Best way to suprise dd?

[Dimazoma]

I was wondering if anyone can give me some suggestions on how to surprise our dd(4) with our plans to take her to WDW in two weeks. What did you do to tell your children? Any and all advice and comments welcome!!!!

thanks!

 

[angeldisney2985]

Depending on when you're leaving I think it'd be neat if she woke up the morning of and there was MM pancakes or such and you dropped hints to see if she could figure it out. Or if you want to tell her soon, maybe while she's at school one day decorate her room with Disney things and surprise her when she gets home! Just a few ideas...Let us know what you end up doing!

 

[joshsmom]

This is one of my FAVORITE things!!! For DS, I had him go on a treasure hunt in our house. Each stop had a clue and a "key" (it was from a set of those baby key rings that babies chew on). After a poem/clue in that room, it took him to the next room until he had collected all the keys. The final one was on the DVD in our family room and the Disney Vacation DVD was all set up!!! His last clue was to push the play button because now he had "All the keys to the Kingdom!" After watching the video and not reacting for a few minutes, I asked him if he understood what it meant and he said "We're going to Disney World??" and I said "yes, TOMORROW!!!" It was so FUN and so exciting!!! He still has the keys and all the poems in an album!

 

[WDWfan36]

Wake her up like an ordinary day and tell her to get ready. etc. As she gets ready tell her that she needs to finish you doing chores and so on. Then say oh yea i forgot we need to go to the store and then as your leaving tell her were making a little detour to the store because were going to (pause) Disney World!

or

Go out like normal tell her were just going out to breakfest. As your driving, start looking throught flyers of disney world and say "Oh look at this," She will look at it and see mickey mouse. Then say guess what, were going their!


or
(my parents did this to me when i was younger.) As your driving talk about different things then say. "Do you want to go to Disney World one day? (explain what it is if she dosent know.) of course she says yes. Then say o.k lets go. She will be so surprised



Tell us which you decide to do!

 

[joshsmom]

This time I am not telling DS until I absolutely have to. To cover the fact that I am planning a Disney vacation, I am having him help me plan a *surprise* trip to Chicago for us and Grandma. I told him we are going to surprise grandma with the trip by driving to the airport and telling her there. Instead, grandma and I are taking him to Disney World. If we can pull it off, he won't know until we are on the plane and the flight attendant or pilot says "welcome to our flight to Orlando!!"

 

[pepperw23]

I was wondering if anyone can give me some suggestions on how to surprise our dd(4) with our plans to take her to WDW in two weeks. What did you do to tell your children? Any and all advice and comments welcome!!!!

thanks!

This trip for us was a gift. Let me tell you how it was done for me:

Since it was Christmas, my parents put a gift for me, DH, DS and DD under the tree. Not a huge box (I was hoping for the Disney Waffle maker lol)

When I opened the box there were all these items with notes in them:

a conk shell that said "Hint: Lives near sandy beach"
a flamingo that said "lives in Sunny Floridia"
the little items went on and on. The anticipation was killing us (Don't worry I never figured out what was going on until the end, just that something big was going to happen. They specifically did not use too much Disney stuff so as not to give it away too soon)
Finally I came to what felt like a book wrapped in tissue paper. On the Tissue paper was written: "Now try to control yourselves...FLIP OVER"
I flipped the note over (Stupid me, written on a disney magnet) and written on the tissue paper was "Open me"
I opened it up and found a book it was the Unofficial Guide!!! Tucked inside was our entire itenary all paid up and ready for us to choose the dates!!!!.

The anticipation built the excitement. About half way through I was sensing something big, but never in a million years did I figure out it was Disney. I am such a Disney freak so you would think I would have figured it out...LOL. I am so bad about Disney ANYTHING that my entire office at work is decorated with Disney (my boss tolerates it lol)

I am sure whatever you do will be "magical" Good Luck and have fun!!!!

 

[Lancer]

I agree with Joshsmom, wether you are flying or driving, tell her you are going to visit a relative in Georgia or somewhere close to Florida. Dont tell her anything or give any hints but make sure she is awake when you drive under the Welcome to Walt Disney World sign.

 

[Dimazoma]

bump......need some more of these great ideas!

