Make-a-Wish Trip Day 7: More GKTW, Universal Studios, and Heading Home

I can’t believe this is our last day here. We’ve looked forward to this amazing trip for so long and it’s hard to believe it’s nearly over. We took this morning a bit more slowly and finished packing up all our things. We got breakfast at the Gingerbread House and then went to the Candy Land playground again for Justin to see it this time and to be able to take some pictures in the daylight.

I still can't believe we packed so lightly and got all our stuff in just these few bags with NO checked luggage! The red and orange suitcases, as well as the pink backpack are all full of just the gifts we received!

Molly checking to see if she'll be able to carry this backpack through the airports for us.  It's HUGE, but it's really just filled with the 3 Magic Pillows the girls got at the beginning of the trip, and Annie's extra pillow for positioning her on the plane.

It's been wonderful spending so much time together as a family!

Enjoying our villa porch one last time before leaving.

The Candy Land Playground at GKTW

This playground is really awesome!  It's all wheelchair accesible, and it's a huge Candy Land game board.

On Sunday nights at GKTW they do an actual live Candy Land game here where the guests themselves are their own pawns as they move around the game board.

Here are some of the other villas in the village.  There are about 150 villas and each of them is uniquely designed on the outside.  The whole village feels so magical.

 After letting the girls play for a while we headed to the House of Hearts to check out. Again, it was humbling to be presented with more wonderful things at check out. We got a CD of all the photos that were taken of us around GKTW by their photographers. We also got a certificate that, as a wish family, will get us into most amusement parks and attractions around the country for free over the next year! We got a nice printed picture of us with Mickey Mouse when he was in the village earlier this week.

House of Hearts at GKTW

We also got a certificate for Crops of Love—an organization that will put together a complete scrapbook for us of all our pictures from our trip, for free. Our MAW wish granters are also putting together a scrap book for us, so we will be blessed with lots of ways to remember this wonderful trip!

We also got another golden star like the one with Annie’s name on it in the Castle of Miracles to remember exactly what her star looks like there. We have definitely received an amazing outpouring of love here at GKTW. It has been by far more magical than any Disney park could ever be. There is such a wonderful spirit about the people here—the volunteers as well as the wish families. I wish we had more time to stay!

After we checked out from GKTW, we drove to Universal Studios to go to the other half of the park we didn’t see yesterday. We headed to first aid to change Annie, got our free stroller rental as usual, then went to the Despicable Me ride. It was basically a 3D movie with moving seats which was fun, but that also made it so Annie could sit and watch the movie part without being jolted around in the ride. Then we went on Shrek 4D which was nearly the same way.

After that we went to an Animal Actors show since we loved the Pets Ahoy show so much in Sea World, but this one wasn’t nearly as exciting. However, the worker grabbed us before the show and told us to stick around afterwards, after everyone else has left the auditorium, and they’d bring out the animals and let us pet them and take pictures. So that was kind of special and the girls liked it.

Being silly waiting for the show to start

Annie's private time with the animals after the show.

Next we headed to the E.T. ride, which again, was accessible for wheelchairs, but they wouldn’t let Annie ride because her wheelchair supported her trunk and she couldn’t support her trunk herself. She could have totally gone on it. It’s been frustrating that there hasn’t been much in Universal Studios for Annie to participate in like she did in the Disney parks.

Then we headed to the kids play area and the girls (and Justin) LOVED the ball machines where they could vacuum up balls and make them travel through tubes and collect them to shoot out of air guns. We finally pulled them out of there when the noise was becoming way too much for us. Universal is definitely the loudest theme park I’ve ever been to in my life—every ride is super loud and even all the music playing through the walkways is way too much.

The girls could have played in here all day!

I think Justin had just as much fun as the girls did!

This was the huge water area, but we didn't get very wet since we were headed to the airport soon.

