Make-A-Wish Trip, Day 5: Breakfast with the Princesses

I'm determined to finish with the last few days of our trip. I'm using this as a record so we can look back and have a little bit of verbiage to go with the pictures, but I understand if you've gotten enough of it already.

Thursday morning at Give Kids the World we started off again with some characters. Goofy and pre-princess Belle were hanging out on the streets to greet the kids.

Goofy got a hold of Finn's plastic sword and poked around with it.

Julia was really fond of Mayor Clayton's house that was located near the middle of the village near the koi pond and the garden. It was almost big enough for me to stand up in, which meant it allowed for some fun pictures of Julia.

We headed for our second stop at Epcot for our scheduled breakfast with the princesses. Because of our trip to the park a few days earlier, we had most of the attractions out of the way that we were interested in. That didn't stop us from running into a few characters that the kids hadn't seen. This time it was Daisy and Stitch.

Before we were seated at the table, we got to see the post-princess Belle.

The breakfast consisted of a buffet of appetizers and then a platter filled with heaps of hot food. The kids were a little disturbed by the amount of bacon I ate. Julia waited patiently for things to get going after having eaten her fill.

When the princesses came out, they first did a processional through the dining area. Each princess gathered a line of kids and paraded around while the parents looked on with flashing and recording cameras. Cinderella had Julia follow right behind her and gave Julia her bouquet of flowers to hold.

Afterward, the princesses walked from table to table, chatting, signing things, and posing for pictures. We were impressed when Cinderella clearly remembered Julia from three days earlier (and how many hundreds of kids?) and Julia was pretty thrilled about it too.

Aurora, Snow White, and Ariel followed next.

After that experience was finished, we wandered back around the big pond and stopped to see some interesting looking exhibits at some of the countries. We walked by some drums and I encouraged the kids to run over and start beating them (we had walked past them a few nights earlier and kids were playing them, so I was reasonably sure it was allowed). Soon after, other kids were joining in too.

Amanda wanted to stop in the Germany store to pick up something for herself. We all voted on the hat, but she chose a t-shirt of the mice in lederhosen instead.

We timed our walk to come across Jasmine and Aladdin and then shortly after came across Alice.

We turned down a hardly traveled alley and came upon a hedge maze. The kids and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! It was fun to find things that people who hurried by might have missed.

A building on that same side street had a little shop with Pooh and Tigger in the back.

Instead of driving or taking the monorail from Epcot to Magic Kingdom (to go through the one section we didn't get to on Monday), we took the ferry.

Adventureland was the portion we needed to walk through yet, so we headed right there. Julia really wanted to see Tink, so we went straight for another character meeting. Besides the famous fairy, one of her friends was there too. Vidia plays a sort of antagonist to the spunky Tinker Bell and it was great seeing how true to the character she was. She was sarcastic and referred to her fairy partner as "Stinker Bell" and "Tinker Smell". She was still friendly, but not overly so and wasn't interested in hugging the kids.

Tinker Bell told Julia that she looked familiar, but we hadn't met her before. After we left, I told Julia it was probably because their hair looked the same and so Tinker Bell was reminded of herself. Julia burst my feel-good bubble by letting me know that Tink's hair really isn't short, it was just up.

The Swiss Family Robinson tree house was closed for some reason, so we were disappointed not to be able to see that. We did see the Enchanted Tiki Room and ride on the the Jungle Cruise and Pirates and the Caribbean. Don't ask Julia about the last one, she kept her head down with her hands over it the entire ride. Finn was brave enough to watch tentatively and just hide when needed. Like I said before, it's hard to get decent pictures on the rides and still enjoy them, so you're stuck with more characters.

Tiana and Naveen are probably the two newest characters at the parks. They verbally played well off of each other.

And definitely not a new one, Peter Pan drew a line of people to meet him.

As we headed for the exit, we veered over toward the castle and watched a play on the stage. Another example of getting pulled in to something unexpected but magical.

Meanwhile, that evening at GKTW...
It was their weekly Christmas party! The place was decorated and Santa was there. Each kid go tot pick out a toy - Julia chose a Rubki's cube and Finn picked a transformer. The kids got to meet Ms. Merry (Mayor Clayton's wife) and the big bunny mayor himself.

We topped off this long day with snow cones and ice cream. Friday we planned on putting the theme parks aside to head for the ocean.

Make-A-Wish Trip, Day 4: Sea World

Wednesday morning started out with horseback riding at GKTW. Twice every week they bring in horses and let the kids saddle up and ride around the circle. They each got a cowboy hat to commemorate the event.

After that, we headed to a non-Disney attraction: Sea World.

The first thing we checked out was the tank filled with stingrays. Both kids commented on how they looked like they were flying. You could reach in and touch them as they swam around and around the tank, flapping their fins gracefully under the water and sometimes above which gave a big splash.

