September 5, 2013

Make-A-Wish trip: Day 2 and 3

The second day of our trip was our first full day there so we were all excited to hit the parks.  As part of our trip we were given three day park-hopper passes to Disney (includes Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Disney Hollywood Studios and Epcot), two day park hopper tickets to Universal Studios, and one day at Sea World.  They also had free tickets available to Legoland and a whole bunch of other parks, but we just stuck with the main ones.

After getting breakfast in the Village we headed to The Magic Kingdom.
As a Wish kid, Madeleine had a special guest assistance card that allowed her, and the whole family, to use the fast pass entrance to all the rides, bypassing the majority of the line.  I don't think we waited more than five minutes for any ride.  At Universal Studios and Sea World, her Wish kid status allowed her to be escorted to the very front of every line.  This really made the parks enjoyable.  Even though they were crowded, it didn't really matter because we still got to go on as many rides as we wanted.

We stopped for lunch somewhere in The Magic Kingdom, and the employees there gave her a "magic moment."  They made a big deal out of her, and brought her some Princess Ariel goodies.  It was a really nice surprise.

We decided to go back to GKTW that evening for dinner.  It happened to be "Christmas" that night, and included a visit with Santa, gifts for all three kids, a parade, and some crafts and dancing in the main area of the village.


We happened to come across some Village characters that were wandering around.  Laurel was really enamored with Buttons the bear.



 The whole family had to get a picture once Mayor Clayton and his wife (the bunnies) joined in!


It snowed that night.  Not real snow, of course, but the kids still thought it was amazing.


That night, once the kids were asleep, I was super excited to find an opening at Cinderella's Round Table.  This restaurant typically  fills up as soon as reservations open up - 180 days ahead of time!  I had looked around a bit before we left on our trip but everything was booked up.  I happened to look again and saw that there was one opening for 8:20am for the next day.  So, we got up early and headed into the park again, getting there before they were even open.  This restaurant is inside the castle, which is kind of cool.  We took some pictures with Cinderella (I'll have to post these later), and then headed upstairs for breakfast.  The food was okay, but the main draw were the princesses.  Every few minutes a new princess came out and made her way around the restaurant, stopping at every table for photos.  It was fun and the girls were happy to meet all of the princesses.




After breakfast we did some more rides and stopped to meet some fairies.


We headed back to GKTW to rest a bit in the afternoon.  On our way out we stopped to check out the Wish Lounge.  This is a special room in The Magic Kingdom just for Wish kids!  It was air conditioned and was a nice place to sit and hang out for a little while.  Have I mentioned how hot it was  in Orlando?  So hot and humid. 



Later that evening we returned to Magic Kingdom.  We almost didn't go back because everyone was pretty tired, but I'm so glad that we did, because this was truly the best day of our trip.  We started with princesses and ended with a special makeover for Madeleine.  She had been dying to go into the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo salon in the castle.  I didn't really know anything about it, so we stopped in to find out about it.  I was told that they were reservations only and that there hadn't been any cancellations.  We were about to leave when the hostess noticed Madeleine and asked if she was a Wish kid.  They said that they could get her in since she was a Wish kid.  They then went over packages with me and I chose the hair and makeup one (the cheapest one, it got expensive fast after that!).  Since she doesn't have any hair they said that she could choose any princess wig that she wanted and she could have that hair done and keep the wig.  So we were pretty happy about that.  A few minutes later the hostess came and asked Madeleine who her favorite princess was.  After that they led her back to the changing rooms so she could pick out her wig.  However, before she opened the door, the hostess explained that the Fairy Godmother had come and left Madeleine a present.  She threw open the curtain and there hung an Ariel dress for Madeleine to keep!  They had also lined up every princess wig and she got to pick whatever she wanted.  She could have worn the Ariel costume with Cinderella hair, or whatever, but she chose Ariel hair as well.  What an awesome surprise!  Madeleine was so happy and I felt like crying.  They were so nice to us, it really was magical.


The surprises didn't stop there.  After her hair and makeup were done they said we could go next door for photos.  I thought maybe we would buy a photo if any of them turned out okay.  While we were in line the manager of the photo place said that he had spoken with the manager of the salon and that they had agreed to give us a photo package on top of all of the other things they had already given us.  Wow!  It turns out that the pictures weren't so great, but that's okay, Madeleine likes them.  I was really impressed with Disney.   They really made her feel like a princess.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow what an amazing trip you guys all had! It sounds like Madeleine and Laurel were really happy. What a wonderful trip. Kyle.

Adelaide and Harleigh Morris said...

What a wonderful trip, and amazing organization! I'm so glad Princess Madeleine got everything she wanted and more!!