Anyone else surprising kids with trip?

[Kerrio929]

DH and I are trying our hardest to make our November trip a surprise for our girls. Our plan is to pick the (then) 7 yo up at school, then get the 4 yo from preschool and head to airport. We ate hoping to just tell them we are going away but not telling them where until we land at MCO and the ME bus is there.
Anyone we make their trip a surprise? I am crossing my fingers that our plan works.

 

[disneymom/teacher]

My 16 yr old DD want to surprise my 8 yr DS for our trip inAugust. He knows that our best friends are going to the world, but not about us. We are going on a beach vacation the week before (8/18 - 8/25), the morning we leave the beach we are not driving home but rather to the airport. We'll see just how long it takes him to figure out that we are meeting our friends in WDW. I secretly changed the resort we are staying in, my daughter thinks that we are going to be in ASMusic- but for just $300 more, we are staying in POFQ - the only moderate I have not yet stayed in on my quest to stay everywhere on property. I am SO looking forward to our trip and all the surprises!

 

[robin09]

I'm trying hard to surprise DD13. We're going end of august during free dining and I have her signed up for the YES program.. I slipped a couple of times, but so far, so good.. fingers crossed that we can make it to florida without her realizing what we're doing. I know she wants to go to georgia to the cabbabe patch place... so if she questions our driving, that's what I'm telling her...

 

[N2mom]

We are booked for the friday after T-giving - and my kids have no idea - We are going to wake them up to get to the airport - and put them in new Mickey / Minnie T-shirts to "tell them".

I'm so excited - I can't wait to see their faces when we tell them.

I'm not worried about spilling the beans but I am worried that someone else will (nieces/ nephews etc).

N will be 6 when we go - and C will be 4.

This will be the first trip for both of them!

 

[SaraMc]

We kinda are surprising them. They know we are going, they just don't know when. DS is watching for luggage. Little does he know I'm not packing till the night before we leave after they go to Bed. We also ave a Disneyland trip in the works for may and that they have in idea about.

 

[Krystalynn]

Same with PP, my DD knows we're going eventually but doesn't know when. It is going to be the kids "big present" this year for Christmas. DS doesn't know any better, he'll be turning one. But for DD I think we're just going to drive (it'll be 5 am) and tell her we're visiting someone. Hopefully she'll be surprised when we pull up to the gates! lol

 

[WicketsMom]

Just returned from a surprise trip to Disneyland. We told our son (age 5) we were taking our friend to the airport. When we got there, he said he wanted to go with her and we said "OK!" and loaded up. We were flying into Las Vegas where my brother and his family were picking us up. (It was also a surprise for my 7-year old and 17 month old nephews.) Neither boy knew anything until we just 'ran into them' in the airport. We spent the first night at their house in Fort Irwin, then loaded the kids up for dinner and ended up at Disneyland!

On the way to 'dinner' both boys saw some roadside amusement parks and asked if we could go there. We told them maybe. Of course when we got close to California Adventure and tried to point it out to them, they were too engrossed in their card game to look up and realize where we were! I had gotten my mom to embroider matching shirts for all three kids, and they were surprised each morning to find that they were dressed alike.

We also added in a day at Legoland, the San Diego zoo, and San Diego Safari park. It was a fun but exhausting trip. The kids had a great time and kept asking if we planned it or if we just happened to run into each other.

Good luck keeping the surprise, it was hard for me and we nearly slipped up several times but were able to pull it off.

 

[Jenny3]

We surprised our daughter for her 8th birthday with a Disney-themed scavenger hunt (it was a huge success!). Our trip was 3 months later, but it gave her lots of time to get excited, tell her friends and plan out everything she wanted to do. I really loved having her input!

Just a word of caution though... my SIL surprised her girls with the trip on the way to WDW. Her oldest (age 8) is special needs and they thought she would be over the moon. However, it was just too much information to process and she was completely overwhelmed once she got there. She had numerous meltdowns throughout the trip; the overload of stimulation was just too much. My SIL says she really regrets not foreseeing this and should have given her daughter at least a month to process it all.

