Tyler's Wish Trip - Nov. 20-25, 2009 / Dream Factory

[p00h4me]

Yeah! Good going getting Tyler into the Jedi training show. Seems like there are some good CMs and not so friendly CMs but that was nice of one of them to switch Tyler's card so he could fight against Darth Vader! That was so funny about Hayley and Darth Maul! Too bad about the crowds though. Hope you were able to get into some other shows later in the day.

 

[kdzbear]

Sounds like another good day so far..I wish the Jedi training CMs had been a little friendlier though! The kids looked like they were having a really good time

I think the CMs were just trying to do their job and I did not have a Wish button on and I did not have the voucher from GKTW so all I had was his GAC with the green stamp. The lines were long and they were just trying to make sure they were being fair to everyone. I guess everyone has bad days.

Hayley's adorable! Blowing Darth Maul kisses.

Thank you! That girl is fearless!

Sounds like a good day but sorry the CM werent the best. The Toy Story pics were great Gavin got so excited when I showed them to him.

It was a fun start to the day. I am glad that Gavin likes the Toy Story photos! I know he will love it when you get there!

Yeah! Good going getting Tyler into the Jedi training show. Seems like there are some good CMs and not so friendly CMs but that was nice of one of them to switch Tyler's card so he could fight against Darth Vader! That was so funny about Hayley and Darth Maul! Too bad about the crowds though. Hope you were able to get into some other shows later in the day.

I was very happy that I was able to get him in to the show. It was the grumpy CM that switched his card!

As for crowd sizes I learned that the day before we went the park was practically empty. A week ago on the same day they had 14,000 in the park and that day at 2:00 PM they already had let in 27,000. It was busy!

 

[kdzbear]

At this point the crowds were huge and we decided to take the kids to the Animation Courtyard and see if we could find Handy Manny. He was not out so we went in to the Animation Studios store and out the back entrance into the character area. The kids had fun playing on the interactive computers and they were able to meet some of their friends.

First they met the characters from Up. Tyler really liked Grandpa Carl and his cane. I liked how the birds in the background rotated. Sometimes there was no bird and sometimes it was on the right or the left.

Then we went over to the computers to answer a few questions to determine what Disney character we were most like. Tyler went first. He had his picture taken and answered a few questions on the screen.

Tyler was Jiminy Cricket.

Breanna was Princess Dot.

I was Lady!

Hayley did hers later as she was sleeping.

Aaron answered one of the questions that he liked to eat nice people for lunch rather than eat with nice people and as a result he was Jafar.

Then we entered the line to watch Playhouse Disney. The kids really liked to sing and dance with the show. I did not take any pictures here as I just wanted to relax.

After the show we met JoJo and Goliath.

Now we missed a character as he or she was leaving right as we approached and I cannot tell you who now, but we were told to wait to the side and Handy Manny would be out in a few minutes. Aaron chose this time to get Tyler a snack of popcorn. Tyler loves popcorn. The problem was rather than waiting until after he met Manny who he was so excited to meet all day, he gave him the popcorn first. Tyler did not want to leave the popcorn to meet Manny. He did get excited when he finally saw him, but even Aaron admitted that it would have been better to have waited!

Here is Tyler meeting Manny.

At this point everyone needed a break so we walked to the front of the park to go to the baby care center and change some diapers. I took a picture of a store window and in turn received a self portrait of myself.

While Aaron made his way over to the Baby Care Center that is located inside the Guest Relations building, I took our photo pass paper from Tyler’s Star Wars show to add his photos to our photo pass. The cast member has to pull up all of the photos from the show and then you add your kid’s photos. I also added the photos of another little blonde boy. We met their family while waiting for the show to start and we conversed with them. They forgot their video camera so Aaron taped the entire show and we are making a copy of it and mailing it to them. I am also burning the photo pass pictures of their son fighting Vader and also mailing those with the video. They will have some really good pictures when I get it sent to them!

While in the guest relations area, I picked up some I am Celebrating buttons. I wrote on my button and Aaron’s button. They read, “I am celebrating Tyler’s Wish”. Then Tyler wanted one so I wrote, “My Wish” on his. We had lots of people ask us about our buttons. If any cast members asked I just said we made our own buttons as our other ones were back in the room. I did not explain that our other ones were the same as the ones we were wearing. I was just tired of being asked where his Make a Wish button was and being told by cast members that they look for those buttons. My invention worked!

Now, we decided to go in search of ice cream. We ended up at a little stand diagonally across from the Tower of Terror.

Their sundaes were made with vanilla ice cream, but I asked if they could make them with chocolate ice cream instead and they could so Bre and I had those. Aaron had something different. Here is Breanna with her sundae.

We made our way back towards the Animation building since we planned on attending Character Palooza! Outside we found Quincy and June leaving. Leo replaced them. He was so excited that Tyler had glasses on like him. He used sign language to talk to Tyler about the glasses.

