Remembered-By-God: Give Kids the World Village

Give Kids the World Village aka GKTW is an amazing resort for special needs families. Here is a brief story about how this place came to be:

"The story of Give Kids The World begins with a little girl named Amy, a wish, and the desire of one man to make that wish come true.
Amy had leukemia and a wish to visit Orlando’s theme parks. To facilitate this wish, a respected hotelier was asked to provide a complimentary stay for Amy and her family. Although the hotelier gladly obliged, the remainder of Amy's travel plans took too long to arrange, and her wish was never granted. Time simply ran out, and Amy had passed away.
This unfulfilled wish inspired the hotelier to make a vow that no child in need would ever be failed again. That man was Henri Landwirth, and his desire to ensure that Amy's story would never repeat itself is a mission Give Kids The World has fulfilled since 1986." (more of the story here)

Since 1986, they have hosted over 154,000 familes with special needs. Each family is hosted in one of the amazing villas on the property. There is a Papa John's pizza on the property that you can order pizza ALL DAY LONG. There is a HUGE pool with fountains, a splash pad, and a pirate ship that when the sail was raised, they would play movies on it.

Everything at GKTW was geared for kids.

There was a coffee/donut cart that drove around giving families coffee and donuts. In the evening, the cart gave away cookies!

The ice cream shop opened up @ 8AM so you could have ice cream for breakfast. (Oh yes we did!!)

They had a cool arcade room with an interactive model train town and remote control boats.

And the helpers were so nice. Everywhere, there were volunteers helping families. They were always smiling and if they didn't have the answer, they would find out. This was especially true in the Dining Hall.

The dining hall was its own experience. The volunteers would help each person take the tray, and guide them thru the buffet. Even the boys each had their own helper! The food was amazing and we were stuffed each time. (Think of a cruise line- it was good!)

Most of the tables in the Dining Hall were set at kids height so that even Zachary didn't need a booster.

Our villa was great. It was a two bedroom duplex with a full kitchen and washer/dryer. There was plenty of space for our family to spread out at night. The 'master bath' was in the kids' bathroom complete with a sweet Jacuzzi tub and separate shower.

In the Castle of Miracles, each of the special kids gets to have his own star. As mentioned previously, there are 154,000 stars in this castle.

For events, they have Halloween and Christmas every week so that every kid can experience them, especially if they won't be able to make it to the real holiday. It's a big party. Lots of candy and theme related games.

The local theme parks also send their characters for a more mellow interaction with the families.

What an amazing place! They truly give kids the world!