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Old 21 Oct 18, 09:02 PM  
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PrincessCastle
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Starlight, Star bright, Give Kids The World tonight - October 2018. Pre Travel Day.

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11th October - Pre Travel Day.

Today started like a normal day. I’d woken up a little bit earlier than normal with nervous/excited tummy which is usual before holiday. I stress that I’ve forgotten things and it was bothering me this time as I was so desperate for everything to be perfect for the kids.
Anyways, we got the kids ready for school. This wasn’t easy as they were bouncing off the walls, they didn’t even know where we were going yet! We took the 10 minute walk to school to drop them off, reminding their teacher’s we’d be back at 2 to collect them.

Ross fancied a full English so we drove to our local Brewers Fayre but they had a private event on so weren’t doing brekkie. So we ended up going to a Beefeater. It was £9.99 each for an all you can eat full English with continental options. It’s joined onto a Premier Inn so the usual hotel breakfast. I managed two sausages, two hash browns and some beans with an apple juice and a cup of tea. Ross had all that plus bacon, egg and black pudding cause he’s a pig, and doesn’t get nervous about things... or feel anything really. He’s so lucky. Food was ok, standard Premier Inn stuff. £20 was a bit steep though, could have gotten a Maccy D’s breakfast for cheaper. Never mind!

As we got home my step dad arrived with the kids iPads and the reveal treasure hunt letter and clues that I’d asked him to print as my printer is out of ink.
Ross tidied the kitchen for me and I stripped the beds and gathered all the washing together that my lovely mother in law was going to do for me while we were away, cause she’s a diamond!

Once the house was in order I wanted to sort out the reveal, cut out the treasure hunt clues and wrap the present. I got the printing out of the polly pocket but it wasn’t right. I’d downloaded the Disney font for it but it was just in a normal font! I realised that as my mum didn’t have that font on her computer, of course it wasn’t going to print it! I got pee’d off cause my mum was supposed to bring it round yesterday and if she had I could have sorted it then. Ross did slip in that it hardly matters what font it’s in but unfortunately this is me, and I’m a stress head perfectionist. Everything was ruined as far as I was concerned (yes, I’m a drama queen) . So Ross agreed to buy me some more printer ink. We needed to go to the old house to get a few bits, like the plug adaptors, and there’s a little printer shop just down the road from it so we called in on the way. £36! For ink! Blummin ridiculous. I usually buy it on eBay and it’s £8! But I was desperate so I’ll take it. We grabbed the bits from the old house and went back home.

I plugged the printer in and put the new ink cartridge in. I did the test print thing then went to print my documents but it wouldn’t work. I tried to reboot but it still wouldn’t work. I rang my step dad whos a computer technician and he told me how to uninstall and reinstall the printer. It uninstalled it but when I tried to install it again it wouldn’t work, it said it couldn’t find any printers. Called Les again and he was out of ideas. Great. Have you ever been so stressed out over a font? Oh my days! I know, I’m so ridiculous. Just feel for Ross cause he has to live with it.
A couple of minutes later my mum called to suggest saving the file as a PDF as it would save it as like a screenshot, then asking the school to print it. Genius! The day was saved. I saved it on a USB stick and put it in my bag.

Stress over, sort of. I decided to keep the clues in the normal font so I could get them cut out now. I wrapped the present too and put that in the rucksack for safe keeping.

Ross brought the cases downstairs and I got them sorted while he had a shower. I managed to eliminate a few t shirts and pairs of socks so make some more room. Just then my shorts arrived at the door. I had to order some more the day before. Id bought some summer tops in the sale at Primark that week (£15 for 6 tops!) but was in a rush so I tried them on at home. Decided it was a good idea to try on my shorts as well. Well, apparently I’ve piled on the beef since I had Jack as I couldn’t get any of my shorts past my thighs. Good job I tried them on! So the next day I’d gone back into town again to look for shorts but there was non in my size anywhere in town so I ordered about 6 pairs on Very for next day delivery. Anyways...I had a shower and tried on some of the shorts after, thankfully two of the pairs fit so they got chucked in the case.

The mother in law arrived so grab the washing and help get stuff sorted. I got the kids travel clothes out and Ross and his mum put the bins and recycling out. Once that was all sorted it was time to get the kiddos!

We harnessed up the dog and took her on the walk to school. Thankfully the school secretary agreed to do my printing. Usually they’re not allowed to put any foreign USBs or anything into the computers but since it was something special she made an exception. She put it in an envelope to hide it from the kids then went to get them from their classes.
They were so excited! God knows what they’d been like for their teachers, probably a nightmare! Oliver was asking if I’d tell them where we were going, all in good time!