 

[kdzbear]

It was about 4:30 PM when we went inside the building Frozone was out.

Then Tyler and Breanna wanted to visit with Sorcerer Mickey.

This photo is a little blurry since Tyler is jumping up and down with excitement.

Tyler and Hayley then waited patiently for the characters to all come out!

First they met Mary Poppins and one of her penguin friends.

Next up was Captain Hook and Jafar.

Rafiki came out to meet guests.

Goofy came out to play. The picture where Goofy is holding out his ears is one of the photos that my camera decided to blur horribly. As the trip went on the blurring of photos became worse.

 

[kdzbear]

Chip and Dale were having fun with another child’s autograph book when we approached them, but they had just as much fun with my three.

Then we went upstairs to see Mr. and Mrs. Incredible as the characters were changing out to the round 2 characters.

The new villain out was the Queen from Snow White.

Meeko came out with Pocahontas.

Next to Meeko were Pinocchio and Gheppeto.

While taking these photos you can see a huge grin on Bre’s face. She wanted to see Stitch and I explained that I had never seen or heard of Stitch appearing in the Animation building.

 

[kdzbear]

This trip was full of firsts! The last character to come out to play was none other than Stitch!

Then it was off to ride Toy Story Mania again! Tyler absolutely begged to ride this ride again!

Now it was time to ride the Great Movie Ride, but we took a wrong turn and ended up in the Osbourne Festival of Lights chaos. It was so crowded, but it was so amazingly beautiful and awe inspiring!

 

[kdzbear]

I checked to see if we could eat any earlier than our 8:20 PM reservation time and I was told that they were currently 30 minutes behind. So we headed off to the Rockin Rollercoaster. Breanna rode with Aaron. Tyler took a nap and Hayley and I built our own records at the sticker craft booth outside of the Rockin Rollercoaster. The cast members give you a record and then a sheet of stickers to decorate the paper record with. I chatted with the cast member for a few minutes until he was replaced by a female cast member. She said that she was only on outside duty. She had just lost one of her best friends in a car accident off of Disney property somewhere tropical. She said that she had been unable to go back inside to work the ride again yet. She told me how she and her friend had so much fun inside and described some of the rotations that the cast members go through. She said that they rotate every 15 minutes so sometimes guests think that they are the only cast member working as they greet them at the beginning of the line, greet them again at the queue line and then later help them exit the cars. After talking a bit more I discovered that one of her other close friends knows Stitch and often imitates him! I told her to ask her friend if she had seen my little blonde one with glasses!

We went back over to the Sci-Fi for our dinner reservations. We still had to wait about 20 minutes past our reservation time. Finally we were seated!

The cheesecake dessert was so good!

At the end of our meal our server brought Tyler a special magical moment’s certificate to commemorate his dining experience at the Sci-Fi café.

We took another stroll through the Osbourne Festival of Lights. Aaron wanted to video tape at least two of the song sequences and it was so nice to walk through it with minimal crowds. The extra magic hours for guests were from 8 PM – 11 PM and it was now around 10 PM since dinner took awhile!

 

[kdzbear]

We made it back to Playhouse Disney for the last half an hour of the Dance Party. Tyler immediately found Annie and danced with her. He also had a balloon hat made and showed it to Quincy while Quincy showed him his alligator balloon animal. They had piped in some show smoke earlier in the dance party and when we entered the building it was still hazy and smoky.

 

[kdzbear]

After a half an hour of dancing it was time to head back to the resort. I took some more pictures of the decorations on our way out.

We had a surprise at All Star Sports when we returned to the resort. It had been decorated for Christmas! It may not have been as fancy at the deluxe resorts, but it was so cute with all of the sport themes!

Tyler and Hayley were already asleep when Breanna and I returned to the room. Aaron had taken the two little ones ahead to put them in bed. Shortly after they were all sleeping in their beds.

 

[p00h4me]

Wow! What a great day for finding all those characters and Stitch too! Did you end up getting most of the characters signatures by the end of your trip? Seems like you covered a majority of them. Love the Osbourne Christmas lights! I wished they still passed out the 3D glasses that made the lights all look like angels. Love all your pictures and the Christmas decorations at the resort. What's the next park you visit?

 

[Momofwishkid]

Ohh I love all the lights and decorations. What a magical time to be there. Looking forward to hearing whats next.

 

[kdzbear]

Wow! What a great day for finding all those characters and Stitch too! Did you end up getting most of the characters signatures by the end of your trip? Seems like you covered a majority of them. Love the Osbourne Christmas lights! I wished they still passed out the 3D glasses that made the lights all look like angels. Love all your pictures and the Christmas decorations at the resort. What's the next park you visit?

