When do you tell the kids?

[Fintastic]

We don't surprise the kids. I think part of the fun is in the planning and DS is the same way. He wants to pack his own things and study the maps. (He loves maps.) DD would probably be fine with a surprise but I can't keep it to myself for that long anyway!

I love the planning too. I feel like the anticipation is half the fun. However, with the trip being over a year away and knowing PLENTY of things can come up to derail it, I'll definitely wait until we're closer to spill the beans. I'm kind of disappointed that I don't have anybody to get excited with yet. lol I think I'll do a countdown chain a couple weeks before. I do want to give them time to freak out and anticipate it too.

 

[DrunkJam]

DS can't handle surprises. With his ASd we tell him once it is definitely booked. AND this time, he is a Disney adult, so he is enjoying looking at menus with us and choosing what to book. ADR and FP wise.
He also sucks at secrets but it has also been super fun hearing his sister talk about going to see REAL mickey mouse and Donald duck and Daisy and Minnie.
*I* would have liked to have surprised them, but that's for a child I really don't have. I wouldn't change my child, but, sometimes I remember that we do things differently.
Still, our way is fun too.

 

[imthemamahere]

I'm always so interested in the stories of people surprising their kids when they wake up, or when they get on the plane, or when they drive through the welcome to Disney World arch... I could NEVER do that with my son.

My son is a careful, cautious kind of kid. He likes to plan things out, and will only run headlong into things when he's on very familiar turf. Disrupting his normal routine, taking him out of his comfort zone... he needs fair warning before we do those things or he will be miserable - even at Disney World! When he was younger, we did variations on a countdown calendar, about 3-4 weeks out, where we crossed off the days until departure. Now that he's 7, he's been in on our planning since about 4 months out from our upcoming trip. We knew he'd want to look things over, choose a few favorite rides to FastPass, maybe request some new ones. He likes to be in on the planning, and he's totally ready to go and have fun.

I think the best answer for any of these questions is that you have to do what works for your family, your kids. You know your kids best, right?

 

[tee11]

Several families I know have surprised their preschool age/young elementary age kids the morning of the flight, or even after the flight ("we are visiting friends"), or somewhere along those lines. I don't know how they do it.
I pack for days, plan forever, and love all the prep.
My 5 year old is very inquisitive, and perceptive, and I'd have to literally lie to keep something like that a secret I think, and I wouldn't want to... but even if I was able to keep it a secret, I'm not sure I would - at least at this age.

Here is why: She begged to go on this trip as soon as she saw I looked at the website, and started planning it... It was actually very helpful for me to find out what her dreams, hopes, priorities and fears were ahead of time... We looked at hotels, pools, the parks and rides together, and that was fun! Watching her get her little sister excited about the trip each time we had looked at something was adorable as well. We even watched some rides together ahead of time on the internet and without doing that, she would have refused to go onto those rides. So that is something to consider as well. She has great memories now of having "braved" these rides!
This is a kid that LOVES surprises by the way. However, when I asked her a long time back (then four years old), if she ever wanted to be surprised with a vacation/traveling (she knew what that meant), she thought a good while and then said; no! "Because I would miss out on all the fun planning!"

 

[Cinderella94]

I'm in my twenties now, but on my first trip I was 9 years old and my brother was 5 years old. We've been on about 20 trips total since then and none of them, including the first one, were a surprise for either of us. I've never been surprised with any trip, but knowing myself I don't think I would like that now, or would have liked that at any age.

 

[Gracie09]

We give them a vague time frame when we start thinking about a trip. Like now we told them when they are eight we will go to Disney again. So they have an 11 month window (they are a month apart) that the trip could happen in. This allows us to talk to them about dining hotels etc so we can get their input. The morning of we wake them with its Disney day!
It is a bit tricky to pack everything but so far we have managed to et packed without them knowing

 

[BLAZEY]

We told DD7 the morning we left last November. Now looking at March 2017 and we may tell her a couple days before. We are looking to co-ordinate this trip with the family of her best friend who moved from BC to Ontario last spring. We visited them in the summer and her BFF and mum any come out in the late fall. But to a 7 year old what could be better than a trip to Disney and you BFF that you haven't seen in months JUST happens to be there at same time. We would tell her about the trip, just not WHO will also be there at the same time.

 

[mickeyheart]

It's 8 weeks this weekend till we go and we are telling our girls 2 and nearly 4 this weekend. I have made a countdown calendar for them to put a sticker on each day. We will actually be traveling to the airport hotel the day before they think, so it will be a little surprise to go a day early

 

[surlecn]

I always wait until the day before or the day of to tell them about trips and special activities!. Oddly enough they already know about Disney World and we aren't going until Spring Break.

 

[mdb78]

We usually tell them when we're booking, but for this trip we're surprising them. We're driving and not planning on telling them and we'll see if they'll figure it out once we get close or arrive (it's a 4 hour drive so hopefully they won't be asleep when we get there! Haha!)
It's our first time surprising them with Disney and at times it was hard not saying anything!