 Justin and I took turns going on a kids’ roller coaster with Molly and Lexie, and Molly even went on a water slide in an inner tube, but didn’t even get wet. It probably would have felt good with the hot temperatures. (I think each day got just a little warmer. Highs were around 85-90 degrees with heat indexes in the mid to upper 90s. The lows only got into the low 70s, so the evenings were really comfortable and nice.)

Justin, Molly, and Lexie are in the front two cars.

 

Molly on the waterslide

On our way out of the park, we stopped to have pictures with Curious George and Woody Woodpecker since they were just right there.  We were ushered to the front of the line of people waiting, and when we were done, the worker asked who else we wanted pictures with and she would just call them and have them come to us—anyone we wanted. We stood there stunned, but we weren’t sure who all the Universal characters were, and we were on our way to the airport anyway, so we had to turn down the opportunity. Too bad we couldn’t have taken advantage of that sooner in the day had we known!

With Curious George

Woody and Winnie Woodpecker

 

Winnie Woodpecker was super nice to Annie

We picked up our free 8x10 picture from the photo shop. Again, I’d never consider buying pictures like this, but when they are free as a wish family, why not?

The free picture we received as one of our MAW perks in Universal.

We enjoyed Subway so much for lunch yesterday that we hit it again today. But this time, the kind young man behind the counter gave us free cookies after seeing us in our MAW shirts. People everywhere are all so kind!

Then we headed to the airport and met the van rental lady right at the curb for departures to retrieve her van. The whole van rental process worked so smoothly and flawlessly without us really having to lift a finger. And it was a really nice car!

We got to the airport around 3pm which several people had recommended to us, even though our flight didn’t leave until 5:30pm, but Orlando’s security lines were much longer than Omaha’s and we needed that extra time to get through.

As we boarded our first flight of the night, the pilot came back to us in the cabin as we were getting Annie situated before anyone else was on the plane, and was so kind talking to us and telling us he’d get us whatever we need. Lexie slept through most of the first flight but woke up long enough to eat the hot fresh cookies our stewardess brought us after she served them to first class!

Those Magic Pillows from GKTW sure were great to have!

Lexie was a sound sleeper on the flights home!

Molly enjoyed browsing the airline catalog and got a kick out of some of the stuff in there.

Annie did great on the flights home.  Her chest strap and extra pillows worked great to keep her sitting up in the airplane seat.

 Justin was trying to figure out a way to hang up her beads for her when a total stranger stood up and came over to show Justin a way he could get them to hang! 

 
We landed in DFW for our layover and had about 2 hours, so we grabbed some dinner and let the girls watch a movie.

Before leaving DFW a family that had just come from Orlando had a daughter who wanted to give Annie her huge Mickey Mouse balloon. We were so touched by her thoughtfulness and generosity, but with one more leg of our flight ahead of us, we just couldn’t manage to take it with us. But even still, I continue to be amazed by all the kindness that has been shown to our family on this trip. Often Annie is overlooked or not considered in so many ways, and to see her be the center of attention on this trip, even from total strangers, has been so touching and continues to bring tears to my eyes as I consider all the genuine kindness she has received on this trip. She has truly been treated like a princess and she SO deserves it!!

Our flight to Omaha left around 10pm and all 5 of us quickly fell asleep and remained asleep for the entire flight. We landed at 11:30, and by the time we got our van from long-term parking, and got home, we all quickly fell into bed around 12:30. And fall definitely arrived while we were gone!! It’s SO cold! It’s going to be hard to be home and get back into our routines! But I am so grateful for this amazing week. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Sure, we can always go back to Disney World, and we are also even welcome back to GKTW for a day visit whenever we like, but never again will we experience these places in the magical way we were able to on this trip. I am so grateful for the kindness and generosity of so many people—the volunteers at GKTW and MAW, as well as all the donors that contributed to make not only our trip possible, but the trips for over 120,000 other kids who have been able to experience what we have. It is absolutely amazing! The love and kindness we have received has been overwhelming and we are so grateful for the memories that we’ll always have of this trip.