Ohh I love all the lights and decorations. What a magical time to be there. Looking forward to hearing whats next.

It was a great day for finding characters and that made Tyler happy! We did get a lot of character signatures by the end of the trip.

The Osbourne Festival of Lights was amazing. The pictures don't even begin to do it justice. It was beautiful and the music was choreographed to go with the lights! This year they switched to LED lights so maybe the 3-D glasses only work with the old lights? I now love Christmas time at Walt Disney World. All of the decorations really put you in the Christmas mood. I even loved the ones at All Star Sports! We go to Epcot next!

 

[Jenvenza]

Another great update! I tell you, Tyler is just about the cutest little boy I have ever seen! I love how excited he was to meet Sorceror Mickey!

 

[yinyanggirls]

More great pics! I admit, Christmas looks pretty nice there. I originally wanted to steer clear of this month, but it looks wonderful in your pictures.

 

[Jessie888]

 

[kayrosek]

What a wonderful trip! It sounds absolutley amazing. I can't wait to read more. We were there that same week and I loved the Osbourne lights. They are just so gorgeous.

 

[kdzbear]

Another great update! I tell you, Tyler is just about the cutest little boy I have ever seen! I love how excited he was to meet Sorceror Mickey!

Thank you! He is cute, but I think I am biased being his mom!

More great pics! I admit, Christmas looks pretty nice there. I originally wanted to steer clear of this month, but it looks wonderful in your pictures.

We could only go over Thanksgiving since my daughter was off the whole week of Thanksgiving. It was amazing to look at all of the decorations and all of the details that went into each theme of each tree and area!

What a wonderful trip! It sounds absolutley amazing. I can't wait to read more. We were there that same week and I loved the Osbourne lights. They are just so gorgeous.

More is coming soon! It was a great trip! The Osbourne lights were simply magnificent to see in person. I had seen videos, but nothing compares to walking through them in person!

 

[kdzbear]

Sorry for the long delay in updates. It has been hectic around here. Wednesday was our last Girl Scout meeting for December. It ended at 5:00 pm and Tyler’s school program was across the city at 5:30 pm. Then on Thursday morning we had to be at the hospital at 6:00 am to get his cast put on. I did not know until Tuesday of that week that Tyler had to be sedated for the procedure. Hayley went with us. Aaron had to work.

They took him back at little before 8 am.

I was able to see him around 9:50 am after he had woken up in recovery. Then they moved him back to pediatric sedation to complete the recovery process and Hayley hitched a ride with Tyler.

He was not in the room more than 15 minutes before he slid out of bed and tried to walk with the casts on. He was determined. He also likes making his wheelchair work.

Here he is at school on Friday. His classmates signed his casts and a special visitor showed up to the Christmas party.

This weekend we went to my parents’ house in Springfield, MO to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family.

By Sunday he was walking around Chuck E. Cheese with his cousins! Nothing will stop his determination! He is so amazing!

I promise an Epcot update shortly!

 

[kdzbear]

It is now Tuesday, which was our last full park day prior to going home. We had a later start again since we were at Disney Studios so late the night before. We arrived at the part at about 9:30 am. As soon as we entered the park the kids saw Daisy Duck and Stitch. We voted to go and meet Daisy first since every time we saw her out before he line was long or in the sun and we put it off. Breanna was so excited to get her autograph.

Then Tyler took off running to meet Stitch. We were now 4/4 at meeting Stitch at each park we went too! There was no one around Stitch again, which was wonderful so Tyler could spend some more time with him or so I thought!

Then it turns out that Stitch had a high badness level today. First Stitch picked his nose and then he had Tyler help him!

After this disgusting display, Stitch was back to his normal sweet self and took a few more photos with Tyler.

Breanna wanted to do a Kim Possible Mission so we headed to Innoventions. After we picked up her mission slip, we decided to play the Great Piggy Bank game again. It is too cute!

Then we tried to go and see the Seas with Nemo. We showed the cast member our GAC and she sent us in the regular line. We had never been there when it was this busy so we thought this was the correct way to go in. You can see the line went out the door.

So after about five minutes in line, we politely worked our way with the double stroller backwards out of the line. We found the gift shop near the exit and went in that way. We were on the ride in less than two minutes. The cast members just did not understand where the handicapped entrances were. Tyler really liked the Nemo ride. Then we spent about an hour watching dolphin training and just looking at the fish.

Then on our way to the World Showcase to play Kim Possible we stopped by the Christmas tree for a photo.

Up next is our Kim Possible mission and meeting some new character friends.

 

[yinyanggirls]

He sure doesn't let anything slow him down! I'm sorry they had to sedate him though. It always makes me feel sad.

Stitch 4 times at 4 parks!!! Awesome! You guys did great making his wishes come true even when you didn't have a ton of assistance from your agency. You did an awesome job!