Surprising kids, tell me your stories!!

[1guy4galsmickeynpals]

We had been talking about going to WDW for a second time with the girls, but decided to tell them that we were going to stay in the Mountains (we are from Colorado) for a week. In the morning I gave them a map and taped to the map was the customized Disney park map. So, when they opened the other map up they saw the WDW park map. So much fun!
Here is the link:

(sorry it is not letting me post a link, since this is only my 3rd post. Boo Hoo) If you are really interested you can search for it. It is on my dd's channel kaitlynnpreilly titled Adorable Disney World Surprise.

They were so excited and it was such a magical trip, but sooooo hard to keep it a surprise. I was going crazy the last few weeks. This time they know about the trip, so we can obsess about it together. However, I am so glad that we did one surprise trip!

 

[100AcreWood]

I would love to see the 'movie trailer' that you made. Have you posted it anywhere?

Nope, my dh doesn't like me to post pictures of the kids. I did it on iMovie on the Mac though. Super easy! They have a templates for movie trailers.

 

[sweetdana]

I put a figment postcard in the mail box n told DD6 to get the mail, in a fri, saying we were going on sund. There was much less wow than normal. Usually we do count downs n get much more excitement.
I wouldn't surprise her again.

 

[Usandthe4kids]

We surprised our kids two years ago the morning of the trip. I had them sleep in Disney tshirts and somehow that didn't tip them off. We woke them up at 5 and loaded them in the car (they were 2,4,5, and 6 at the time). Before we left the driveway my oldest asked what we were doing. We said we thought it was a good day to do something together....like maybe fly to Disney world! My 4 year old started screaming "We're going to Disney World? We're going to Disney World!!!!" They all were extremely excited, screaming and clapping all the way to the airport; even at 5 in the morning. It was fun but we all missed out on the excitement of planning. We only did it that way because there were certain family members we didn't want finding out ahead of time.

We are going again in September and my kids already know. We did a scavenger hunt and it was a blast! We told them it was movie night (which we have a lot) and the first game was to figure out what movie we were watching. We had things waiting for them that really threw them off. We had Mickey cheese so they all thought we were watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. At the next clue they all got Phineas and Ferb Pajamas. That really threw them off and my oldest is like "Phineas and Ferb meet Mickey?" The last clue was hidden in the fold out couch and said "We tricked you, it's not movie night. Don't be sad, it will be alright. Disney World is in out sight, on September 4th we take our flight!" The oldest read it to everyone and after a few seconds of "huh?" looks on everyone's faces they started screaming. They spent the next two hours hugging us and jumping around. They even had to go outside and scream it to all the neighbors. Now every single day we talk and plan something. For our family the excitement of planning is awesome!

 

[osu2k1]

Man there are some great ideas here!!! The movie trailer would be fun when we do Disneyland next summer! I don't have much video from our trip 3 years ago.

 

[bj21]

We have kept our secret from our girls (3 and 5) for 6 months and we are finally going next week!

Here's our plan: We have told them we are going to Little Rock (where my brother lives) to stay in a hotel and play in the pool there for one night. When we get to so. Georgia for our stop on the way there (13 hour drive from IL) we'll just tell them it's Little Rock. My DD5 can read and knows her U.S. geography, so it will be tricky with road signs, but she believes pretty much everything we tell her so I think she'll be easy to fool. She saw "trip to Florida" written on our calendar this month, but I told her we'd borrowed someone else's calendar and she believed me.

When we get up the next morning to "go home," we'll tell them there's been a change of plans. Instead we are going to Disney World! We'll then have a 3 hour drive to Orlando. I haven't decided exactly how we'll surprise then that morning, whether we'll just come out and say it or give her a present for a hint.

The next surprise will be when we pull up to AKL, where we are staying. My DD5 is a serious animal lover, with African animals being her favorites, so she's going to die. She turns 6 our 1st full day there, so this is a big birthday surprise for her. I don't know HOW I've kept this secret for them so long but I'm about to bust!

 

[tralin]

I love this thread. I specifically did not surpise the kids because I KNEW I would not be able to keep the seceret. (I get very obsessed.) I also wanted help with the planning. Next time I will surprise them. Everyone is very excited to go, however, they don't want anything to do with the planning. Apparently, I did such a good job last time I get to do it all again. BY MYSELF! Teens now cannot complain about the 4 characther dinners planned for the 4 year old.

 

[WillAustin]

I love the stories!!! Thanks guys!!! This is awesome! I really hope we can hold out until the morning of!

We've managed to hold out so far, and we have 10 days to go!

We haven't decided how we are going to surprise the kids yet. We've been telling them we are still saving money for a trip, but we don't know when we'll have enough.

Good luck!

