We booked our first
Disney Cruise for Oct 2006 in November 2004. Deciding to surprise our 3 sons, we had to keep our big mouths shut for almost two years. We Booked two SPH rooms on the Magic Western Itinerary cruise.
Months ahead of the cruise I started to set them up. First by asking them if they wanted to do a tour of the Disney Magic ship since it was going to be in port the day we were traveling out to see the Kennedy Space Center - they said yes. A month or so later I said maybe we could do lunch on the ship would they like me to check into it & they said yes.
Closer to cruise time they were wondering what all we were going to do the second week of our vacation. I had to think fast so I said maybe we'll see a Pirate Museum, go to a pirate party & we could have Key Lime pie for the twins birthday. (We were in Key West on their Bday & we did have Key Lime Pie!) I didn't know how far we could take it or how long I could hold out without slipping or showing my excitement. Reading these boards the furtherest I'd seen anyone get was arriving at the port when the surprise was finally revealed.
The night before the cruise Dh & I tagged the luggage after the boys went to bed. Later we tried to load the "tagged" bags into the rental car. There we were standing in the Wilderness Lodge Parking lot in the middle of the night for an hour trying to figure how to get all the bags into the trunk. Finally we decided to put the 2 bags that didn't fit into the back seat upside down so the boys wouldn't see the
DCL tags that had our last name & stateroom #'s on them.
The morning of the cruise we did a character breakfast at O'hanas with Lilo & Stitch then set out for the drive to the Port. When we arrived I told the boys that we would have to go through security & since they'd be treating us just like all the other passengers to just go with it. I told the boys to wait for us in the terminal since it was so hot & it was air-conditioned inside. They did peek out once to see what we were doing because they thought maybe we were doing something special for their Bday - LOL I shewed them back inside & got the porters to take the luggage away immediatedly. DH went to return the rental car & I joined the boys inside. Once upstairs I had them take a seat watching the movies while I checked everyone in.
Once boarding started I mentioned to a CM that we were surprising our boys & that they still didn't know they were actually going on this cruise. He was the one that actually took our cards and mentioned to one of our boys that "You know you'll have to get off of the ship in a little while" & my son acknowledged that he knew that. The boys didn't understand when we had to stand their to take the boarding photo & none of them smiled. They thought it was humorous that our Name was announced as we got on the ship. As promised we went up to Topsiders & had lunch - they thought that was so cool. Asked the twins if they wanted to see the teen club & they said.......yes, so we checked it out. The CM at the stack almost gave it away when she asked what their names were & when they started to tell her, she was checking off their names on her clipboard & said "YES".
I got her attention, told her we were just "touring the ship" while winking at her
and she recovered quite well and told us to look around & enjoy.
At that point the staterooms were ready so I said I was going to check to see if we could see a stateroom. I suggested that they check out the kids area for our other son. I went to our rooms & put up Bday decorations & made sure that the basket I had ordered from Shirley for our twins 14th birthday was in the room. Then I found my DH and DS's and said we could look at a stateroom. They were excited so off we went to 5024.
The twins saw the birthday basket was for them and was surprised that I was able to get that on board without them seeing it, but they still weren't getting the real surprise.
Finally I had to yell out "WE'RE NOT GETTING OFF THE SHIP FOR 7 DAYS!!!" They were so shocked and dumfounded that it took them awhile to get excited.
Our younger son said "I'm not going to believe it till the ship sails and I'm still on it."
To make a longer story short this was the biggest surprise the boys ever had and they are still surprised that we were able to pull it off.
Needless to say they had a blast!
As I said before I didn't know how far we could take the surprise. We took it much farther than we thought was possible but we actually made it all the way inside our staterooms before "letting the cat out of the bag".
Wishing everyone a magical vacation!
Disney Dreamin'
Sharon
Tom was only 45 yrs old. We loved him like a brother & considered Tom part of our extended family. 
See you then! Safe travels. 
