Sam's Make A Wish Disney Trip ~ Day 1

Day 1- Sam's Make A Wish Trip

Getting to Give Kids The World and 

Universal Studios

     So we found out we were going on our trip the week before we left. If was exciting and stressful all at the same time. The stressful part was really on me because I like control and all of the sudden I had to get things ready very quickly. It was a great time to go because Sam had two good weeks in a row since the medicine adjustment. We had taken Gwen to Disney three times when she was little and had taken a year each time to plan our trip. One of the great things is that almost everything is planned for you when you have a Make A Wish trip. The night before we left Sam had a 6 minute seizure which put me on edge but I had to just give it to God. 

     Almost everyone who goes to Disney on a wish trip gets to stay at the Give Kids the World Village. If you watched the movie Letters to God, it is where they are at the end of the movie. They actually have the mailbox where letters can be mailed to God.

Give Kids the World is almost like an amusement park in itself. They have horseback riding, a train, carousel, and so much more. Each family gets to stay in a villa. Each villa was recently remodeled by Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Gwen was excited because the kids bathroom is bigger that the adults with a jetted tub. Most of the people who work at GKTW are volunteers. They have over 1,400 volunteers each week. While we were there they had a youth group Little Rock, Arkansas from Peace Valley Church of Christ who were volunteering for the week. All of the volunteers were wonderful and our family really appreciates every person who gave of their time to help us have a great week. They have special events in the evening and characters who visit the village most mornings a week. Every wish kid gets a special star that will stay at the village forever. It is placed on the ceiling by the wish fairy.

All kids also get a special wish pillow. Here is a picture of Gwen and Sam getting their special pillow.

We were given 3 day passes to the Disney parks, 2 days at Universal and 1 day at Sea World. The great thing is you could mix the days up and separate your days at the different parks. Since there are many rides with height requirements at Universal, we made our schedule like this.... Universal, Disney, Sea World, Disney, Universal, and ended with Disney. We knew that we would have shorter days at Universal and Sea World days so that would give Sam more time to rest. We decided it was better for us to drive because we have had seizures we can't get stopped on our own. They had us stay in Savannah on the way down and back so it would break up our trip.  The two things Gwen was most excited about with GKTW was that the ice cream shop opened for breakfast and the La-Ti-Da Spa. 

When we arrived at GKTW, we settled in and let Sam take a nap while Travis went to orientation.

Then we decided to use one of our days and head over to Universal Studios so Sam could see the minions at Minion Mayhem. One of the biggest blessings about the trip is that we had passes to skip lines at all the parks. It was a huge blessing because I am not sure we could have really gone to the parks without it. The heat was hard on Sam and without the opportunity to get through lines quickly, we wouldn't have lasted long at any park. All of the parks were amazing to our family. They didn't even have us wait in lines to see the characters which was one of Sam's favorite parts. We didn't stay too long on the first day because we wanted to get a good night sleep so we could go to Magic Kingdom in the morning.