our MAW trip : the arrival

[Stitchahula]

First off let me say that MAW and GKTW are incredible. We had a few bumps with MAW, getting wrong info, small things but I put it off to it being inexperienced people making the mistakes and giving bad info.
So the big day finally arrives and my DH takes off on a mysterious errand, he had to go pick up my sister Kat because the boys don't know she's coming with us. So she comes to the house and tells the boys that she's going to take pictures of them getting into the limo. Her luggage is outside in the truck of hubbys car. The limo driver shows up and we get the car seats in so the boys are all settled into this really really long black limo feel oh so cool. We sneak my sisters luggage in with ours without the boys knowing any better. My sister "asks" the limo driver if she can just ride to the airport with us. Of course he says, and he'll give her a ride back after (we let him in on the secret). So we are driving to the airport and the boys are waving to people on the way like they are movie stars, they were so cute. We get to the airport and unload ALL of our bags, and check in. We had no idea we could do the preboarding with MAW because this is one of the areas where they dropped the ball. The guy checking us in at the gate told us and was pretty surprised that MAW wasn't there to walk us through everything. He had never seen that happen before, oh well we made it on the plane anyways. My sister is still with us, she told the kids she was just going to sneak onto the plane and take pictures. The innocents that they are have no idea she needed a ticket to get through security. So we are all seated and getting ready for take off without the boys saying anything. Finally half way through the flight my youngest age 3 says you coming with us to Disney auntie kat? yes they do catch on quick. We land and it dawns on my oldest that hey Kat is still with us. So we finally let them in on the joke that we had this all planned out. Oldest son wasn't happy we kept it a secret but was happy his auntie was with us. We had to call to get ahold of our greeter from GKTW because we had made it in such good time, we were actually about 20 minutes early. This young man shows up and was so helpful, his name is Aaron and helped us with our bags and get our rental van.
So we are all settled into the rental and are on our way to GKTW. Wow was it hot! We pull up to GKTW and are let through the gate to see the cutest little village. We pull up and park so we can go check in. They have a stuffed Mickey and a Shamu for the kids. William decides he wants Shamu so he trades with his brother. They give us our key cards and we follow them to our villa. We pull up to the cutest little purple and blue villa that is to be our home for the next week. They take our picture in front of the sign with our last name on it and we head in. The fridge has all sorts of goodies in it and there are more goodies on the table. We go to the Gingerbread house (the restaurant) to eat dinner since we didn't arrive until after 5. We have it planned out that my DH, Sister and kids will play mini golf and go to the store to pick up supplies while I go to the meeting to get all the info we need plus the park tickets. They give us a 3 day park hopper for WDW, 2 day park hopper for Universal, and a 1 day for Sea World, plus parking for all 3 parks, plus WDW gives us a free photo pass!
I get done and head back to the Villa and my sister and I and the kids head to DTD for a couple of hours before our week starts. DH decided to take the opportunity to sit and relax while he can because he knows there won't be a whole lot of that happening in the week to come.
The first day at the parks! We start it off in a run literally. They had arranged to have Disney sign DS up for Jedi training so we had to hurry to the HS to get him there for that. WE hurried through breakfast and found our way to the park. I took william and we were dropped off as close to the entrance as we could and then we ran to Star Tours. Poor kid should''ve clued him in onto how the week was going to go. He was so excited he got to fight Darth Vader! I think he might have been a little bit nervous though too. He followed the jedi Masters instructions and helped to defeat the evil lord vader. Then we got to go on Star Tours ride, thank god for the GAC. I can honestly say that next time we get to Disney I will be getting him another one. It saved him a lot of standing around in lines. Since it was Thursday and the real Star Wars Weekend start the next day we decided to go to one of the other parks and hang out and leave HS to a day when the big festivities are going on. We head back out of the park and head over to Epcot. To be continued...

[mouseketeer mom]

Is MAW Make a Wish? I think that's what you're referring to.
Your trip is off to a great start especially with the addition of Aunt Kat!

[T-Belle]

Sounds like your off to a good start. Can't wait to read more. Pardon my ignorance but what is GKTW?

[KylesMom]

I've heard some very great things between Make A Wish and Give Kids the World, both here and through acquaintances. I'm so glad your trip started off well. How exciting that Auntie was able to make the trip with you!

Looking forward to reading about the special memories you made!

[princessgirls]

Sounds like a great kick off to your week!!!

Thanks for reporting!

Julie

[Stitchahula]

sorry yes MAW is Make a Wish and GKTW is Give Kids The World. When we left HS and ran over to Epcot, it was a lot more running around. I found it kind of funny that neither of my kids wanted to do Turtle Talk with Crush but hey it was their trip. William's MAW trip and Justin's first real trip (he went when he was 7 weeks old). The GAC was so helpful getting us on the rides without having to wait. We had them try Beverly, with the desired look on their face after trying it. We did all their favorites, Soarin, and Test Track were again the big favorites. William wishes that they would bring back the make your own robot that they had years ago. We made our way over to the World Showcase and the boys did the Kim Possible game. Which had us racking our brains and with the way the heat was left us needing a drink . They got to have their pictures taken with Mexico Donald which had a friend of ours very jealous when she saw the pictures. We had to take their picture with the big troll in Norway so we could compare it to years past pictures. It's sort of a video growth chart. We ended the night watching Illuminations which is always good. We wanted to get back to the Villa because we knew the next day was going to be a busy one, it was the start of Star Wars Weekend. During all of this we were also trying to get info from back home because we had heard that the day we left a F3 tornado hit central Massachusetts which is where we live. Thankfully it didn't hit our towns but there was a lot of destruction.

[merlinmagic4]

This is bringing back such great memories for me!! I can't wait to read more - please share ALL the details

[faline]

It must have been a wonderful surprise to have Aunt Kat along for your trip! You're off to a wonderful sign!

[crazypoohbear]

And then, they all arrived home and DH, hit her with divorce papers! He had planned to do this to her for months. Completely ruined all the memories of the Make a wish, destroyed the kids world, but Hey, he's happy. so it's all good.

[brian2000boston]

Sounds like a great start to a wonderful trip

[January-2007]

Thanks for reporting.