Make A Wish Trip

Where do I even begin???

 

We left on Monday, January 27th, to fly to Florida for Brynlee's Make A Wish trip to visit Belle and the Princesses at Disney World.

 

We arrived at the airport and things were going well through security until they took Brynlee's wheelchair and it set off some alarm on some test they do with it, so one of us had to be given the full pat down, feeler upper, invasive, almost a strip search. Blair said he would do it, but when they said they would have to call for a male agent I said I would just do it so we wouldn't have to wait and could get on with things, so, yeah, that was exciting. I have seriously questioned our TSA and their policies and procedures since flying with Brynlee and her wheelchair.

The flight to Orlando was fairly uneventful. I was anxious about trying to keep Brynlee entertained for a 4-1/2 hour flight because she has to do something new every 5 minutes, but somehow we survived, and she did pretty good. We were met at the airport by a volunteer from Give Kids the World (GKTW) who had a luggage cart for us and helped us get our rental car. And then we were off to the village where we would be staying.

 

The village is an incredible place. Our villa had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, living room, and laundry. This place caters to the children, and the girls' bathroom was as big as our bedroom and had the jetted tub while our bathroom was fairly small and only had a shower. When we arrived, a volunteer had a Mickey Mouse for Brynlee and a Shamu for both Kaitlyn and Marissa. She showed us to our villa, and we found that the Gift Fairy had already visited our villa and left us a bunch of small gifts for the girls (by the way, the Gift Fairy visited our villa every day). We also had some snacks and sodas and bottled water.

We had a few options for meals at the village. The Gingerbread House is a cafeteria-like place that serves all-you-can eat breakfast and dinner. They also have delivery from Katie's Kitchen for lunch and dinner, which is food from Boston Market, or you can have pizza delivered to your villa for dinner. The first night we opted for some Katie's Kitchen, and we very much enjoyed the rotisserie chicken and sides from there several nights.

 

Monday night at the village was Halloween night. They had trick or treating, face painting, games, and several characters from Universal Studios were there, including Gru from Despicable Me, Barney, Bart Simpson, and Betty Boop. I had to attend an orientation that night, but everyone else had a lot of fun. The village also has a carousel you can ride whenever you want and an ice cream shop open from morning until night, and we enjoyed our fair share of ice cream while we were there. And, yes, that is Barney in the background on the carousel. We thought he was going to get stuck on that horse! 

 

At orientation, GKTW provides each family with tickets for 3 days to the Disney Parks, 2 days at Universal Studios, and 1 day at Sea World. There are other parks and attractions that you can get tickets to as well if you wanted to do something different, but we were just fine with going to these places.

 

Tuesday was a nice day, and we decided to go to Disney's Animal Kingdom in the morning and Hollywood Studios in the afternoon. The first thing we did at Animal Kingdom was go on the very popular Safari ride to see all of the animals that they have on the preserve there. Disney is really great to the wish families. Included with the tickets is free parking and, most importantly, a Genie Pass. With this pass and Brynlee's GKTW badge, we received very special treatment. The Genie Pass gets you into any Fast Pass line whenever you want and however many times you want. We hardly waited in any lines. The letter that accompanied the Genie Pass said that it wasn't valid for Character Greetings, but we learned quickly that we didn't have to wait in line for those either, but I'll get to that later. Anyway, at Animal Kingdom we also went to the It's Tough to Be a Bug show, which terrified my children, and we went on a ride in the Dinosaur Land part. We then had lunch at Rainforest Café and headed off to go to Hollywood Studios.
 