Once home I got them changed into their travel clothes and packed their rucksacks with iPads, headphones, two cuddly toys and a book each while Ross packed the wheelchair and the cases in the car.
We put the dogs things in a bag, switched off the sockets and set off at 2:45. Bella got dropped off at the kennels, she was very excited, she loves it there! I think she likes having doggo buddies to play with. Then we were off! I set the sat nav for the Manchester Printworks car park. It gave us an ETA for 5:15 so I booked a table at the Hard Rock for 5:30. The kids watched films/played games on their iPads (Ariana did have a nap during the journey but that girl has never grown out of that baby instinct to sleep in a moving vehicle!) and we listened to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. We love Stephen Fry reading those books! He’s amazing.


The roads were fairly quiet until about 4:45 then it started getting busy. At 5 I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t checked in for the flight! I logged in and filled in the passenger info then booked the seats but unfortunately they were fairly rubbish ones. The plane was a 3-4-3 and the only seats left were a 3 with a 1 in front next to the window. Ross said he’d sit by himself by the window, couldn’t help but wonder who got the better deal there? We arrived in Manchester city centre at 5:30, Ross chucked me out the car at the entrance to the car park so I could go get our table while he parked.

I went to check in, told the guy the rest would be along soon and that I’d been chucked out the car, he said ‘Well, someones gotta be that guy’. Yup!
He gave me a menu to look over while I was waiting for the table but I didn’t need it, NY Strip Steak aaaaall the way! I got shown to our table and requested two kids menus. After 5 mins Ross and the kids arrived.

Ross and I ordered BBQ chicken wings to start, a NY Strip steak each with twisted mac and cheese and a beer and a coke. The kids had a hot dog and fries each with a fruit shoot. The waitress was making small talk, asking how our day was etc, told her we were off on holiday tomorrow and she asked where but I said it was a secret, she asked if it W.D.W, I told her it was and she was very excited for us!
The kids were very entertaining while we were waiting for food. Oliver decided to get up and do the floss to Word Up (he can’t floss at all but he tries bless him) and during a quiet moment Ariana all of a sudden pointed to Ross and said ‘Harry Potter! Detention for you Harry Potter’ I was howling with laughter. Crazy kids!

The kids meals came first with our starter. Ross has the wings, I have the carrot and celery sticks with the blue cheese sauce. That’s been the deal for 8 years! Oliver wolfed his meal down, Ariana took her time. It took a while for our main to come and Oliver was already bored and started to twine. Ariana got ice cream when our food came but Oliver said he didn’t want any. Our food was delicious, as always! I love their steak!







We asked for the bill, it was then that Oliver decided he wanted ice cream, tough titties pal! We paid the £85.05 bill plus £9 tip and went to look in the shop. I usually buy pins with dates on but they didn’t have any! The guy said they don’t really do them anymore but I don’t believe him to be honest! I got an England football themed one since the world cup was 2018 and Ross got a beanie hat which came to £31.


It was pouring it down now so we legged it back to the car park which cost £6.50! Crazy expensive! I set the sat nav for the Clayton Hotel and set off but it was a nightmare. There’s so many one way streets and the sat nav didn’t know about any of them so it took a while to get out of the city centre and onto the road to the airport but we got there for about 8:30. We managed to get a disabled bay by the front door and hauled the kids and the cases out.
There was quite a queue for check in but once at the front we were given the forms for the car and asked them to store Oliver’s meds in the fridge and ice pack in the freezer for us which they were more than happy to do.

We went up to room 259 with a lovely view of the car park. Ross was trying to fill in the car parking form but the kids were too blummin excited and they were so hyper jumping all over the bed. They were told to sit down and not make another sound until we were finished doing to form. Ross took the form downstairs and moved the car to the back car park so they could move it to their secure off site car park. While he was doing that I sorted the clothes out for the morning and watched a bit of Young Sheldon.




When he got back we all went downstairs to the bar for a drink. I ‘forgot my phone’ so went back to the room so set up the treasure hunt then joined them downstairs and gave Ross the clue he needed to have in his pocket. The bar was really busy but we managed to get a table right at the back. I didn’t want a drink but Ross had a pint of stella and the kids had a j20 to share which came to £7.
There was a big family on the table next to us and they had a baby about Jack’s age who was being extra cute. I missed him so much already! I guessed that this family would probably be on our flight in the morning.