 

[Pesky]

We had been talking about going to WDW for a second time with the girls, but decided to tell them that we were going to stay in the Mountains (we are from Colorado) for a week. In the morning I gave them a map and taped to the map was the customized Disney park map. So, when they opened the other map up they saw the WDW park map. So much fun!
Here is the link:

(sorry it is not letting me post a link, since this is only my 3rd post. Boo Hoo) If you are really interested you can search for it. It is on my dd's channel kaitlynnpreilly titled Adorable Disney World Surprise.

They were so excited and it was such a magical trip, but sooooo hard to keep it a surprise. I was going crazy the last few weeks. This time they know about the trip, so we can obsess about it together. However, I am so glad that we did one surprise trip!

So cute! Loved the video. Yeah, I am thinking the DLR trip will be my fun surprise but for WDW I will surprise them far ahead of time so they can help plan and get excited as the time draws closer.

 

[osu2k1]

I am getting some great ideas! I love the videos! I guess I could just search on youtube to get some other ideas. :

 

[MickeyHereWeCome!]

We surprised our four kids two years ago. I've got two kids on the spectrum, so a last minute surprise wouldn't work for us. That year, we told the kids on the last day of school for a trip that was a week later.

I had typed up clues to take the kids around the house. A package mysteriously arrived at our door, which contained a note about our game and the first clue. It was hard for the older kids to wait for the search until the younger ones had taken their time to read! The last clue was to go look in the garage. This is where they found a big box, and of course a Mickey balloon floated out when they opened it. Inside, they found shirts that said "Surprise, We're going to Walt Disney World". My daughter's reaction was absolutely priceless!!! I never thought I could hold the surprise in that long, but I'm so glad I did!

We try to go every other year, so we started talking about Disney to get input about our next trip. All four kids told us that they didn't want to know when we are going...they wanted to be surprised again! We told them that was so much work to do..blah blah blah..and that we are going next January. They are NOT happy (it was freezing when we went in January), but we are really going in July! They will be thrilled.

I have no idea when we'll tell them, but it will be 1-2 weeks early so they have time to get excited. The kids know that if I start a game with the video camera rolling, that's a dead giveaway! So, I need to be more creative this time. I'm thinking of planning a "movie night", and I'll create a movie with previews that gets interrupted by "cold" images, and then a message about how many people don't like to travel when it's cold, so our family has been invited to go to Disney in __days!. I have to work on that, but I want it to be totally different than the last time.

52 days!!!

 

[starbound25]

I love this thread
I spend one whole afternoon watching "surprise" videos on youtube!
I can see where with my family surprising them on the actual day would probably backfire. My oldest really needs time to plan things.

So I alternate between 100 days and 30 days out to tell them, I'm hoping I can hold out till 30 days haha

I video tape us doing stuff a lot so pulling out the video camera wont throw them off

Right now they think we are going Nov. of 2013, when we are really going this Nov.

My plan is to tell them that Auntie is coming over with countdown to Disney sheets for the next year (we said we'd count down at 1year out) so I'll set the girls up on the couch and start to video them and when auntie comes in I'll ask her for the countdown sheets and say
"Auntie, I think these are wrong, you only have 30 days to countdown" and the girls will be confused and then I'll say
"How about we just go 30 days from now then" and then the confused faces will set in and then we'll tell them that we are actually going in 30 days!!!!!

Should work out well

 

[mymickeyfans]

I love this thread! We're surprising our kids in October! Our DS will have recently turned 8 (we told him we'd go when he turns 10!) and our DD will be 3.5. I was planning to do it the morning of, but we have a 6:00AM flight so we'll be waking them at 3:30...they might be too tired and things might be to hectic for them to enjoy it. So, my thought now is to do it the night before(luckily my kids love to sleep so going to bed early shouldn't be a problem)

My plan is to have "UPS" leave a large package on our door step and have the kids get the door. Inside the huge box will be Mickey and Minnie balloons, personalized Mickey ears, and a letter from Mickey and Minnie telling them they are leaving the next day! Another big surprise is that their best friends' family is going too, but they won't find that out until we "bump" into them at the airport!!

I'm so excited for our first trip!!! Have fun planning your surprise!!!

me -
DH-
DS-7.5yrs
DD - 3yrs

 

[osu2k1]

I love this thread! We're surprising our kids in October! Our DS will have recently turned 8 (we told him we'd go when he turns 10!) and our DD will be 3.5. I was planning to do it the morning of, but we have a 6:00AM flight so we'll be waking them at 3:30...they might be too tired and things might be to hectic for them to enjoy it. So, my thought now is to do it the night before(luckily my kids love to sleep so going to bed early shouldn't be a problem)

My plan is to have "UPS" leave a large package on our door step and have the kids get the door. Inside the huge box will be Mickey and Minnie balloons, personalized Mickey ears, and a letter from Mickey and Minnie telling them they are leaving the next day! Another big surprise is that their best friends' family is going too, but they won't find that out until we "bump" into them at the airport!!

I'm so excited for our first trip!!! Have fun planning your surprise!!!

me -
DH-
DS-7.5yrs
DD - 3yrs

I love this idea!!!!

