Anyone NOT tell their kids about their trip until the morning of?

[lauris87]

I just booked reservations for my May trip and am so excited! I've been talking about the trip with my 4yo so he knows we are going to Disney at some point but I told him it was a long time away. I think I am going to NOT mention it again at all to him (and I'm sure he will forget) and then surprise him either the night before or the morning that we leave (not sure which one yet). Anyone do this before? Just wanted to hear some stories .

 

[taylor3297]

I just booked reservations for my May trip and am so excited! I've been talking about the trip with my 4yo so he knows we are going to Disney at some point but I told him it was a long time away. I think I am going to NOT mention it again at all to him (and I'm sure he will forget) and then surprise him either the night before or the morning that we leave (not sure which one yet). Anyone do this before? Just wanted to hear some stories .

Our August trip of this year we didn't tell the kids until the morning we left. All summer we told the kids we were going on a trip to the beach before school started. When we got up that morning, we showed them a video a friend had made that told them they were going to Disney.

They were totally shocked and was so excited.

 

[DisneyLvr55]

On our last trip, we had planned on not telling them till the morning of, but since our flight was so early (and because I had 2 huge boxes filled with Disney stuff for them to go through, and bring to Disney with us), we decided to do it the night before. It was a really great experience, and I taped it, so I can watch it over and over again - I'm glad that we did it that way!

Having said that, I wount do it again. Half the fun of a Disney vacation is in the planning - For the adults and the kids! Of course yours is only 4, so I think its a fine idea for you to do the surprise - Mine were 5 & 6 on our last trip, and though they would have enjoyed talking about Disney with me, they were a little young for any real planning. Plus talking about a Disney trip, asking them where they want to eat, and what rides the want to go on, 6 months before they leave is pure torture to them!! Have a great trip, and make sure you record the surprise!!!

 

[leftaslide]

Our first trip we drove from Siesta Key over to Disney, and didn't tell them until we were almost there. They were very surprised and it was a great memory. We recorded it also. We tried to surprise them the 2nd time, but it didn't fly as well (they were still groggy from waking up). There are tons of videos on youtube of surprising kids with Disney trips. Some are sweet and some.....well....not so much. LOL. Enjoy surprising him and record it!

 

[pooh4evr]

Once we picked them up at school, and had the secretary call down to their room and say, "please excuse ______ to go to Disney World", we could hear the rest of the class yell, and ther faces when they came around the corner priceless! Then last fall they had no idea we were going, we told them we had dentist appointments in the morning, we pretended something was delivered on the front porch, they brought in the box opened it and a Mickey balloon popped out with our plane tickets and magical express info tied to it. They didn't believe us until they went to the van and saw the bags in the back..the jumping screaming and reaction was hilarious our oldest " I can't go I have a student council meeting!" it was awesome - they loved it and asked to be surprised again. So for us it worked well!

 

[bunkkinsmom]

How about waking them up at check-in?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhIhiHjxBxk

 

[BuzzLiteyear]

I can't tell you about ours because its still about 26 days away. We are driving down from WNY and arrive 12/22. We are leaving as soon as the kids get home from school. I told them the other day that we are going to Candy Cane Lane at HersheyPark so they don't catch on to any packing. I plan to use the one Disney app for the iPad where they wipe the magic mirror and it tells them they are going to Disney World. I'll do this just before we get into the van.

Hope yours goes well. The suspense is eating away at me but it will be worth it.

 

[nefritz]

I can't tell you about ours because its still about 26 days away. We are driving down from WNY and arrive 12/22. We are leaving as soon as the kids get home from school. I told them the other day that we are going to Candy Cane Lane at HersheyPark so they don't catch on to any packing. I plan to use the one Disney app for the iPad where they wipe the magic mirror and it tells them they are going to Disney World. I'll do this just before we get into the van.

Hope yours goes well. The suspense is eating away at me but it will be worth it.

Could you tell me the name of your app? Thanks

 

[Summerl30]

well, you get the free call, so our plan was to get the call a few days before (scheduled for the thursday for the Thursday after cruise) and them find out that way.

 

[tchrrx]

One trip, DD knew that we were going sometime that summer, but not when. We went into her room early (around 3 a.m.) and played "Leaving on a Jet Plane." That was followed by some Disney music.

Last year we didn't tell her at all. We went to breakfast at IHOP that morning. We got to the car and DH started griping about how the waffles weren't good and how he'd rather have a Mickey waffle. He was like, "I'm going to get a Mickey waffle now." We headed for the city and DD asked several times where we were going. "To get a Mickey waffle, I told you." We were pulling into the airport before she realized we were serious. It was a blast!

