Ideas for surprising the kids?

[mommaof3girls]

We will be taking our first family WDW vacation June 7-14th of this year. We are keeping it a surprise from our three kids (6, 4 and 2). We wanted to hear stories of what you all did to surprise your kids to get some ideas. All we know right now is that we want to keep it a surprise until the night before our 8:30 flight.

Thanks!

 

[MouseEarsForAll]

Tons of ideas here: Official Surprise Trips Thread and Planning Tips!

 

[keypooh90]

Yup, I was going to post that as well!

As for ideas, my mom surprised me and my sister before our first trip back in 2001. She had a huge box filled with t shirts, park tickets, pins and lanyards, autograph books, wallets, fanny packs, disposable cameras, etc. We had to unpack it layer by layer and the tickets were at the bottom.

 

[Kristian]

We've been planning our Disney vacation for around a month now. I told dd (age 3) that we were going to Disney World for her birthday in November, but with free dining I decided to move the trip to September. She doesnt really grasp the concept of a special date or a time frame, so ive just left it alone and resorted to planning after shes in bed...kind of like out of sight, out of mind. Shes really already forgotten. So, I'm going to keep my lips sealed (dh too) and were not going to tell her until we wake her up at 5 am that morning to leave. Were driving down, so dh will pack the car the day before while dd visits with my parents who live next door, which is like 2 football fields away. That morning I plan on waking her up with a nice Mickey wrapped gift box and balloons in the kitchen. I'm gonna put a Mickey ears hat, autograph book/ pen, Mickey Crocs, and t shirt in the box. DD will think that its just a nice surprise and then well drop the bomb...so excited.

 

[BELLEDOZER]

I've surprised the kids twice with trips to DL in 2011, and I've learned some lessons from it. First off, don't come up with an elaborate cover story to fool the kids. It backfired on me big time on our 15 day trip to DL driving down. Kids were ready to mutiny on me as they wanted to see their DGranny instead of going to the mouse. Add to this fact I've got an overactive imagination and Chaos reigned for the first hour on that trip. The second trip to the mouse wasn't planned, but came up and we took the opportunity to go a second time in 2011. This time I didn't give them any warning. Just acted like I normally would the night before the trip. They had no clue until we told them just before the taxi came to take us to the airport. The no warning approach worked much better for us. So I think that no warning is a much better approach than a cover story, which can backfire on you if you are not careful. It just depends on the child, and how they react to major change.