 

[WDWfan36]

Give her hint by hint. Such as she gets up to brush her teeth have a princess toothbrush their. When she goes to get her hair done their will be a minne hairbruse. Cut waffles into the shape of a mickeys head. Then give her a bag with mickey on it and inside it will have things abut disney like a flyer a coloring book and maybe if your daughter injoys it put a dress in their. While all this is happening act as if its just another day. (I could never do this though, i would be too eager to tell them) Soon she will relize it. To make it even easier. A few days before all this show her stuff about it and say your just looking around.


Can`t wait to see which one you pick

 

[pezpam]

I told DD nothing until we were on the airplane for our last trip. She was 7 and I thought she'd split her face open grinning so widely. We were sitting on the plane and I had managed to distract her every time there was an announcement saying where we were headed, but I knew that couldn't last until we landed, so I pulled out a packet of those Disney activity pages someone linked to from the Disboards and asked if she'd like to fill them out while she was at WDW. The light went on in her head and the reaction was precious.

It was priceless.

 

[DISPOP]

Our kids are a little older: 7 and 9. We are picking them up from school on the last day a couple of hours early. They won't even know they are leaving school early until the teachers ask all of their friends to say good bye to them now since they have to leave a little early to go to Disney World!

 

[Amy&Dan]

DH and I are surprising our kids (9, 11) in April. We will wake them up that morning and spring it on them. Hope we can pull it off, we tried this once before for Disneyland but spilled the beans and have always regretted that. Its killing me, I gotta tell you. I felt pretty sneaky as I called for ADR's yesterday inside my closet! We plan on waking them up with dd's Karoke machine using her parks cd. I think we'll belt out the Carousel of Progress song which will be silly and pathetic but who cares! We have been so many times in the last two years we now have to think up new and creative ways to make it special.

 

[fireman17]

Both of our kids are pretty much on the ball with thigs but, in Sept. my DW planned a surprise trip to the world. Now I've normally left for work when they get up in the morning, so we told them I was going in late so that I could take my car to the shop. My DW had gone out the night before and decoated our van with Mickey ears which she got from Home Depot paint section, she then had all the kids Mickey and Minnie dolls in the car seats. She also had a signed Princess card for my daughter and a signed Mickey card for my son.
When we left and my son opened the van door they didn't know what was going on until they read the cards. They both yelled so loud that I'm sure the neighbors heard them a block away. On the way to the airport my DS still wasn't sure we were going until we pulled into the airport valet service.
He then said when we got on the bus "now I know we're going"!

 

[Goofy Rulz]

We went to WDW last Easter. We told our kids (2) on Christmas eve. I wrapped up "clues" such as sunglass, bathing suits, autograph books and cameras. I had each clue numbered so they would open the same clue at the same time. The last clue was a stuffed Mickey. Then they got it! They were jumping up and down and screaming! I'll never forget that moment. Whatever you chose to do, do it soon. Let her enjoy the anticipation of the trip, just like you are. Part of the fun of going is the time leading up to it. Plus she'll want to tell her friends and "rub it in".

 

[airtime]

We did this in 1997, when we had dd7, dd5, and ds4. They had been to WDW once before, but in 1993 when they were really little. We left on the trip without them knowing where we were going. Dw told the kids, "Daddy is feeling stressed out, so we're taking him away for the weekend." We always drive on vacations, so we started driving to Orlando from our home (at the time) in the Chicago area. We drove all night, then we started having the kids guess where we were going. We showed them where we were on the map. Guess who figured it out first? Ds4! He figured it out near Chattanooga TN. The dds didn't figure it out until we were in southern Georgia.

It was a great trip, and the kids could hardly contain themselves when they knew where they were going! What fun!

Tim, who misses having little ones to take on surprise trips to WDW.

 

[luvmy2sams]

We returned last week from DD's surprise birthday trip. We told her that her birthday (the night before our secret trip began) would consist of dinner at the Rainforest Cafe and a trip to Build-A-Bear. Before the big day, I purchased a BAB t-shirt and embroidered it with the words "Disney World January 7th-17th, 2006." It was a kick watching her read the shirt and trying to figure out what in the world (pun intended) we were doing.

Have fun creating your surprise! I'm sure it will be a hit.