Surprise!

[amcn928]

Are you surprising your kids with the disney trip? If so, how do you plan to do it? If I can contain my excitement we will surprise the kids the morning we leave!

 

[angelabrezovsky]

Go on youtube and type in disney world surprise there are so many videos. I was crying so hard. I am too surprising my kids and I still have no idea lol!!

 

[party-of-five]

We have surprised the kids twice! It is so much fun!!!

The first time we did a scavenger hunt with their cousin of the same age, about a month before the trip. We were traveling with family on that trip. The kids were in early grade school so we kept it simple. We started with the oldest and worked our way down. Each child had a riddle to figure out. The answer told them where they would find the next riddle. Until finally, they found a collection of Disney back packs (one for each of them) filled with activities for the plane and such and also an itinerary of the trip. At first the kids were so excited thinking they had new back packs and stuff, until finally my DS starts running around crazy screaming, "we're going to Disney, guys. we are going to Disney"! Priceless

For our last trip, Dec'12, we surprised them the day before we left. (We had to be out of the house at 4am!). We left in the morning for Mass, and when we got home there were 4 presents under the Christmas tree wrapped in Disney paper. It took the kids over a half hour to notice! . DH and I were dying! They finally noticed, had a puzzled look, and started tearing open the gifts. In the boxes were some Disney tshirts, and activities for the plane. They finally put two and two together and were off-the-wall excited! We spent the rest of the day packing and it was a lot of fun...

However...

I don't think I would surprise them again so close to the time of departure. My daughter and I were just talking about this the other day. She says she liked being surprised, but missed the "lead up time" if you will... the days and weeks of anticipation and excitement leading up to the trip. And I have to agree with her. Our last trip felt like it came and went! We have been talking out loud as a family about our next trip. (hopefully fall 2014, once DS is 48"). DD said she would like to be surprised about the exact date that we go, but would like a week or two to pack, get excited, talk about it, etc. works for me... Keeping the secret was awful!

Enjoy!

 

[angelabrezovsky]

We have surprised the kids twice! It is so much fun!!!

The first time we did a scavenger hunt with their cousin of the same age, about a month before the trip. We were traveling with family on that trip. The kids were in early grade school so we kept it simple. We started with the oldest and worked our way down. Each child had a riddle to figure out. The answer told them where they would find the next riddle. Until finally, they found a collection of Disney back packs (one for each of them) filled with activities for the plane and such and also an itinerary of the trip. At first the kids were so excited thinking they had new back packs and stuff, until finally my DS starts running around crazy screaming, "we're going to Disney, guys. we are going to Disney"! Priceless

For our last trip, Dec'12, we surprised them the day before we left. (We had to be out of the house at 4am!). We left in the morning for Mass, and when we got home there were 4 presents under the Christmas tree wrapped in Disney paper. It took the kids over a half hour to notice! . DH and I were dying! They finally noticed, had a puzzled look, and started tearing open the gifts. In the boxes were some Disney tshirts, and activities for the plane. They finally put two and two together and were off-the-wall excited! We spent the rest of the day packing and it was a lot of fun...

However...

I don't think I would surprise them again so close to the time of departure. My daughter and I were just talking about this the other day. She says she liked being surprised, but missed the "lead up time" if you will... the days and weeks of anticipation and excitement leading up to the trip. And I have to agree with her. Our last trip felt like it came and went! We have been talking out loud as a family about our next trip. (hopefully fall 2014, once DS is 48"). DD said she would like to be surprised about the exact date that we go, but would like a week or two to pack, get excited, talk about it, etc. works for me... Keeping the secret was awful!

Enjoy!

Can you tell me your clues for the scavenger hunt I would love to do this!

 

[party-of-five]

Can you tell me your clues for the scavenger hunt I would love to do this!

Ugh, it was so long ago, and I am not good at saving things.

Some of the ones I can remember went something like this... (Again, we had a young group of kiddos)...

Your feet go up,
Your head goes back.
It's time to take a little nap.
What am I? (Recliner... We did this at nana and papa's house, and papa is known for his catnaps in the recliner )

And then, when the kids went running to the recliner, there would be an envelope with one of the kiddo's names on it. He would open it and read the next riddle.

You'll see windows, wallpaper, tiles, and more...
I might have a mouse, but I don't have a floor.
What am I? (Computer)

And there, on the computer, would be the next child's envelope... And so on...

The master's quarters are the best.
After a long day, come see me for a rest.
Where am I? (Master bedroom)

You get the idea.... The kids loved it!
If I think of anymore, I will post them.

Jen

 

[darnheather]

Planning to not tell Izzy until we arrive at the park. Driving overnight and plan to wake her up once we are there. If she wakes up early I plan to release balloons from a garment bag into the van and say, "Surprise we're x minutes from Disney World!" Also hoping the balloons in our room will keep me from having to buy the giant Mickey ones.