Our must do at Hollywood Studios was Toy Story Mania. The girls loved this ride at California Adventure and even though the stand-by wait was 80 minutes, between our Genie Pass and wheelchair we walked onto the ride. The girls also went on Star Tours and we saw Muppet Vision 3D and the live Little Mermaid show. We saw the Phineas and Ferb characters and went to meet them and as we were getting in line a Cast Member saw us and said, "You don't wait in line." He took us right up to meet Phineas and Ferb. We then saw Lightning McQueen and Mater and later found our way to the building where we met Sorcerer Mickey, Minnie Mouse, Wreck-It Ralph and Venellope, and Mr. Incredible. In fact, a cast member in that building helped us out and escorted us personally to the front of each character meeting line. Brynlee was so cute when she saw Mickey. We were waiting for Mickey to finish up with another family, and she kept saying, "Hey Mickey! Mickey! Hey Mickey! Over here!" Very cute! She was so excited!

 

Brynlee absolutely loved meeting the characters, and it was definitely the highlight of her trip. She gave them each hugs and blew kisses. The characters also seemed to spend extra time with Brynlee and our girls than they did with the other families. Again, very special treatment. The girls' Minnie Mouse bows that our friend Kadee made for us and Brynlee's Peach's Neet Feet that have Mickey Mouse ears painted on them got the approval of Minnie and Mickey. Minnie especially loved the bows.  

 

The GKTW village has their own unique characters named Mayor Clayton and his wife Merry Clayton. On Tuesday night was Mayor Clayton's Birthday party. They had cake, more games, more face painting, dancing, etc. The girls had such a good time, and Brynlee especially loved Miss Merry and dancing with her. Of course, we had to ride the carousel a few times and get some ice cream. Brynlee also received a gold star from that village that she was able to write her name on to be hung in the Castle of Miracles, which we sent to the Star Fairy that night. Each of the girls also were able to go and get a wish pillow.

 

 

Wednesday was cold!!! Yes, it does get that cold in Florida. The high temperature that day was 48 with a 39 wind chill, and the cold humidity didn't help either. We headed to Universal Studios, and we absolutely got very special treatment there. Brynlee didn't care for the movie rides at Universal, but she loved meeting the characters. We went on the Minion Mania ride, and Brynlee and I sat in the stationary seating, but it was still too much for her. When we came out there was a minion taking pictures, so we went to get in the line and again we had a worker who saw us come tell us that we don't wait in line, and he took us to the front of the line. Then we headed over to the Shrek ride, but Brynlee would have nothing to do with it, so we waited while the others went on the ride, and we saw Shrek and Donkey across the street. So we went over to meet them and I think Donkey especially liked Brynlee. Donkey was interactive and very fun to talk to. He may have even thrown out a pick-up sounding line to me, something along the lines of, "Hey pretty lady, how are you doing?" Very fun! We even went back with the whole family a little later and met Fiona too. We also met SpongeBob and Patrick, Boots and Dora, and Shaggy and Scooby Doo. We were so cold, however, that we didn't last past our late lunch.

That night at the village aside from our usual carousel ride and ice cream we also went to the La Ti Da Royal Spa at the Castle of Miracles where the girls each got makeovers and their nails painted.
 

 

Thursday didn't warm up any and it had started raining, so we decided it was just too cold with the rain to go to any parks that day. However, we were able to meet Mickey and Pluto at the GKTW village that morning. We also spent a bunch of time at the village doing some of the activities there. It was a bummer, but we tried to make the best of it, and the volunteers at the village are so great at helping us stay entertained. Thursday night at the village is Christmas night. We met Santa Claus and each girl got a present, and we also built small gingerbread houses and made ornaments -  and who can forget the carousel and ice cream!

 

 

 

Friday the weather was warmer, thankfully, but still rainy. This day we went to the Magic Kingdom, which is the park that you think of when you think of Disney as it has the castle. The first thing we did was try to meet some princesses. We found Cinderella, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Rapunzel, Snow White, and Ariel. We also went to the Story Telling with Belle, and Blair and Marissa both had a part in the story. Blair was a Armor Guard (or something) and Marissa was Chip. Marissa and Blair both had their pictures taken with Belle, but they also let Kaitlyn and Brynlee briefly meet Belle. Success! We got Brynlee her wish. We went on a few of the rides, mostly the indoor ones, including the tea cups, Little Mermaid, the carousel, Peter Pans Flight, Winnie the Pooh, It's a Small World, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Toy Story Blasters, and Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, and by the way we think that the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland is much better than Disney World. As we were leaving the park we stopped to catch a parade that had all of the Disney characters. Every single one that saw Brynlee blew her kisses and pointed and waved to her. The Disney worker who was standing near us was talking to Brynlee and the girls and Brynlee must have said something about a balloon because the next thing I knew after the parade she was taking us over to the balloons to get the girls balloons. You know, the nice ones that cost $12 each. This made their day! I think her special badge must have earned her that one.

