Off to see the "Real Tree" - April 19th - April 26th! Ali's Wish Trip PTR!

[Applemomma]

Please tell us Gabe gets to go too?! He'll have some much fun....I can just picture him riding Dumbo with one of the girls with a huge smile on his face

 

[kellyw8863]

Please tell us Gabe gets to go too?! He'll have some much fun....I can just picture him riding Dumbo with one of the girls with a huge smile on his face

Because of some things that have happened recently, it is an extremely complicated situation, but yes, as of right now, our intention is to have him come with us.

 

[Thumper321]

Just wanted to say hi! I'm so glad I get to follow your story. We're waiting for dates as well, so maybe we can try not to go insane together. It's so hard to wait in between steps. : Sorry to hear about the issues with Gabe. Hope you are able to work it all out before the trip. Let us know when you get your travel dates!

 

[kayrosek]

Well I'll be crossing my fingers that GKTW is available and that Gabe can go with you, hopefully it will all work out you guys deserve the perfect magical trip.

 

[maroo]

Woo hoo!!! So glad she wished for Disney!

And great job on the Wish Granters part - to pick up on the Animal Kingdom references!

 

[pnutallergymom]

Yay!!!!!!

Disney, here you come!!!!

I LOVED the pictures!!! BTW, Ali looks great in her pics!! Glad to see she was able to fight that scare off!!! Keep up the good work Ali, you too Kelly

 

[kellyw8863]

Just wanted to say hi! I'm so glad I get to follow your story. We're waiting for dates as well, so maybe we can try not to go insane together. It's so hard to wait in between steps. : Sorry to hear about the issues with Gabe. Hope you are able to work it all out before the trip. Let us know when you get your travel dates!

Thanks! We have tentatively firm dates, if that makes sense. We were told that April 20th - 26th is pretty much a sure thing. Any word on your dates? I need to go check out your PTR!

Well I'll be crossing my fingers that GKTW is available and that Gabe can go with you, hopefully it will all work out you guys deserve the perfect magical trip.

Thanks! We will be staying at GKTW, and Gabe will be going with us, but not as part of MAW. Apparently he's not considered an immediate family member. We are going to try and pull it together to pay OOP, though.

Woo hoo!!! So glad she wished for Disney!

And great job on the Wish Granters part - to pick up on the Animal Kingdom references!

Our wish granters were very sweet! He was very excited when he realized he knew what she was talking about.

Yay!!!!!!

Disney, here you come!!!!

I LOVED the pictures!!! BTW, Ali looks great in her pics!! Glad to see she was able to fight that scare off!!! Keep up the good work Ali, you too Kelly

Woot! Thanks, Shannon. Any word from Miami yet? Thinking of you guys!

Okay, so it's been kind of a long and stressful week, but it does seem as though we have dates. They couldn't do our original (or even our second choice) dates because she said they don't book school vacation weeks. So we're scheduled for April 20th - 26th. I've made a last minute plea for the 19th - 25th so that we don't have to take time off for work, but I'm not sure they will do it. Our teaching contract says that we cannot take days off at either end of a school vacation or long weekend, so I dread having to spring that one on them.

The other blip is that they will not include Gabe because he is not considered an immediate family member. This really bothers me, more because of the idea of it than anything else, but we will be paying OOP because there is no way we could go and not bring him. For as long as he lives in this house, he IS a member of the family. So, we'll refrain from extending our trip (easy since it doesn't make sense to extend at the beginning and we won't be able to extend at the end because of the work conflict), and we'll have to be more conservative with character meals. But, it's worth it to keep our family together.

And on that note, does anyone know if park tickets are transferrable? We have friends who live in Florida who could potentially buy Gabe's tickets, but I don't want to ask them to do that only to find out that the tickets are nontransferrable. I am going to make one last plea for help with these from MAW, but I'm not optimistic.

 

[pnutallergymom]

Hi Kelly,

I don't know anything about the tickets being transferable or not. But, what about doing Disney's Give a Day, Get a Day with Gabe?? It was super easy, and at least that would be one ticket you wouldn't have to purchase. We did ours on Thursday night, and it was super easy. We weren't even there for 2 hrs. I haven't looked lately, but before, there were even some activities you could do at home. I think it was for Jayme's Fund Initiative "lil MDG's"....you had to decorate a shoebox at home and then put a small donation (no minimum required) and then send in a picture of yourselves making it.

The other thing is to go on mousesavers...if your friends can't buy the tix, they usually have the cheapest ticket prices available.

I hope you are able to get your dates changed. Is it just your specific chapter that doesn't do the school vacation thing?? It doesnt' have anything to do with GKTW, right??

Well, hopefully you can get back into the planning phase!!!