 

[WDWCP96]

We are leaving for Disney a week from tomorrow and our kids still don't know. We plan to just tell them that we are going camping (we are staying at FW in our camper). I found shirts on Disney store online that says "I'm going to WDW" and give each of them one when we get close. Not really sure yet and I haven't ordered the shirts. Hoping to see others answers to get ideas.

 

[kdaniels16]

Would love to hear some more ideas. I've looked on YouTube also. We are 4 months away still and I've almost let it slip a few times already. My kiddos are 5 & 7....I'm still not sure how we will do the big reveal. Maybe once the magic express
pulls up.

 

[eemaxx]

We surprised our kids last summer by making fortune cookies. We have a fortune cookie maker and you can write your own fortunes. I wrote a few words on each fortune and had them open the cookies in a certain order. I made 4 cookies and they each opened two. I think they said something like....Tomorrow we leave.....sometime around noon....as Mickey would say....See ya real soon! They had to read it several times before they actually realized what it meant! So fun! I have to say though, that we did miss the anticipation but I had been showing them lots of Disney videos on YouTube the week before so they were already in a Disney mood.

 

[mamahas5]

Our trip will also be a surprise and I've debated for a long time how and when to tell the kids. A friend at work just suggested a scavenger hunt in which each child (except the 20 month old) will have to hunt for their assigned color, on which will have one word. After they get the correct order they will see "We're flying to Disney!" or something like that. Because my kids range from 13 to 1, hunting for a certain color will help the little girls feel included as the big girls put together the final announcement!
As for when to tell them...I'm leaning towards 2 days prior as we are leaving very early in the a.m. and I want them to actually sleep the night before! Then the teen and pre-teen can pack the clothes they want as well. If I tell them any sooner my 3 and 5 year olds will bug me soooo much about when it's time to go see Mickey and the Princesses!

 

[Shea&Van]

We did it on our last trip when kids were almost three and almost five, but it wasn't the big WOW moment that we were expecting. The baby really didn't "get" it but my older daughter was really excited and clapping her hands.

This time they'll be seven, five and 21 months, so I'm hoping the older two will REALLY get jazzed this time. They've been asking us to take them back since we got back the last time.

We are having "Alvin" our "Elf on the Shelf" bring a letter with him from the North Pole. He always comes to our house on Thanksgiving Day just before the Macy's parade begins. The note will say something like..."your parents have been keeping a HUGE secret from you for months. I couldn't get wait to get back here to give you a heads-up...go grab your shoes, you are going to Disney world TODAY!!!"

Hopefully, it will be a magical reveal this time But, if not, I know they will be shocked and super happy.

I think we leave around 11 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, so we'll be all packed up and ready to hop in the car for the airport before we go to bed the night before.

Sooooooooooo excited. Happy Planning y'all!!!

 

[ttigger81]

I surprised my nephews (5 & 7) in April! It was their second trip. I made a video of pictures from our first trip and added music and a Star Wars theme and at the end it said they were going to Disney world today! Didn't get the out loud excitement at first, but the older nephew cried tears of joy and the younger one jumped right into the car!

Of course the hardest part, as you know, is keeping the secret!!

 

[texasroni75]

My 8 and 11 year old don't know about our upcoming trip in September yet. We are taking them out of school for this vacation, so we will have to let their teachers know ahead of time and get their assignments for that week. So telling them the day before won't work.

Therefore - DH and I came up with a plan. They both have August birthdays, just a few days apart, and we usually do a "combined party" for the two of them, so friends and relatives don't have to come out to see us two weekends in a row for cake. So this year, we are going to get them each a shirt to wear on the trip - wrapped up to open at the birthday party - along with a note that says they need to wear that shirt on our trip to DISNEY in September. We will ask them to open the Disney surprise gifts at the same time and see who catches on first LOL.

Hopefully they appreciate the effort!

 

[wrighter]

When my kids were 9 and 6, I told them we had to get up early in the morning to pick Dad up at the airport. (He travels a lot for work, so this did not raise any eyebrows.) I had to be very stealthy with my packing and loading, but they were completely clueless. When we parked at the airport, I pretended to take a phone call from DH as we stood outside the van. After I "hung up," I told them that I had some bad news: that Daddy wouldn't be able to come home that weekend after all. After their upset squeals of "WHY?" I opened the back of the van to show them all of our packed bags, and told them Daddy wasn't coming home because WE WERE MEETING HIM AT DISNEYWORLD!!!

Oh how I loved their reactions! Screaming, jumping, fist-pumping. It was fantastic. I'm hoping to pull off another surprise this Christmas. Best feeling ever.