The one thing we were really excited about was feeding the dolphins. We found the place where it was happening and since we had a long time before they let more people in, we wandered around past some sea turtles and some smaller aquariums. Finn particularly liked seeing the stingrays from underneath.

When it getting close to the dolphin feeding time, we headed back in that direction. The kids were pretty excited about it at first. Then they saw the raw fish.

Then they saw how big (and hungry) the dolphins looked up close.

Julia and Finn were pretty nervous about feeding and touching them, but I think they enjoyed it. Amanda and I certainly did!

Since Sea World is known for dolphins and killer whales and we had already played with the dolphins, it was time to move onto the orcas. We walked to the other side of the park to see the Shamu Killer Whale show. I was expecting an orca an two, so I was surprised when there were at least seven of the trained whales. It was pretty amazing seeing them perform and only being able to imagine all the time and energy put in by the trainer and whales.

We headed back to our villa after the show and did a little late afternoon relaxing.

GKTW is able to get many other tickets to attractions at reduced rates for the families staying there. We took advantage and the four of us went to Medieval Times. The kids got a kick out of the whole atmosphere and the idea that we had to cheer for the Green Knight while the story progressed and the knights jousted and fought. At home Julia sometimes gets scolded for not using silverware, so she thought it was funny that they don't give you any silverware to eat with when they give you your food. It turned out that the Green Knight was the villain, which meant he last til the end, but wasn't the champion. At the end we got him to sign our green flag we had been waving. Unfortunately, through some sort of medieval magic, all the pictures I took from there disappeared (I goofed and deleted them).

It was late and the busyness of the week was definitely dragging on us at this point. We slept well and got ready for a breakfast with the princesses in the morning.

Make-A-Wish Trip, Day 3: Animal Kingdom

On Tuesday, Finn was back to his normal self: fever-less and stubborn.

Right away after breakfast we got in line to see the character who came to GKTW that morning - Squidward!

A quick note: There's a reason why there seems to be so many more pictures of the characters than the rides or attractions. The character meetings are made for picture taking and most everything else is made for doing. I didn't take as many pictures on rides and if I did, they didn't turn out as nice. And, I think it's safe to say that for the younger kids, the characters have become as big of a draw or bigger than the once awe-inspiring rides. Probably because there's a sense of meeting the real thing.

We headed to Disney's Animal Kingdom. We didn't know what we would be interested in at the park besides the African Safari, but I was excited to go for that alone.

Once there we found a map and charted a rough path around the park. Upon walking around a building to continue on our way we saw a sign off to the side that indicated a character meeting area down a path. It wasn't obvious and no one was going down that way so we decided to check it out. After winding around a couple of turns we came to a hut with Winnie the Pooh, a couple of his friends, and only a handful of people.

On the way out, another family was walking past and eying up the trail. We told them who was down there and about the lack of people. They thanked us and diverted from their original course to head down that way.

After our short side trip, we continued on our planned route and into Dinoland. Amanda and the kids went on the flying dinosaur ride. It's exactly like the Dumbo ride but with Triceratops to ride in instead of the flying elephant.

Nearby was a ride called Primeval Whirl. It looked like a cross between a roller coaster and a tilt-a-whirl. Julia wanted to go on it and so her and Amanda were going to but then found out it was temporarily closed.

We moved on next to watch the Finding Nemo musical. We flashed our credentials and they seated us in the front row. The costumes and scenes were very intricately made and choreographed and we all enjoyed it. And since the movie of Finding Nemo doesn't have any songs, these were all new. The musical was a shortened version of the movie.

Next was the part of the park that makes Animal Kingdom four times larger than Magic Kingdom: the African Safari. Julia was quite concerned at the start when she realized the animals could be close to us because they are not in cages. And while they appeared that way, the really potentially dangerous ones seemed to be cleverly separated from the safari truck. She warmed up to it all after we got going. We saw hippos, crocodiles, gazelle, giraffes, elephants, cheetahs, rhinos, ostrich, and more. There were lions around but we never saw any. It turned out to be about 75% animal spotting and 25% ride as there was a little storyline going on about poachers in the reserve.

After the safari we went through a number of other animal exhibits. Julia had fun trying find and identify birds.

We were all really wiped out at that point so we decided to head out.

Back at the villa, the kids and I went for a dip in the pool.

Our respite was short-lived; we went to Epcot that evening with plans to see the fireworks and light show. It was nice having the cooler temperatures of the evening (a native Floridian had called the weather "unseasonably warm" for the first part of the week) and not as many people around.

We had some time before the show so we wandered around and picked a few things to see. We knew we would be back to Epcot in a few days. The first thing we did was go on Spaceship Earth. This is the ride inside of the giant ball that is the picture everyone thinks of when they think of Epcot.

Next we ran into some of the same characters we had met at GKTW the morning before, but with one new addition.

