Ideas for surprising kids with Disney Cruise

[Stephanie Johnson]

We are surprising my DS with a Disney Cruise as a Christmas gift. We don't sail til June, so I wanted to make the unveil really big and special. Any ideas? Any stories where you surprised someone????

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

We are surprising my DS with a Disney Cruise as a Christmas gift. We don't sail til June, so I wanted to make the unveil really big and special. Any ideas? Any stories where you surprised someone????

Can you make up a video and say it's a video of dome thing they like maybe a Disney cartoon then add it on their going. Or log on to get a character to call them.

 

[Stephanie Johnson]

Hadn't thought of a video! That would be awesome!

 

[Fuzzywuzzy]

Get a toy/model DisneyCruise Ship (available at many places online) and wrap it up. Enclose a fake but cute ship boarding pass, with the dates of cruise on it ,that you can make yourself on the computer. It should get the point across. Prepare for the screams.

 

[MommyMeNDisney]

We are surprising my DS with a Disney Cruise as a Christmas gift. We don't sail til June, so I wanted to make the unveil really big and special. Any ideas? Any stories where you surprised someone????

How old is your DS? If it's on your signature, I apologize for the question, but I can't see signatures from my phone.

 

[AndreAggie]

Our son is 5...we're not telling him until we pull up to the port the morning of the cruise. We're cruising with another family, but luckily they don't live in the same state as us, so little chance the surprise will be ruined.

I've traveled with my husband on work trips before, so we're just telling him we're going with daddy on a work trip, so he'll be excited he gets to go this time. I made the mistake of telling him last time we went on a cruise (and that was just on Carnival!) and I was bombarded with questions DAILY. We don't cruise until March, so I really don't want to deal with 1000 questions every day for the next 8 months! He's seen the Disney Cruise specials on tv and he's been on a cruise before (just not Disney), so I think we'll be ok with little prep for him. I've researched excursions in Nassau and Key West that are family friendly that I'm pretty certain he'll enjoy too.

 

[amanda12404]

We are doing the same thing and not telling the kids until we get to port. We have been to Disney twice so we are telling them we are going to Disney again. They will be excited for that but will freak out for the cruise.

 

[TamaraH]

We are waiting until the morning we go to the airport. We will have to pull them out of school that day as it's their last day before fall break. We are planning on waking them up by playing a recording of the ships horns really loud. The hard part is keeping it a secret until then. We have done good so far...just a couple of more months to go. We are flying in the day before so we will have the character call that night while we are in FL.

 

[jburge12000]

We surprised our kids a few years ago at Christmas. We put a Mickey head balloon (one that you get at a party store that holds its helium for days) in a very big box so when our son and daughter opened it the balloon flew out. The cruise was in late January/Feb, so my wife made a calendar that had a picture of the ship and the map of Castaway Cay on it. We were at Disneyland earlier in the year and picked up a lot of the Disney chocolate coins with the characters on them. She put one on each day of the calendar between Christmas and our cruise date similar to an advent calendar. It was their cruise countdown calendar and they loved it.

 

[Aurora's Mommy]

We ordered a cruise ship ornament from Bronners. We had them personalize it with the year and the ship's name (Magic). When the kids opened the box, we had party poppers behind our backs and showered them with paper confetti.

 

[Mrs Green]

We surprised our dd6 with a wdw trip. On her birthday we pulled up to magic kingdom...she was so surprised and it was fabulous fun. We drove from Texas and told her we were going to Louisiana. Good thing she didn't know much about geography Now for her golden birthday we are going on the Alaska cruise. We will board the ship on her birthday and have no intention of telling her until that very morning. We absolutely adore the surprise of it and avoiding the constant questions is a big perk too.

If I were going to tell ahead (which I may do in the future since my son doesn't have a summer birthday) I would do the character call and stealing an idea I read recently about traditions, I would gift wrap Special pajamas for everyone in the family to wear on the cruise.

 

[sara1215]

We ordered a cruise ship ornament from Bronners. We had them personalize it with the year and the ship's name (Magic). When the kids opened the box, we had party poppers behind our backs and showered them with paper confetti.

Two things--Bronner's is local to me and fabulous! Secondly, we are taking our kids to Disneyworld in February and so I clicked on this thread for "surprise" ideas. The Christmas ornament is a great idea. I wonder if they have Cinderella's castle?

 

[Stephanie Johnson]

How old is your DS? If it's on your signature, I apologize for the question, but I can't see signatures from my phone.

He is 8!

 

[mommakacie]

We surprised our kids last Christmas. We bought each of our kids a calendar with Disney characters on each month. And for the dates of our cruise, we wrote big "Disney Cruise" and highlighted and put stars all over it. We didn't tell them what to look for, but encouraged them to look through the whole calendar. They were super excited when they got to July!

 

[MommyMeNDisney]

Make DS Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast

Mickey Mouse and Lightening McQueen sandwiches for lunch

Gift wrap a pair of Disney themed swim trunks in a box with a note that says, "pack your swim trunks, we're going on a Disney cruise!"

 

[Stephanie Johnson]

Make DS Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast

Mickey Mouse and Lightening McQueen sandwiches for lunch

Gift wrap a pair of Disney themed swim trunks in a box with a note that says, "pack your swim trunks, we're going on a Disney cruise!"

Where did you get the sandwich cutters???

 

[MommyMeNDisney]

Where did you get the sandwich cutters???

Walmart in the dollar section in the front of the store. It's supposed to be used to imprint toast, but I use them on soft bread.

 

[DisneyB]

We surprised our kids this past Christmas with a cruise for April. We had a call from Mickey scheduled for 9:00am Christmas morning. We knew what the call was so we asked them to answer and had it on speaker while we recorded them. They were thrilled and shocked. It was great to do before the sailing so they could take time to learn about the ship before leaving and the video of them is priceless.

 

[Luckymommatoo]

My parents very generously brought us all on a Disney cruise last summer. My kids (8 and 10 at the time) didn't have the reaction my parents wanted when they told them six months out. My kids really didn't know what a cruise was, and the ten-year-old couldn't understand why it would be so amazing to be on a boat for five days. They weren't pills about it or anything, they just weren't jumping up and down, you know?

But then, I'm a person who needs time to process and doesn't love surprises, so I totally understand why my kids would react that way. We ended up having a fabulous trip, and NOW my kids would have the appropriate reaction!

Best of luck.

 

[Tzbwilsonfam]

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