I was super excited to get upstairs but Ross was being slow with his pint so he brought it upstairs with him. I had my phone out ready to record when we opened the door and the kids waltzed straight past the letter from Mickey Mouse that was at the end of the bed! We had to say ‘hey kids, what’s this here?’ before they saw it. Oliver read it out and the treasure hunt began.





This lead them to a present wrapped next to the sink. Under the first layer was a pack of Starlight Children’s Foundation cards with the word ‘You’re’ on it (the Starlight cards were a clue to his wish, but it went over their heads!), the next layer had a $5 bill in with the word ‘Going’ attached to it (a clue to the country we were going to, a clue that again, went totally over their heads!) The final layer had the word ‘To’ in with their personalised Walt Disney World autograph books in.

I asked them what was written on the front but they couldn’t make it out, I had to go over and point to the words. ‘But you said we weren’t going Mummy’ ‘Did I?’ Oh my goodness their faces when they realised the truth was amazing! They were jumping up and down like crazy so apologies if you were in the room below us! I filmed it all and it’s on Oliver’s FB page, Oliver’s Ark DMD if you want to see it. I explained to Oliver that it was Starlight that were sending us because of his wish, he was so excited.


Then it was our job to get them ready for bed! That was a task. Once that was done I uploaded the video to facebook and a photo to instagram. Then we were all in bed by 10:15 and the alarm set for 5:30!
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Old 21 Oct 18, 09:37 PM  
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mick
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A brilliant reveal no wonder the children were excited


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Old 21 Oct 18, 10:03 PM  
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Cinderella
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Lovely 😊
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Old 21 Oct 18, 10:05 PM  
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Bootrip2
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Just caught up with this, sounds like an amazing trip! Going on a wish trip is such a strange experience, sad because of the reasons behind such a trip, but to see the kds get so much out of it is amazing. Our DD had a trip october 2012, we stayed at GKTW village too. We visit now every time we are in florida as its such a special place, and wow the new buildings and stuff is impressive! Cant wait to read more. X
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Old 22 Oct 18, 06:43 AM  
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Goldia
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Such a brilliant reveal. Phew what a stressful morning with the wrong font, then buying the ink for your printer and that not working, I'm glad the kids were excited and that it all went to plan in the end.
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Old 22 Oct 18, 03:46 PM  
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scottishvixen
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Oh my goodness. Fantastic. What a great reveal.

I would have been the same about the don’t, though would probably have just given up. Well done for persevering.
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Old 23 Oct 18, 08:13 PM  
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PrincessCastle
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Originally Posted by mick View Post
A brilliant reveal no wonder the children were excited

Joan
Thank you! I think I was just as excited as them!


Originally Posted by Cinderella View Post
Lovely 😊
Thank you! Thanks for reading


Originally Posted by Bootrip2 View Post
Just caught up with this, sounds like an amazing trip! Going on a wish trip is such a strange experience, sad because of the reasons behind such a trip, but to see the kds get so much out of it is amazing. Our DD had a trip october 2012, we stayed at GKTW village too. We visit now every time we are in florida as its such a special place, and wow the new buildings and stuff is impressive! Cant wait to read more. X
I know what you mean. I managed to hold back the tears for the whole holiday and I'm shocked because it was so emotional for those reasons.
We can't wait to go back to GKTW, it's so special. I'm gutted we didnt get to go to the Gallery of Hope as I really wanted to see some old pics and I can't find any online, never mind!
Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by Goldia View Post
Such a brilliant reveal. Phew what a stressful morning with the wrong font, then buying the ink for your printer and that not working, I'm glad the kids were excited and that it all went to plan in the end.
I do know how to make a situation more stressful than it needs to be, its a talent! Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by scottishvixen View Post
Oh my goodness. Fantastic. What a great reveal.

I would have been the same about the don’t, though would probably have just given up. Well done for persevering.
Thank you! I was so worried they were going to be so overwhelmed that they had no reaction, or a negative reaction. I've seen youtube vids of that happening so I was so pleased they were happy and jumping around.
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1999 - Hotel Cheyene DLP * 2002 - Explorers Hotel DLP * 2003 - Quality Inn I-Drive * 2006 - Explorers Hotel DLP * 2012 - Rosen Inn I-Drive * 2014 - New Port Bay DLP * 2016 - Beach Club * 2018 - Give Kids The World Village


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Old 23 Oct 18, 09:26 PM  
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EJSakaAnna
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So excited to read this report, your reveal video was amazing . Yay for Hard Rock dinner, looked lovely xx
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Old 23 Oct 18, 10:14 PM  
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Brilliant start x
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Old 24 Oct 18, 07:59 AM  
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What a great read your report is! x
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