Make a Wish trip Day 5 - Animal Kingdom/Magic Kingdom

Get ready for picture overload! This was my FAVORITE day of our wish trip. Before our trip started I spent days... literally, days planning our trip. I had seven different travel guides checked out from the library, all the maps of the different parks printed out, a daily itinerary of what we would be doing each day at the parks and Give Kids the World AND reservations for two restaurants that I FOUGHT for. 

We started out the day at Animal Kingdom which was just awesome! We wore our Make a Wish attire and you wouldn't believe how people treated us. Like royalty I'm telling you! We walked to the front of every line and the characters spent about three times the amount they would've with other kids. It was amazing. We started out going to see Mickey and Minnie in their cute safari attire. After I knew Pocahontas was close from our map but it took us a while to find her! Once we found her she sat and talked to Avery for about 10 full minutes it felt like. Watching Ave interact with the characters was one of my favorite things. She would automatically get a little shy and use her hands a lot when she talked but she would have a smile on her face the whole time. 

We were headed to Kilimanjaro Safari's when Ave decided she NEEDED pizza. It was 10:30 so we had a heck of a time trying to find the one pizza place in the Animal Kingdom! The whole staff there was so sweet when they found Avery was a wish kid! They brought out an adult personal pizza and a cupcake for free! Her cupcake even had Mickey shaped sprinkles on it! 

After eating we headed to Kilimanjaro Safari's. You get in this big open bus and start traveling straight through the animal habitats! There are no fences or anything between you and the animals so we got up close and personal with a few of them! 

I had read in a travel guide that Animal Kingdom wasn't the "best" park for toddlers because there weren't a lot of rides for them. They have Expedition Everest which Ave wasn't tall enough for and Thomas really wanted to try out the adult rides for himself. So we headed to Dinoland which is specifically geared towards smaller children while he went by himself. Avery LOVED Dinoland! They had a similar ride to Dumbo where you ride in dinosaurs and she could've done that one all day. While we were there we met Goofy and Pluto and Flik and his friends from a Bug's Life came out to have a dance party! 

We hurried and headed over to see Donald Duck, Balloo (who Avery was terrified of) and Pooh and Tigger! 

This was the only day I could get reservations for the Be Our Guest restaurant in the Magic Kingdom. I had read about it in all of our travel guides and knew I had to see it! The only way you can see inside is to actually eat there and I'm pretty sure it's the only place you can see the Beast. We had reservations at 4:30 so we left Animal Kingdom and drove to Magic Kingdom. We were cutting it SO CLOSE because when I had planned out our days I didn't actually know that in the middle of the day they don't run the trains to the Magic Kingdom so we had to take the ferry. It would have been fun if I weren't so worried about missing our reservations! Be Our Guest is at the very back of the Magic Kingdom park so Thomas stood right at the back of the boat so he could RUN there before us to check in for our reservations. We docked at 4:22 (I think I was going to have a heart attack) and we speed walked to the back of the park. I actually ended up with three huge blisters from this day - and when we actually got there Thomas told us they wouldn't check us in until our whole party was there! Lol. Sorry Thomas! 

When they check you in at Be Our Guest they give you a beeper and a candlestick to hold. When your beeper goes off you carry your candlestick while one of the waiters escorts you to your table. In Be Our Guest there are three rooms, the main ballroom (where we sat), the West Wing, or the Rose Room. As long as you're eating there you can walk around inside each of the rooms and take pictures. The In the main ballroom they have the painted ceiling like in the movie and windows that make it look like you are sitting on top of a mountain in the middle of winter! After we were finished with our food our waiter wheeled in The Dessert Cart! Of course we had to get "The grey stuff"! Ave thought it was pretty delicious. :) 

 Halfway through our meal the Beast showed up! Avery pretty much automatically crawled under our table while Valerie and I went to stand in line to see him. It was so nice having someone else there who wanted to see the characters!

