Give Kid's The World Village

What an amazing place!  This 70 acre story book resort was built just for wish kids. They house 150 families a week, I was able to connect with 3 other families from Seattle that were staying here at the same time as us.   Northwest Make-A-Wish's goal is to fulfill 280 wishes for children with life threatning illnesses this year, more than half of all their wish kids are sent to this resort.  This was a 3 and 5 year olds wonderland, so many magical things with them in mind.

Here are just some of our highlights..

~ Every morning the present fairy delivered special presents in our villa while we were out at the parks.  Board games, plush toys, backpacks, all souveneirs one might buy at the different theme parks.

~ An ice cream parlor that was open all day and specialized in ice cream for breakfast, serving banana splits, milkshakes, sundaes, ice cream cones, and toppings galore. If you could dream it they could make it!   Of course they had lots of other good meal options as well.

~ Beauty spa for little girls, specializing in manicures, makeup and airbrush tattoos.  Checkout the 80's blue eye shadow Molly picked out.

~ Character tuck-ins and authentic Disney characters to say good morning and greet us for breakfast.  Some favorites were Mickey, Minnie, Mary Poppins, Goofy, Pluto, Boots, Ronald McDonald dinner appearance and an encounter with a real sloth. 

~ Very magical activities that are a rite of passage as guests at the village.  Max was able to decorate a golden star with his name on it and place it in a computer where a star fairy magically placed in the rafters of the star tower over night and delivered an invitation to him while he was sleeping to let Max know where and how to find it.  He then went on an adventure to try to locate his star amongst tons of golden stars throughout the castle.  Max is forever welcome to visit the village to check on his star.  Very moving to see so many stars of little kids with life threatning illnesses.   Max also has a matching star to place on his ceiling to remind him of his stay.

~ More activites than one could do in a week.  Fishing, horseback riding, an amazing pool and waterpark, a huge playground, remote control boats, putt putt golf, arcade for little kids, a merry go round, train, and so much more...

~So many special touches: a golf cart that drives around to make sure you have enough warm cookies and lemonade every afternoon or breakfast delivered to your villa in the morning.   

~ Every day the park celebrated a different holiday of the year, with extravagent parties, food, and activities.  For example, one day they celebrated Christmas and each child got to sit on Santa's lap, get a very nice toy, enjoy a parade of christmas characters, decorating christmas cookies, christmas crafts, candy, etc..

~ Free tickets to any theme park or activity we could think to do in Florida.

~ A media center that would download our pictures every day and burn them on to cd's for us, and lend digital cameras or video cameras in case something happened to yours.  Although there were enough village photographers keeping up with us at all times snapping shots for us and delivered a cd of all our pictures at the end of our stay.

~Upon checkout our family was given a world passport that allows our family to visit theme parks, zoos, and museums all around the country for free for one year.  What a gift!