 

[esk]

I surprised my kids in June of 2010....DH had been deployed about 3 months and I planned a quick trip to Disneyland. Picked them up from daycare, came home and had dinner and said "oh no, I have to go to Costco to get some stuff for the office party tomorrow"....Costco was an hour away, so they piled in the car. I had packed their suitcases and loaded them in the car while they ate dinner (through the front door, so they didn't see me go past the kitchen). When we got to Costco, it was closed, darn it, so we had to wait until the next morning. We went to the airport hotel, where luck would have it, I just happened to have some pajamas and toothbrushes and a change of clothes. And a bathing suit and toys for them, that's weird....they were 9 and 6.

Next morning, we got up and drove to the airport, at which point the 9 year old got suspicious and I admitted we were going on a plane, but refused to tell them where. At the gate, they figured out LA but still HAD NO CLUE.....NONE at all. Not until we were outside LAX, and the big Disney bus rolled up, did they get it.

They were jumping, hugging each other and me, yelling.....we'd been to WDW many times but never to Disneyland. This was at about 8 in the morning, and they were sleepy but they perked right up.

They still talk about how great that was, and how I surprised them and how cool that was. So this past Memorial Day Friday, DH and I picked them up from school at lunch, to "go strawberry picking". DH's car has one of the pull-over things in the back so you can't see in the hatch, where the luggage was. After an hour on the road, they again got suspicious but not until we stopped to get gas did we spill the secret (Nashville, not WDW unfortunately). DS was so excited, possibly more about the surprise than the trip. DD was like "oh. That's nice. Can I watch a movie now?"

For our Dec trip this year, they already know, it's a birthday trip for DD, her choice. But that doesn't mean there won't be some surprises in store.....

 

[2girlsR2good]

How many of the kids liked being surprised? Next year, my twin girls' spring break starts with a half day on Friday, which happens to be their actual birthday. So, I was thinking about a surprise trip that involved picking them up at school Thursday, driving straight to the airport, and surprising them. They'd get to wake up in Disneyworld on their birthday!

I can't decide if missing out on the planning will be worth the surprise. They've been a few times, and they'll get to go again so they won't be missing out forever. I kinda think it could be one of those life-long memories "remember when mommy and daddy surprised us and took us to Disney for our birthday?"

For those of you who did the surprise--how did your kids feel about it afterward? Would you do it the same way again?

 

[greggnamy]

With our then 4 year old daughter, the flight attendant did the big reveal "Are you ready to go to Disney World?" Three years later the same little girl is helping me get ready to surprise her little sister. We leave in a couple days & I still haven't decided how to do the big reveal.

 

[bj21]

How many of the kids liked being surprised? Next year, my twin girls' spring break starts with a half day on Friday, which happens to be their actual birthday. So, I was thinking about a surprise trip that involved picking them up at school Thursday, driving straight to the airport, and surprising them. They'd get to wake up in Disneyworld on their birthday!

I can't decide if missing out on the planning will be worth the surprise. They've been a few times, and they'll get to go again so they won't be missing out forever. I kinda think it could be one of those life-long memories "remember when mommy and daddy surprised us and took us to Disney for our birthday?"

For those of you who did the surprise--how did your kids feel about it afterward? Would you do it the same way again?

We haven't actually surprised my girls yet; we leave on Sunday and plan on surprising them right before we get there Monday. But I'm sooo glad we have waited to tell them! It's so fun having this surprise in store for my DD1's birthday and teasing her about her big birthday surprise. But I love surprises, so this is really my thing. One time DH told me where my Christmas presents were so I wouldn't accidentally find them- he was completely confident I wouldn't peek (and he was right).

One thing I think you have to be careful of with little ones though (you didn't say how old your girls are) is not to alter plans too much or many little kids will get upset. I know if I told my girls we were going to McDonald's and we went to Disney instead, they'd be so upset trying to get over the loss of McD's they wouldn't be able to focus on the big surprise of Disney. I've been extremely careful during this planning not to promise anything they won't be actually doing- For example, they think we are going to Little Rock to play at a pool in a hotel, and we WILL be stopping along the way to play in a pool at a hotel. They just won't know it isn't actually Little Rock.

 

[jla525]

We surprised our girls last year and managed to keep them in the dark until we were literally driving through the gates.

We told the girls we were taking a trip to go junk shopping (antiquing) and that we'd be driving through quite a few different places including Orlando. Even though my oldest could read and was aware that we were in Orlando and even saw a few signs that said Disney World, they didn't realize we were going.

As we drove under the gate thing I turned and said "hey, Aubrey, what's that sign say?" She was like "Oh, we're driving by Disney World?" LOL, my husband and I had to actually spell out that we were going to be staying at Disney and not driving by. It was cute, they were both absolutely shocked and there was lots of high pitched squealing.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

This is from our 2006 trip report:
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=13113842&postcount=6