After dinner we went on a few more rides and ended up on the Buzz Lightyear ride. This was around the time when everyone was starting to go line up for the parade and since we had already seen it we stayed and road a few more rides! Thomas and I (for the first time ever) went on Space Mountain and met Avery back by the Buzz Lightyear that she wanted to ride about 15 more times. She could've stayed on that one all night! 

 We headed out just in time to catch the fire work show. Really there isn't a bad place to watch them in the entire park and since we were already by Tomorrowland, Tinkerbell went RIGHT over our heads! It was pretty late and so we headed out and Ave fell asleep right in the stroller. 

Make a Wish Trip Day 4 - Sea World

On day 4 our plan was to get up and eat breakfast and then meet in Julie's Safari Theater to meet the Disney Characters that were visiting that day. Ave started out her morning with leftover pizza while the rest of us ate breakfast food from the Gingerbread House. After we were done we headed over to meet Mickey.

Meeting Mickey at Give Kids the World was a really special experience for me. Of course meeting Mickey is always special, but it is so different there. Right in front of us there was a family with a little boy - he must have been around 10 and he was blind. I remember him walking up to Mickey with a huge smile on his face. He asked Mickey if he could touch his face and his hands and feet and you could see the little boy kind of making a picture of what Mickey Mouse is supposed to look like in his mind. Once he had knocked on Mickey's large black shoes he stood up and gave Mickey a HUGE hug! It was so special to watch and I don't think anyone who was there wasn't crying. 

After that I was so excited to get Ave up there who of course was instantly terrified of him! I went up without her at first to get him to sign our stuffed Mickey on the foot (they won't do that at the parks) and to get a picture. We had pretty much given up on her coming any closer after several attempts when Mickey came all the way off the stage to meet her. He spent SO much time making sure Ave was comfortable and gave her high fives and kisses until she would actually pose for a picture. I can't believe that Disney does so much for these Wish kids and I wish I could've really thanked the Mickey inside the costume to tell them what the experience meant to us.

After meeting Mickey we went to the Castle of Miracles to meet Goofy and Pluto. Both of them were so sweet sitting down on the ground so they wouldn't seem so daunting to Ave. She was still pretty afraid but did better then with Mickey! 

After we headed to Sea World! This was much less crowded then the Disney parks which was nice. We played a few games and won a little turtle for Ave and after went to the Dolphin feeding. Each Wish child at Sea World gets to feed the dolphins for free. As soon as the worker saw my button she told us to go to a special waiting area where we would wait to go in before all the people who had actually paid and waited in line! Talk about royal treatment. :) 

Ave and I were too scared to touch the dead fish but Thomas fed this cute dolphins TWELVE fish! This guy wasn't going anywhere once he figured out we had fish! After he flipped his tail up so he was laying on his side and we all got to pet him. 

After we saw a few more animals, Thomas wanted to do the "adult rides". He went off with our special pass to do Atlantis and a Manta Ray ride which both looked only like insane people would go on them (to me anyway! :) ) I took Avery in the Arctic section and it looked like you were walking through huge glaciers! I took her on this special interactive penguin ride and she ended up crying for her daddy the whole time!

Afterwords we met back up in the "Happy Harbor" where there are rides that are specifically geared towards little kids. Perfect for Avery and this was probably her favorite part. 

She was pretty exhausted when we left. :)

We headed back to GKTW and Ave and Thomas went swimming in their HUGE pool. It was way too cold for me to get in the water but she loved it! 

After baths and getting dressed we headed to the Gingerbread house for dinner. Each night GKTW has activities going on for all of the families. That night was Halloween and we got to take Ave trick or treating down the Avenue of Angels and they had fun crafts and games at a few different tables. GKTW also offers one "tuck in" per family by Miss Merry or Mayor Clayton. When I scheduled it they asked who I preferred and made sure I knew Mayor Clayton has a reputation of riling up the kids and jumping on beds! I thought that might scare Avery so I requested Miss Merry and I was so glad! Avery just ADORED Miss Merry and still talks about her four months later!