 

Friday night at the village was the Pirates and Princesses Party. This was a lot of fun for the girls. The girls wore their tiaras that the gift fairy had left for them, and they received magic wands (light saber things). All of the kids in attendance were introduced on the stage. It was a fun evening. And, of course, we had to go on a carousel ride and get ice cream.

 

Saturday was a little bit nicer day with less rain and warmer weather, although extremely humid. In the morning we went and rode horses at the village and then we headed off to Epcot. We went on the Little Mermaid ride and went to Turtle Talk With Crush. They saw Brynlee's badge from GKTW and took us to a special entrance that got us in before everyone else, and the girls sat right up front in the middle. Crush talked to Marissa and taught her how to say "Totally Sweet" and also talked to Blair. That show was very good. We went on the Soarin' ride and the Maelstrom ride. We also found Belle again and met her in the France part of Epcot. And, we were able to meet Elsa and Anna from Frozen, which had an insanely long line that we again didn't have to wait for. And this lady (me) got to go on the ride that was my Must Do, which was the Test Track. The girls were nervous at first, but after we went fast on the long track and were done, they said, "That was awesome!" And they went again with Blair.

  

After Epcot, we went back to Magic Kingdom to try and catch a few of the outdoor rides, but we only got on the Dumbo ride and Peter Pan's Flight again as it started to rain again and the girls were tired. We did, however, get to meet Tinkerbell and Periwinkle, so that was worth the trip back over to the Magic Kingdom.
 

 

And then Saturday night was the start of the task of trying to pack up all of our stuff. We were warned that we needed to take an extra suitcase to bring home all of the extra stuff we would get, but we thought we had enough extra room in the suitcases. Let me just say that it was a tight fit getting it all in and the girls had to carry their minions onto the airplane, but we got it all in.

 

Sunday morning we checked out of the village and headed to Universal's Islands of Adventure since our flight wasn't until later. We enjoyed a few rides at Suessland and then we went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to get some butter beer and so that the two of us that wanted to ride the Harry Potter ride could ride it. That ride was unlike anything I have ever been on before. Very cool. Blair and I both thought it was pretty awesome. And, I have to admit I haven't ever read a Harry Potter book or seen a Harry Potter movie. I might just have to do that now. By the time we finished with Harry Potter, we had to leave to go to the airport. Universal was pretty cool, but it probably would have been slightly better if we had older more adventurous kids, but we are glad that we were able to go there.

 

And that is our trip. One little girl's wish to meet Belle and the Princesses was granted and fulfilled. She had such a wonderful time and was very happy and thoroughly enjoyed being there and participating in all of the activities. My description of the village and the extra special treatment that we received just does not do it justice. What a great blessing it was to be able to spend this time together as a family at a magical place. It was so wonderful to get that extra special treatment for Brynlee's wish - something that was a once in a lifetime opportunity that we will never possibly be able to do again. The trip could never be duplicated.  

 

What a great trip! How grateful we are to Make A Wish, Give Kids the World, Disney, Universal, and the countless volunteers and sponsors and people who truly made the trip magical. Thank you for our dear friends - the ones who sent us Minnie Mouse bows (as I already mentioned, Minnie loved them) and the ones who sent us off with gift bags for the girls with autograph books and pens and stickers and snacks. Our wish grantors were fabulous and went out of their way to help get Brynlee excited for her wish and her trip, and we are so thankful for them. 

I don't think we could have possibly had a better experience, well, maybe less rain and cold, but everything else was very magical.