I love surprises, but I guess it all depends on your kids! I just wanted to share that so parents aren't disappointed if their child doesn't have the reaction they expect

 

[Missy13d69]

As of now, our kids know nothing. As we get closer, they will be told we are going on vacation, but they will not be told any details. It's pretty standard that our vacations are spent in the same place, so the oldest won't question us at all. The littles, may ask questions because they aren't really going to remember the 4 trips a year to our usual vacation spot. The only thing that may confuse the oldest, is the fact that we are leaving so late, but we are going to explain that away by saying we have to wait until his uncle Patrick gets off of work. He always falls asleep in the car, so we won't have to do any explaining until he wakes up in the morning and we are still in the car. At that point we are going to tell him that we've decided to go where he wants to go instead of going to our usual vacation. He will immediately realize we are on our way to Disney World, and we will probably have to pull over and set him out beside the highway so that he doesn't burst our eardrums with his excitement. We may need to put the girl out with him. It's kind of funny, but they watch the Disney World docus. on Netflix, almost every day, and talk about the things they would do if they ever got to go. They don't think it's a real possibility that they could ever get to go.

 

[unionville]

Surprised my son when he was 4 and it did not go as planned. He had been to WDW probably 2 or 3 times so it wasn't his first trip. We picked up his dad from work and headed to the "surprise". My 4 year old thought that the "surprise" we had been talking about was a trip to ChuckECheese. We arrived at the airport and he had a meltdown. We told him we were going to see Mickey Mouse at WDW and he still cried. He was more interested in seeing the mouse at ChuckECheese. By the time we got to Orlando, he was excited and we decided a 4 year old might not really be ready for a surprise that big!

 

[SgtsWifeandmommyof4]

Our upcoming trip is a Surprise. They know we are trying to save but have no idea that its actually almost paid off or even booked. This will be their first ever trip. We have decided (since we check in on Jan. 2) that we will spend New Years Eve packing up the Christmas tree and wait a sec, what is that? We must have forgotten to unwrap that present over there under the side table. Inside will be a surprise letter to our kids, their Disney goody filled bags, and balloons. Bags will have been already packed and in the garage and the box of items we need will already be there waiting as I plan on shipping it a few weeks before. We have been sitting with the kids, looking at maps and watching videos. Asking what kinds of things they want to do whenever we get to finally go. Making sure to include them in all of the plans. They have definitely had Disney on the brain now for a few months. Its so exciting!

 

[knottmel1]

I will be surprising my DS, age 5. I am picking him up early from school the Thursday before Thanksgiving. We are just going to drive and I plan on asking if there is anything fun he'd like to do. He'll probably say lets go to Dave & Busters or something. I can't wait to suggest going to see the planes. I'll just drive toward the airport to watch the planes and then suggest that we take a ride on one. Our friends are going to meet us there, they are going too! I am so excited!!! I can hardly take it! He is going to be so surprised!

 

[rosedolph]

We are kind of surprising the girls. We planned a WDW trip for Feb 2013 and they know about that trip. When free dinning came out we snatched it up and now we are going in October instead of Feb.

The girls don't know we changed dates, so we are going to surprise them and tell them on my daughter's 6th birthday. We will be leaving 2 weeks after that. So right now we still get to do our monthly Disney nights and our count down calendar. They think we are still 180 days out and it's really only 76!

So if anyone has any ideas for telling the B-day girl the surprise - let me know!

 

[tracyheartsmickey]

My sister and I are surprising our daughters for our girls' only trip in October. My daughter will be 8 and my niece 7. We don't plan to tell them anything, just pick them up from school. Since we live 2 hours away from each other, we'll meet up and tell the girls that we are going to spend the weekend together. We'll drive down together to Disney. We'll see how long it takes them to figure it out.