 

[eeyoreandtink]

We don't keep unnecessary secrets in our house. We include DD in the discussions about when and where to take family vacations. Her opinion should matter.

 

[figment74]

I've done both, in the most recent trip I booked a cruise in Jan of 2015 and the trip wasn't till Oct 2015. I joined a facebook group and they all new about the surprise. I managed to get all the way to Miami in the Hotel the morning of the Cruise. She knew a trip was coming for her, but no idea that she was going on a cruise. Once I told her I posted the Video reaction on Facebook and the entire cruise random people walked up to her and said that they saw her video on-line. She felt like a star, and that made the trip extra special.

I have found for my DD that telling her beforehand gets her distracted from school, and life as she is focused on when the next trip will be. So for now I keep it a secret until we are getting closer to the day of departure. Even then I don't reveal the destination until days before we leave so that the trip won't be a distraction.

Having said that, only you know what your kids can adjust to. I say that the surprise aspect is priceless for me. I love keeping the secret and planning the trip for just DD and I. However I am really looking forward to the day when DD and I can sit down and look at the calendar and plan a trip together.

 

[linzjane88]

We typically go every year so the kids kind of anticipate going again. I start bringing up the countdown about a month and a half before we go to get the girls excited (8 and 4). We start watching a bunch more classic movies, I also pack the girls backpacks with snacks and "new toys" (basically a bunch of little dollar store sticker books /target clearance toys ) that they can't get into until we get on the plane. They are usually just as excited about the backpacks as they are the trip.

We tried the surprise once but I missed out on the weeks of excited kiddos squealing about Disney for weeks before. Plus they were so believing of our cover story that it took forever to convince them we really were going to Disney. We had told them DH had a doctor's appointment in the city. While we were unloading our bags out of the trunk at the airport they were like "wait. So we aren't going to the doctor? ". It wasn't the classic "surprise vacation !" reveal I had envisioned. In reality they stared at me like I had 3 heads.

 

[Charade67]

My daughter was 7 the first time she went. I made the mistake of surprising her the morning we were leaving. I don;t know what I was thinking. I knew she did not react well to unexpected change. (She would later be diagnosed with high functioning ASD.) She was grumpy the first 2 days we were there. We went again when she was 10, and gave her plenty of notice. Our most recent trip was the last week of 2015. She was 15 and had a significant role in planning the trip this time. Thankfully she has mostly outgrown her aversion to change/surprises. I have managed to successfully surprise her with a trip to Clearwater Marine Aquarium (she fell in love with Winter after the first movie) and to a One Direction concert. (The person who invented foam earplugs is my hero.)

 

[ALEXandFAB]

We do all the planning together, as a family. This way, I make sure everyone's wishes are taken into consideration when planning park days, ADRs, and FP+. It's so fun to be able to do it together!

 

[misskate28]

We have a 5 year old and a 3 year old. We have been to DL many times and we have always made it a surprise on the morning of. We all love it! Sometimes their aunt and cousin will go with us, so the girls will just wake up to them standing over them, smiling with mouse ears on. Other times they have woken up to their princess suitcases packed and ready next to their beds or Mom and Dad singing a Disney song in their ears. Or we'll just start our normal morning routine and casually slip it into our conversation as we're eating breakfast that we'll be there in a few hours. They're like, "WHAT?!" We're considering a countdown this time, just to try something new, but we haven't decided yet. My DH and I have become pros at talking in code about our Dland plans. The fact that our girls are so sharp makes it a fun challenge trying to keep it a secret.

 

[Party.Of.4-NY>>>FL]

We don't keep unnecessary secrets in our house. We include DD in the discussions about when and where to take family vacations. Her opinion should matter.

May I ask how old your DD is?

 

[Capang]

We have always wanted to wake up DD and say surprise and take off. However DD inherited her mommas anxiety and cannot handle surprises. Even Christmas is tough for her. So she is told once we book. Then she gets postcards from her favorite characters as arranged by our ta.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

May I ask how old your DD is?

Right now 13, but the same policy applied first trip when she was 5, and we have never kept anything from her she was developmentally able to handle. My parents always hid things from me as a child, and thought I didn't realize it. I did, and it caused more anxiety than actually telling me.

We take her feelings and input into account in making decisions for the family. That doesn't mean she always gets what she wants, but I feel like she deserves to be heard, obviously on the level that is developmentally appropriate at the time.

When she was small, it was more about including her in the discussion. essentially "Hey, we are thinking about Disney for Thanksgiving, how does that sound?" ect. As she got older she was more able to contribute to where she is interested in going and when. Her school/ dance/ cheer schedule needs to be taken into account more as she gets older and the stakes are higher.

 

[AntFarm]

When my kids were little they couldn't handle anticipation so they didn't find out until they saw me packing suitcases. When they got older elementary/middle school age they helped with the planning months ahead of time because they have their own demanding schedules and are harder to please.