 

[kellyw8863]

Hi Kelly,

I don't know anything about the tickets being transferable or not. But, what about doing Disney's Give a Day, Get a Day with Gabe?? It was super easy, and at least that would be one ticket you wouldn't have to purchase. We did ours on Thursday night, and it was super easy. We weren't even there for 2 hrs. I haven't looked lately, but before, there were even some activities you could do at home. I think it was for Jayme's Fund Initiative "lil MDG's"....you had to decorate a shoebox at home and then put a small donation (no minimum required) and then send in a picture of yourselves making it.

The other thing is to go on mousesavers...if your friends can't buy the tix, they usually have the cheapest ticket prices available.

I hope you are able to get your dates changed. Is it just your specific chapter that doesn't do the school vacation thing?? It doesnt' have anything to do with GKTW, right??

Well, hopefully you can get back into the planning phase!!!

Thanks, Shannon, I totally forgot about Give a Day, Get a Day! I think that will be great for all of us! I will also check out mousesavers for the rest of the days. I'm not sure if it's a chapter thing. We were told that GKTW was not the problem, that the problem is the flight. They said first that there are no direct flights left for the morning of the 17th, and then when we asked about other vacation dates, we were told they don't book vacations period. That's the only time we can go!

And I'm definitely getting back into the planning phase. I'm going to spend the morning making ADRs and setting up an itinerary. I'll post it as soon as I've got it all together.

 

[Momofwishkid]

I am so happy to hear your going to be going and with Gabe. I still cant believe they do not consider him a immediate family member
Good luck with your ADR's.

 

[kayrosek]

I'm so glad Gabe gets to go bu t it is a bit disapointing that they don't consider him family. The give a day get a day sounds like a good idea and I can't wait to see your itinerary.

 

[pacrosby]

As far as tickets go, the person who buys the ticket doesn't have to necessarily use it but once it's put through that turnstile the same person has to use it each time (they use some sort of finger print indentification system). Does that make sense?

GAD/GAD would be a great idea because you could then take the 79 dollars (the worth of a one day ticket) and apply it to a multi-day. It would end up making Gabe's 3 day park hopper much more affordable.

I'm actually not surprised to hear that they don't want to ok trips on school vacation weeks. The airfare is so much more and they really try to keep the cost down as much as they can. When we asked to extend they said that it would depend on whether it would increase the cost of the airfare. As a result we were ok to extend to the 18th but not any longer as the airfare jumped dramatically after that time (probably peak holiday fare).


I'm sorry that they won't pay for Gabe. I know that hat is a such a big disappointment for you. I think they have to have rules/policies in order to keep things simple. Yes your situation is legitimate but other people might try to take advantage if they were more flexible and then they'd have to spend more time trying to verify each and every situation. They probably just want to streamline the process so policies are put in place and then, that's that. Bummer for you guys though. I'm pretty sure he will be able to stay at GKTW with you for free and will be able to eat there for a dollar a meal. That will help. Like you said it's the tickets, and the airfare. Don't forget that they have been known to be pretty generous as far as the expense check. If you guys don't typically eat big and expensive meals, you may find that you still have plenty of money for food in the park, including a couple of character meals (try breakfasts, they are MUCH less expensive than dinners).

woohoo on the going away party!!! We didn't get one and we were out of the springfield office too.


Pamela


Matty's Wish Trip PTR http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2325607
Matty's Wish Trip TR "Mom, Dad, 3 Kids, and a Gingerbread Boy" http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2356739

 

[kellyw8863]

I am so happy to hear your going to be going and with Gabe. I still cant believe they do not consider him a immediate family member
Good luck with your ADR's.

I'm so glad Gabe gets to go bu t it is a bit disapointing that they don't consider him family. The give a day get a day sounds like a good idea and I can't wait to see your itinerary.

Thanks, ladies.

As far as tickets go, the person who buys the ticket doesn't have to necessarily use it but once it's put through that turnstile the same person has to use it each time (they use some sort of finger print indentification system). Does that make sense?

GAD/GAD would be a great idea because you could then take the 79 dollars (the worth of a one day ticket) and apply it to a multi-day. It would end up making Gabe's 3 day park hopper much more affordable.

I'm actually not surprised to hear that they don't want to ok trips on school vacation weeks. The airfare is so much more and they really try to keep the cost down as much as they can. When we asked to extend they said that it would depend on whether it would increase the cost of the airfare. As a result we were ok to extend to the 18th but not any longer as the airfare jumped dramatically after that time (probably peak holiday fare).


I'm sorry that they won't pay for Gabe. I know that hat is a such a big disappointment for you. I think they have to have rules/policies in order to keep things simple. Yes your situation is legitimate but other people might try to take advantage if they were more flexible and then they'd have to spend more time trying to verify each and every situation. They probably just want to streamline the process so policies are put in place and then, that's that. Bummer for you guys though. I'm pretty sure he will be able to stay at GKTW with you for free and will be able to eat there for a dollar a meal. That will help. Like you said it's the tickets, and the airfare. Don't forget that they have been known to be pretty generous as far as the expense check. If you guys don't typically eat big and expensive meals, you may find that you still have plenty of money for food in the park, including a couple of character meals (try breakfasts, they are MUCH less expensive than dinners).

woohoo on the going away party!!! We didn't get one and we were out of the springfield office too.