Then we headed to The Seas with Nemo and Friends and rode the clam shells into the undersea aquarium. There they had another interactive animated show, but instead of a comedy like the Monsters, Inc. one, it was a question answer show for kids.

The time for the fireworks show was still a ways off, but creeping up on us. We walked around the lake and looked at the different foods the countries were offering. There was a wine and food show going on at the time so each country had a food cart set up outside. Most of the food sounded really good but not things our kids would eat. The fireworks and light show was good. It was late for Julia and Finn and we were all really tired. It took us forever to walk back around the lake and get to our car. I pushed Julia in the stroller and Finn rode on Amanda's back.

Our plan for the rest of the week was Sea World on Wednesday, Epcot Thursday morning and finish Magic Kingdom Thursday afternoon, and head to the ocean on Friday.

Make-A-Wish Trip, Day 2: Magic Kingdom

Monday morning Finn still had a fever and didn't seem himself. We seriously contemplated having Amanda stay back with him and me just take Julia to Magic Kingdom. We decided to all go when he perked up a little after some Tylenol.

Before we headed out we got to experience our first morning at Give Kids the World (GKTW). We had breakfast at the Gingerbread House, their cafeteria-style eating establishment. Most mornings, GKTW brought in characters from one of theme parks. Some of the kids aren't able to travel as easily as others, so they bring the characters to them. That morning we met Mickey and Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, and Mary Poppins.

We stood in a short line for the mice and the other three were wandering around the village.

After that we made the short drive to Disney World, made our way to Magic Kingdom parking, hopped on a tram to the monorail, rode the monorail to the entrance, waited in line to have our bags checked, got in line to get through the gates, and just like that, we were there!

I'm really not complaining about any of the waits we had. Kids on a Make-A-Wish trip at Disney are treated like royalty (and so are their families). Julia had a GKTW button on her shirt and Amanda had a special access pass around her neck. Besides the entrance lines and food lines, either of those two things would get us all to the front of any line. There are Fast Passes you can get for different rides, but those can only be used periodically and not for things like character meetings. At times I felt a little guilty about it... but only a little. I'm not sure if we'll be able to go back any time soon because we won't be able to stand having to stand in the lines. The only bad part about the trip is that it may have spoiled us.

Our plan was to wander around the park in counter-clockwise direction and see what we wanted to see along the way.

We stopped right away to get a triple dose of princesses in one of the buildings on Main Street, USA. Cinderella, Belle, and Aurora were all in one place. Julia happened to be wearing a hat that had those exact three princesses on them, so she had them sign that as well as the kids' autograph book.

As we continued walking we ran into Pinocchio.

Once we got to the center of Magic Kingdom, there was a parade starting, so we paused on our walk and watched it. While the floats, characters, and dancers filled up the street around the center of the park, they stopped and invited people out in the street to dance. Finn was content to sit in the stroller and so Julia and went out there and tore it up, Disney-style. Frozone (from The Incredibles) was in our area and he took Julia's hands and was dancing with her for a long time. It was really cool!

After that we headed in Tomorrow Land and saw the Monster's Inc Laugh Floor show. It was an animated improv comedy show and it was a lot of fun. They would show a member of the audience with a silly caption under their face on the big screen and then work that into the act. I smiled and waved when my face ended up on the screen and then I noticed it had a caption that said something about a dancing guy - so, of course, I obliged by standing up and dancing.

We next went on the Tomorrow Land People Mover that takes you around the area. Then we headed toward Fantasy Land where we got a bite to eat and went on the flying Dumbo ride.

We walked past the sword in the stone and we asked the kids if they wanted to try to pull it out. Julia gave it a shot and it slid right out. Finn went up and tried and it wouldn't budge. I was watching the staff members standing nearby and didn't see them operating anything to control it so I just figured he wasn't pulling hard enough. Julia tried to help then I did too. It wouldn't come out. We started to step down and Julia tried again by herself and it came right out again. It may be a sign.

We rode the boats on the It's a Small World ride. The picture below is from there.

We then ventured over to Frontier Land and since we were getting really wiped out we took a break by riding the train all around the outside of Magic Kingdom. Finn was just sitting in the stroller and wasn't interested in anything at all anymore so we decided to head back to GKTW. On the way out of the park we got stopped by another parade and so we hung out on the side of the street and watched it go by. Ariel looked down from the float and told Julia she liked her hat. It really lit up Julia's face. We still had Adventure Land to do, but we decided to save that for another day.

Back at our villa, we ate leftovers from the previous day's lunch and then headed to the Halloween Party that GKTW was putting on that night. They had trick-or-treating and activity stations all around. Julia and Amanda stayed for a little while longer while I took Finn back to the villa. On the way he nabbed some cotton candy and then we stopped for a train ride.

After this first long day, it felt like we had been there a week already!