. The children usually are granted a wish through one of the wish organizations and then stay at the village. The buildings there are increadable. A big gingerbread house that is pink is the dinning room. Perkins resturants do all the food-- breakfast and dinner is provided. There is an ice cream shop ran by Friendly. You can get all kinds of ice cream all day long. There is a train, game room, a movie theater a lovely chapel with stained glass windows. They have a web site www.gktw.org You can see the buildings and learn more about what they do. It is an remarkable experience.

 

[meeshi]

Thanks for sharing. I am trying to talk dh into going back down to FL. I would love to visit gktw. We stayed there 2 years ago for DD's wish trip, what an awesome place! DS liked the village better than the parks. What did you have to do to visit? Did you call ahead and make arrangements?

 

[tigger2on]

I am glad that you decided to post your trip report. I too have a child in a wheelchair so it is always a good thing to read. We are taking her to Disney for her 7th b-day in a couple of weeks. Really looking forward to it. We did the Disney Land/Sea package in May 2001, off-site at the Summerfield Suites in Dec. 2002 and this year we are doing 3 hotels (AKL for 4 nights) in Nov. 2003.
If you ever have a chance, try the cruise. It was great

 

[Megan's Mom]

We had meant to email them before we left but you know about the best laid plans. we just drove up and told them at the gate and they let us in. We went to the main building and they gave us nametags and asked if we wanted to stay for dinner. We also enjoyed all the activities there almost as much as Disney.

We have talked about doing a cruise but was wondering about how a wheelchair would do. Let me know the pros and cons. I might can talk everyone in to doing that next.

 

[IMISSDISNEY]

Thanks for the great report.

 

[corky805]

Thanks for the report!