 

[maciec]

We go to WDW pretty much every year, but this year we told them that we weren't going to be going because we are out of DVC points. I am going to hold off telling them until I pick them up from school and we are heading to the airport. I just have to figure out how to get their "vacation leave" forms at school signed by their teachers without them knowing.

 

[TwistGrl101]

I am surprising the kids either the night before or morning of. They do know that we are "probably" going in August, because they hear us talking about it with other people.
We will hand each child a box and inside I am hoping to have a Mickey balloon fly out, "we're going to WDW" shirts, pins/lanyards, autograph books, and new Disney bathing suits. DD6 saw some surprise videos on Youtube, so she asked if we can susprise her this time lol.

 

[VeeHam]

We are also going to try and keep the surprise from our kids ages 8 and 5. They know we are going to WDW next October 2013 with a bunch of family but they know nothing of going this October. They see me planning and researching but think I am just crazy OCD mom planning next years trip REALLY early. I haven't exactly figured out what I'm going to do. We have a 17 hour drive so I may tell them as I wake them in the wee hours of the morning or maybe half way there. We're still unsure but super stoked!

 

[taylor3297]

We are surprising our kids for our upcoming August trip. The kids think we are going on another beach trip. Well that morning we will have a special DVD for them to watch and special shirts to wear.

 

[unlvguy]

YES! Your surprise can work! This is exactly how we surprised our DS(5) and DD(3) for their first WDW trip. We told them that we were going on a special trip - they kept thinking they were going to Grandma's house. It was also their first time in an airplane, so that was really exciting for them too. They thought we had landed in NJ (where grandma lives) and kept looking for her, but didn't realize we were going to WDW until we were getting on the Magical Express buses. Our DS noticed the "Mickey buses" right away. Have fun with your surprise!

 

[KristenFNJ]

We are planning to surprise our 3 boys next May-they'll be 11, 9 and 3. We went last October 2011, and to be honest but keep a long story short, they weren't always perfect angels ('nuf said), and by the end of the trip I told them we were never going on vacation again. Of course, shortly after that I started planning the 2013 trip (even though I was so fed up, I really meant it when I said no more vacations!). I have maintained that sentiment under various pleas for 9 months now, so I think they're pretty much accepting that it's not going to happen. Bwa ha ha...

The trip will be in honor of DS1's elementary school graduation *sniff*sniff* #can'teventalkaboutit ...I will have to coordinate with their teachers to get their make-up work that Friday after school without having to send it home with the boys. I plan to be packed and have the suitcases loaded in the car the night before. My mom will come with us (as always) so she'll show up in the morning, that's not too unusual as she's always over.

We have a long way off, and it depends on our flight time, but I would prefer to put the big reveal off until the morning of our flight (Saturday). We ocassionally have some fun with made-up scavenger hunts around the house, so I thought I'd have them get their backpacks and then go down the list hunting for the things that they'll ultimately need for the flight... DS/charger/games, books/nook, a card game, magazines, ipod/charger, a snack from the pantry, a juice pouch, pressed penny portfolio... etc, I'm sure you get the picture! I usually give them lists in different orders so they're not trying to beat each other to the next thing, but the last item for both of them will be "Look in the ___"

We'll have Disney 2013 tshirts for them to wear, and I'm thinking about putting their plane tickets with the tshirts. I'm also thinking about making the final spot be their seat in the car. Should that be the moment we are leaving? Or should it be an hour or two before leaving? The real question is, can I deny my inner control freak long enough to remove the tickets from my planning binder? And, will we be able to take good video in the car, with DS2 sitting in the 3rd row? I will definitely keep checking out these threads for ideas!

I swear, I am breathless just typing about it! I could probably cry, right now. LOL I have a tendency to build things up in my head and they rarely go as well as I hope but I really believe they are going to be absolutely floored. I may be nuts (but hey, this is dis, someone here will relate...) but I think that the only things I've anticipated more were my wedding day and the kids' births. LOL