 

[tink76]

We are planning to surprise DD's 3 and 6. They ask almost everyday when we are going back and we tell them not until they are 5 and 8.
They know we are going to the beach in Florida this summer. So our plan is on our last night at the beach have a letter from Mickey and Minnie in our room with autograph books etc. after dinner. It says something about the fact they heard we are going to be so close and that they want us to come by. We will then tell them we are going to Disney World!! I am so excited! I do miss some of the planning and anticipation with them but we still did a countdown for the beach and used a lot of Disney stickers and I have asked them about different rides/activities for when they are 5 and 8 etc. so it isn't too bad. We go next month!! Hooray!!

 

[LCoulter]

We surprised DD twice.

The first time, the first part of the trip was not a surprise. She knew we were going to WDW for a week and when the week was up, we packed up the car to “head home” which she took fairly well (she was 4)….she didn’t want to leave yet but she got in the car without too much complaining. The second part of the trip was a surprise…a week on Disney Magic. We drove to the port and pointed out Mickey’s ship and asked her if she wanted to sail with Mickey. Nope, she wanted to go back to WDW instead and was not happy about getting on the ship. By the next day, she warmed up to it and didn’t want to get off the ship when the week was up.

The second time we surprised her went much better (she is 5 at this point). She is always asking to go to WDW NOW, not understanding that we are 1200 miles away and we can’t just pack up and leave on a moments notice. The morning of our flights, we woke her up (she is NOT a morning person and is grumbly and difficult to get dressed when she first gets up) and asked her if she wanted to go to WDW this morning. She got a big smile, said yes and proceeded to get dressed without complaint.

Next year’s trip will be a surprise too but we will be leaving right after she gets out of school since we are driving. DH wants to tell her that they are picking me up at work and just continue driving from there and see how long it takes her to figure things out. If he manages to pack all of the luggage in the trunk, it may take her a while to figure out that something is up and may even fall asleep not realizing.

 

[luvmy2babies]

I have before and I did for the trip we just took. I didn’t make a big production of it this time because my daughter already had her suspicions. I called a family meeting and told the children I had a list of chores I needed help with this summer and I wanted to go over them. After they both agreed (they already have some chores, but I said I was adding since dd is out of school now), I told dd to wait at the printer for it to come out. When she pulled it out, I asked her to read the top. On top it said:

Disney 2013 Packing List

Her eyes got big as golf balls and she said, “Are we really going?”
I said, “Yes, we are really going.”
She told ds and the celebration began: screaming, yelling, singing, you name it.

After that I said “Seriously I need help packing we leave in 3 days.”

“You mean we don’t have to wait months?” 2012 trip was not a surprise and was planned 9 months ahead and she knew the entire time.

Nope, we leave Thursday (it was Monday).

More celebrating.

Eventually we went upstairs with the list and packed our things. That was fun. The list was divided up with a list of what had to go into the suitcase under each person's name. We put the suitcase in ds' room because it had the most floor space and went through each person's list not skipping anything unless it had not yet been purchased.

Previously I had done the surprise closer like the day of or the day before, but we have always flown before. I drove instead this time. Instead of a 1.75 hour flight we'd be driving 5 hours, stopping at a hotel overnight then driving 4.5 hours the next day. I wanted dd to have time to wrap her head around it.

 

[Mom2kmta]

We surprised our kids on Christmas morning. I dressed the tree like Mickey mouse and then had the kids go on a scavenger hunt. Here's the video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QSUork5mVY
The reaction wasn't all we hoped for but I don't think they really understood how much fun it was going to be. They had never been before.

 

[Malibustyle23]

We are planning a surprise trip right now. For the first time we are driving and it will be dd4's first trip. DS8 has been but not since he was 3. My plan is to get our kids ready for bed and put them into the car then just go for a drive hopefully drive through the night, stop somewhere for breakfast and then end up at WDW!

I am slightly disappointed that we can't share the countdown with them officially but we are constantly talking about WDW especially lately. We are enjoying Disney family movie nights, watching the WDW planning dvd and talking about all the rides and characters over dinner every night.

I can see the reactions already though. My son will just get this ridiculous crazy grin on his face the same as every time he gets super excited and my dd will go flipping crazy. We took her to Disney on Ice recently and she was so excited when we walked in asking if we were at WDW. I felt so bad.

 

[scnrc00]

This is our 1st trip and we are surprising my youngest DD9 which will turn 10 on our trip. Our DD13 knows about the trip and is keeping it a secret. My youngest knows we want to go but that's nothing new because we have been planning and hoping to go to WDW since 2008! Her bday is Dec 2 but this year we are doing her party on Nov. 23 and plan on telling her its because of Thanksgiving break that we are doing it then. Her last bday gift to open will be a big box with balloons in it and a ticket/invite that says "Happy Birthday Haley, you are going to Disney for your birthday! I am hoping to get a great reaction from her and I plan on recording it to share.