need help planning a Make a Wish trip

annsteere

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Joined
Dec 24, 2000
Messages
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My neice is going in early June, thanks to Make a Wish. M-A-W provides accomodations.

Can you tell me anything special they should know?

She tires easily and will probably need to go back to the hotel and rest more than once a day. What is the arrangement for transportation between the parks and the hotel?

Is there a special M-A-W hotel or do they use open slots in regular Disney properties?
 
The FAQs ha a ton of info on wish trips and dealing with special needs. I assume you are talkig bout WDW which has in the area a special village for make a wish kids and their families to stay which is very special and a lot of fun for the kids.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=595713

Wish Trippers...UNITE!! Volume 2!
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2039777
They have trip reports and a ton of other stuff to read.

Big hugs and do not worry as you are in good hands with Make a Wish.
 
Thanks mechurchlady! I've gone so often that the extended family believes in me as the Disney resource. But, this trip is different. Those links look like they will be a great resource for my SIL as she plans this bittersweet trip.
 
If you stay at Give Kids the World Village, you will most likely have a rental car provided for your family as it is a 15 or 20 minute drive into WDW. When we went in 2005, the Village was full and we were put up at Beach Club resort :banana: so we got to use all of the EMH's, park transportation, etc. There are pros and cons to staying at the GKTWV vs. at WDW. Your family will get Park Hopper tickets, tickets to Universal Studios, and tickets to other parks should you wish to go (Bush Gardens, etc.) The people at GKTWV are very nice and will make your stay as wonderful as possible. If you want any more info., please PM me. :cool2:
 

The Give Kids the World village is amazing!! I highly recommend they alot some time to explore and to participate in some of the evening activities. Every night is themed, one night they had a life size candyland game, I think it's Christmas on Thursdays and Santa comes and every kid gets a toy.

They also do Character meet and greets and photo ops just for the kids at the village and present you with a photo and CD free of charge.

Tell them to leave room to bring stuff home, they dropped goodies of some sort off at our condo every night!

Tell her to wear her MAW t-shirt on the plane, they will give her preferential bording right after unaccompanied minors.

They gave us a mini van which we picked up right at the airport. Our trip was booked and executed in 48 hours so we didn't have the planning time that a lot due, however they still made it incredible!!

Another nice thing is the wish child get's a passport that grants free admission to a ton of places all over the country that is good for one year.

Make sure she wears her pin they give her in a highly visible area, we pinned my daughters on her hat. If the CM's can see it she is much more likely to be chosen for things, for example the little parade in Frontier land all the bears fawned over her. And during the parades any cast member or character who noticed she was a wish child made a little extra fuss.

The wish child wearing the pin and the adult wearing the lanyard they give you need to be together to get on the rides. When you approach a ride just go right to the CM and show them, they will then escort you right to the front. The only thing you can't do is push to the front of a character meet. However, my daughter is little mermaid obsessed, and when we visited her grotto, they let our group go in alone and spend quite a bit of time with her. This was probably one of the highlights of the trip! Ariel was fantastic, I tear up just thinking about it even now.

When we were on her trip, we chose to buy extra park tickets and forgo Universal etc., because we had like 12 people who flew down to be with us and were staying in a DTD hotel. However, we did go to Gatorland as my youngest and DH are a little reptile obsessed. When we got to Gatorland and they found out we were there on a wish, I think she was free, and they gave us tickets for a free photo with a snake or gator etc.

If there is anything else you can think of you would like to know just ask! :)
 
also make sure they get on the disboards themselves and do a pre-trip report. Go look at some of them and you will see why and it will give you a good idea what actually goes on during a trip.
 
Don't forget to tell her that she can bring onto any US airline all her medical needs stuff for free. Like special bedding, monitors, mobility devices, food, liquids, medical supplies. On the plane she should remove anything that might get lost or broken like baskets and foot rests. Take a pillow case and dump everything you remove into the bag. You can take that onboard for free.

Make sure she has extra of everything because airlines can get delayed so you do not want to be caught on a plane waiting for them to unload you while the kid gets sick or hungry.
 
I'm a forum CM in attractions and entertainment, and my last CP I was an "Angel" (volunteer) at Give Kids the World. If you have any specific questions about GKTW or WDW that you would like a CM perspective on, feel free to ask or PM. I try to keep up with the Wish Trippers thread but have not been as good about it as I try to be.
 
Another nice thing is the wish child get's a passport that grants free admission to a ton of places all over the country that is good for one year.

My daughter is a wish child and she never got one of those, and I know more wish children who didn't get one either.
 
My daughter is a wish child and she never got one of those, and I know more wish children who didn't get one either.

Really? Everyone I know who took a wish got one, and I know people all over the country due to my involvement in the Pedi brain tumor community.

It was in the folder we received from MAW. It is kinda like a certificate and then a listing with all the places by state and some overseas and the numbers and contact names for the places to arrange the visit. We unfortunately never got to use ours since my daughter went in for her second craniotomy right after we got home, and then we needed to travel out of state for treatment, radiation etc. and then she just wasn't well enough. But I know of at least one family that basically road tripped from state to state to take advantage of it.

I know some things vary depending on what the local MAW does, but I thought this was universal. If you like I can hunt it down and pull it out to give you the specifics if you want to try and contact MAW.
 
No that is ok , thanks anyway.
I know it did not come with any of our stuff , our documents and information were not given to us until three days before we were leaving , we had a delay because of the california chapter of MAW since we were going to DL and they are not familiar with it.
 
We got the "passport" information in the packet of things that they give to you when you get to the Give Kids the World Village. It was very easy to overlook because it really is just a listing of parks around the US on plain white 8 1/2 X 11 typing paper along with a certificate, which we never needed to show. We took advantage of a couple of the parks the following summer, namely 6 Flags, Hershey Park, Silver Springs and Kennedy Space Center, to name a few. You had to call the parks in advance to arrange yur visit, which meant that you needed to do some planning. Hope this helps other families that might overlook this perk. :cool2:
 





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