Pamela


Matty's Wish Trip PTR http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2325607
Matty's Wish Trip TR "Mom, Dad, 3 Kids, and a Gingerbread Boy" http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2356739

I think we're definitely going to do GAD/GAD! Thanks for the info!

 

[yinyanggirls]

Kelly, I can't believe they aren't paying for Gabe. I know you don't want to push it, because you feel grateful for the gift to Ali, but that's not right! Is he placed with you in an informal arrangement? If he's not "technically" your foster child I guess I could see their reasoning. I'm sure there have been some to try and milk the system. I hope they reconsider when they realize that your willingness to pay OOP for him shows that there is no other option in your mind.

 

[dmbfan]

I know we alreay talked tonight, just want you to know that I have faith that all will work out fine...you are going to have a wonderful MAW trip, with the whole family...love ya...

 

[Applemomma]

Hi Kelly....just a quick word about the tickets...if your friend buys him a ticket with a Florida resident discount, Gabe won't be able to use it because they ask for the Florida id at first use I believe. Not a 100% sure on this but look into it. The other thing is that someone could get him a ticket for a lesser amount of days and then you can upgrade it once you're there; kind of like splitting the cost.

Take care and inspite of this bump in the road you're going to have a blast! I want to see a picture of Gabe on Dumbo!

 

[kellyw8863]

Kelly, I can't believe they aren't paying for Gabe. I know you don't want to push it, because you feel grateful for the gift to Ali, but that's not right! Is he placed with you in an informal arrangement? If he's not "technically" your foster child I guess I could see their reasoning. I'm sure there have been some to try and milk the system. I hope they reconsider when they realize that your willingness to pay OOP for him shows that there is no other option in your mind.

Thanks, Melissa. No, it's a formal arrangement. I'm going to fax the paperwork to MAW, even though they said that they rarely change their minds after they've made a decision. I just want them to understand that there is no option for us to make it more legal than it already is. KWIM?

I know we alreay talked tonight, just want you to know that I have faith that all will work out fine...you are going to have a wonderful MAW trip, with the whole family...love ya...

Thanks, Christine, for being such a good friend.

Hi Kelly....just a quick word about the tickets...if your friend buys him a ticket with a Florida resident discount, Gabe won't be able to use it because they ask for the Florida id at first use I believe. Not a 100% sure on this but look into it. The other thing is that someone could get him a ticket for a lesser amount of days and then you can upgrade it once you're there; kind of like splitting the cost.

Take care and inspite of this bump in the road you're going to have a blast! I want to see a picture of Gabe on Dumbo!

Thanks for the info. We had already decided against doing it because in hindsight, it just felt dishonest. I think we're going to have him do GAD to defray part of it, and then we'll work the rest out.

 

[kellyw8863]

I just want to cry right now. We just got our flight times and dates, and they have us traveling almost 10 hours on the first day in order to get from here to Orlando, which includes leaving from an airport over two hours away when we have two within an hour, and then changing planes in Nashville. Do they even understand what it is going to be like to get Ali and everything that goes with her off one plane, through an airport, and onto another one when she's already been traveling the better part of the day? I tried to explain that I don't understand when I see lots of options when I go directly to the Northwest website, but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. I'm really at the point where I'd just like to book and pay for our own flights, but she said they're not allowed to do that because this is supposed to be at no cost to the family. I'm so frustrated.

 

[Thumper321]

I'm so frustrated.

I'm only at the beginning of our planning, but I understand a small part of the frustration. I hope that things get better and that after the actual trip, all of this won't matter anymore. Keep your head up!

 

[Momofwishkid]

I just want to cry right now. We just got our flight times and dates, and they have us traveling almost 10 hours on the first day in order to get from here to Orlando, which includes leaving from an airport over two hours away when we have two within an hour, and then changing planes in Nashville. Do they even understand what it is going to be like to get Ali and everything that goes with her off one plane, through an airport, and onto another one when she's already been traveling the better part of the day? I tried to explain that I don't understand when I see lots of options when I go directly to the Northwest website, but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. I'm really at the point where I'd just like to book and pay for our own flights, but she said they're not allowed to do that because this is supposed to be at no cost to the family. I'm so frustrated.

I completley understand your frustration. They have us traveling for almost 12 hours. FLight leaves at 8:00 am and lands in Orlando at 8:30pm With a 2 hour layover in Dallas and plane change. It's very overwhelming and I dont understand it at all! I was very upset about it but I did get over it. Just try to think of all the good stuff that will happen on your trip and the time difference is in their also.