September 8, 2013

Make A Wish Trip, Day 3


After two full days of Disney's Magic Kingdom we decided to change it up a bit and hit Universal Studios.  First, however, we had to take care of some business at GKTW Village.

The ceiling of the castle in the village is covered in stars from all of the children that have visited the village. There are around 200,000 stars.  These pictures don't do it justice, but it is moving to look up and see so many stars. 



Every star represents a child that has come, and every star also represents a wish that a special child has made.  They have this whole wish fairy thing where she takes the star and then looks for a good place to put it.  After making her wish a "star passport" was delivered to our villa the next day with the location of Madeleine's star in the castle.  We went back to look for it.



If you can make this picture larger you can see a red laser point on the second circle up from the bottom, in the middle.  That is where Madeleine's star is.  Alumni families can come back to Give Kids the World to visit for the day and to find their child's star.  It's special that a little piece of her will always be there.

Inside the castle we were also able to visit the pillow fairy who gave us a pillow for each of the kids, and play with the wishing well that makes a different sound every time someone throws in a penny (even the pennies were provided!).  It burped at me.


The reigning queens




 Universal has two parks, Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios.  We first headed to Islands of Adventure.  There really wasn't too much for little kids here.  They did have a fun Dr. Suess land that we spent a little time in, but then we pretty much walked through the rest of it as it was all geared towards older kids and adults.  We did see the Harry Potter world and definitely would have spent some more time there if the kids weren't with us.  I was really impressed with what I saw of it (and the Butter Beer, so good).  After a couple of hours we walked over the Universal Studios side.  There were a few more things for kids, and some characters to meet, but again, not the best place for little kids.  If we were doing this trip again I would skip Universal altogether.

 Meeting Shrek!  At Universal Madeleine's special card allowed us to go the the front of character meet and greet lines as well as getting a front of the line pass on the rides.


We did find a fun playground to play on for a bit.




I think Scooby Doo was taking her away.  They had a lot of fun with him. 

Laurel loved him too!

All in all, a really fun day.

3 comments:

Adelaide and Harleigh Morris said...
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Adelaide and Harleigh Morris said...

We've never visited Universal, thanks for the review! Scooby Doo and Shrek are worth the time, if the look on Laurel's and Mad's faces are any indication ;) What an awesome idea with the stars and of course what the represent! You'll have to look into naming a star with Mad, I bet she'd love the idea, especially if she can see it through a telescope!

Ni Ni said...

It is so nice that you girls had fun ! Good job, mom and girls !