 

[BuzzLiteyear]

Could you tell me the name of your app? Thanks

Magic Mirror, it's an official Disney app.

 

[BuzzLiteyear]

Could you tell me the name of your app? Thanks

I just checked and its no longer available in the App Store . It's odd, because it still works. You can book vacations directly through Disney with it.

 

[maciec]

Once we picked them up at school, and had the secretary call down to their room and say, "please excuse ______ to go to Disney World", we could hear the rest of the class yell, and ther faces when they came around the corner priceless!

I LOVE this!!! I wonder if my kids school would do this! How close to the end of the school day did you do it? I don't want to be too disruptive

 

[LCoulter]

My DD is always asking “Can we please go to Disney now?”, not understanding that we live far away, both DH and I work so we can’t just pick up and go on a moments notice. We had always counted down our trips with her but finally decided to keep our June 2012 trip a secret until the morning we left for the airport, so that for once, in her eyes, we could go on a moments notice.

I packed in secret and it was hard not talking about it but DH and I would smile when she would ask her question about going NOW. The night before, after DD5 went to bed, we loaded up the car. We were worried about waking her the next morning because she is NOT a morning person and can be grumbley and is usually difficult to get dressed because she is so picky about what she wears. I bought her a Minnie outfit for that morning but figured she wouldn’t wear it and if we had problems with her getting dressed, that would be ok, we would just pick her up with her PJ’s and take her to the airport.

The next morning we went in her bedroom at 5am, woke her up and told her that Mickey wanted her to come to Disney that morning. She sat right up, smiling, got dressed in her Minnie outfit without complaint and by the time we put her in the car, she was awake enough and was asking all sorts of questions about the trip.

 

[RedHeadedFairy]

We've done this a few times for long weekend trips to Disney & Universal. DD remembers it WELL & talks about it all the time. She LOVED getting surprised like that!

 

[FlightlessDuck]

We did this for our second trip, which was a surprise for our son's Kindergarten graduation. We told both children when we picked them up on the last day of school and immediately began our trip down to Florida.

My wife made a book using digital scrapbook pages telling the story of our son's Kindergarten year at school. We have him read it when we picked him up, and the last page was saying they were going to Disney World.

We haven't done it since them, because after that both children were old enough to be able to provide input on our vacations.\

My wife posted a little more about it in our trip report. See here: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=13113842&postcount=6

 

[Keegansmommy]

My kids have been beggging to go back to Disney this coming summer. We tried surprising them our last trip but *we* were too excited and couldn't keep the secret! This trip is their big Christmas present so that's what's kept me from spilling the beans. We're leaving New Year's Day but are telling them Chrismtas Eve. We were going to do Christmas morning but decided it would require us to wake up way too early to hope to pull off our surprise.

This is what we're doing...

We have two large snow people. They are next to our Christmas tree. We found a strand of Mickey lights at Target we'll string between them. All Christmas presents are wrapped in Mickey paper (except santa's presents). We bought Mickey Christmas pj's for both of them (ages 3 and 5). We have a giant Mickey head balloon and some regular Mickey latex print balloons. We bought a little helium tank and will fill the balloons and then put them in a large washer box. We'll wrap the box and put it behind the lights. Before the giant box, each kid has a small box filled with little Mickey/Disney things (markers, stickers, bubbles, etc.) They will open these first. We also have customized maps. I think they will catch on and will be over the moon excited to know we're going a week after that!

 

[heather4Disney]

I was thinking of not telling our kids until the morning we get to the MK park. We will need to take a flight to get to Orlando, which we will not tell them either. I just couldn't handle the repeat repeat repeat questions.

My twins are 5, and a 3 yr old.

 

[la79al]

I am considering doing something similar with DD4. She knows we are going and even knows when we are going but I think closer to the time I'm just going to stop talking about it and then wake her up the morning of and ask her to help me put all the Disney stuff into the van. I don't know if it's going to work out though because we most likely have to go pick up my brother and sisters luggage the night before.

 

[3pletprincesses]

We did for last year when the girls were 5 yo and it backfired. We told them as we got to Disney main entrance and they were at lost and not that happy. We will not be doing that again. the building up excitement is much more fun for them.

That being said, we did drive 27 hours to get there and all along they would ask where we were goin and would give them hints like going to see a big tree, see a bunch or animals and mouse. They were not impressed with our surprise. this year we told them 2 weeks ahead and they were over the moon excited.