Best way to surprise your family with a trip to Disney

[tmaher7777]

I am attempting to out do myself!!! I have taken my family to Disney a bunch of times, and each time I try and create the most exciting and explosive way of revealing our trip. The best I have done is on christmas morning I filled a giant box of balloons with a sign that said, "we are going to Disney World"! The balloons floated up, kids went crazy, we left a few days later! I want to beat that, we are going in August, I wanted to tell them that morning, I thought of getting a character to come to the house? What is the best way to surprise your family with a trip???

 

[lovetoscrap]

MOved to the Disney for Families Forum

 

[deedeew80]

We are surprising our kids as well. This is their first trip! DD5 & DS3. We want to surprise them the day we leave. I just don't know how. I want to wait till we get to the airport but I don't know. We will be taking an airport shuttle & will need to be to the airport by 6am.

 

[dprincessmom]

You didn't say how old the kids are but how about simple and amazing. Serve breakfast (pancakes like Mickey or use a Disney waffle maker) and get them to start talking about their last trip. If you do the waffles, something like "remember when we had the waffles like this at..." and when they jump on the band wagon, "wouldn't it be nice to go back someday?" after all the yes votes are cast, "how about TODAY?"

If you want more elaborate, you could do a disney themed scavenger hunt with the prize being the announcement.

 

[dprincessmom]

We are surprising our kids as well. This is their first trip! DD5 & DS3. We want to surprise them the day we leave. I just don't know how. I want to wait till we get to the airport but I don't know. We will be taking an airport shuttle & will need to be to the airport by 6am.

With that age I would just tell them we are going on a little trip and wait until they figure it out.

 

[Katniss]

We are leaving next Tuesday @ 7am. My girls are 7 and 9 and they have NO CLUE!! Since yesterday was the 7 day countdown I keep jokingly as they lay down in bed say "get some sleep we are going to Disney tomorrow". They grown and say "prove it" or "stop it mom your lying". and I say "I just wish we were". (with a sad face)

I am going to continue to say it until next Monday at 4am when I wake them up and say "Time to get up we are going to Disney". When they say PROVE IT... I will tell them to go down stairs. There will be some balloons, their magic bands, Disney ultimate guides, autograph books and their packed suitcases waiting in the living room. I think they will get it then! Super excited for that morning.

 

[Pesky]

Character is probably the easiest but also the most expensive. I think for our upcoming trip we're going to do the scavenger hunt method and that will eventually lead them to the magic bands and such. It'll be the morning of the trip itself and they will know we are going but will think (a) we are leaving in a day or two and (b) are leaving to go to visit relatives in PHX. I may have to tell them this is the last time I can do this because keeping it to myself kills me!

 

[Minnesota!]

Surprising our kids in 19 days!!!!! Still a little up in the air as to how it going to go down, but it is so much fun to do it this way! My kids absolutely prefer being surprised then having the anticipation to lead up to it.

We are picking them up from school before lunch one day and heading to the airport. They are going to freak.

 

[ammag]

Mine were surprised in the car, they came down to decorations and a sign, new disney water bottles.
We are going to surprise ours in a week or two so they can sve money and plan with us. My DD8 told me that someday when we go back she wants to put together disneybound outfits with me so I know this time she will enjoy the planning with me.
We will be there for Halloween at the party so I am thinking I will get Halloween decorations out of storage, decorate the living room so when they come home they will be...confused? Then maybe do the box balloon thing? Still working on it
I'd do the day before not the day of if it's early morning, unless you're ok with a less than excited response! At least at first I think they might be confused

 

[KiwiFamilyofthree]

I'm trying to get ideas too..we live in newzealand so it's a big big trip to dw!one I will suprise them with!

 

[MandiC]

Love that the balloon tactic went over well! That is my plan for surprising the kids for our next trip. We won't surprise them day of, but it will likely again be a Christmas surprise with a Jan/Feb trip

 

[ban26ana]

We'll never be able to pull this one off again. But we didn't tell our kids we were going AT ALL. They were 3 and 5. We woke them up at 4am and said "get in the car. We're going for a ride." And they never questioned us lol.

We met up with a friend in VA (we live in NJ) just to drop something off to her, and then we kept driving. We were stopping in SC for the night. You need to understand that my kids LOVE hotels. They'll point to a flea motel on the side of the road and want to stay there, just because it's a hotel lol. So we got to our hotel and we said "because you girls were so good while we were in the car to take something to Miss Jen, we're staying in a hotel for the night." They were ecstatic!!!! The next morning we said we had to go home because it was almost Christmas. They had no clue we were driving south instead of north.

Whenever we'd pass a sign for Florida or Disney, we'd distract them. Finally we were almost through the entrance. I got out my phone and started recording. I told them our GPS got us lost. I told them to look out the window and see if they recognized anything, because I didn't. And my 3 year old shouted "Disney!!" It was awesome. I love watching that video.

 

[justgot2havefun]

We are going to DLR in May to celebrate DS's birthday and DD's graduation from preschool, and we already told him we were driving to the TwinCities where the airport is to go to a Build-a-Bear Workshop, but what we didn't tell them is we are going to fly to CA instead and participate in the opening weekend of the 60th Anniversary Celebration. Can't wait!

 

[tzolkin]

The only time we surprised our kids was our second trip (exactly one year from our first). The "reveal" was Disney itself.

The kids knew we were going to FL so they wouldn't be suspicious about me packing, but we assured them that we were going to visit their grandma and that we were planning Disney for the following year (told them we needed to save more money). They started getting suspicious when we were approaching the area, but we reminded them that grandma lived south of Disney, so we would have to pass by. When we drove through the WDW arch they started getting excited and it really hit them when we pulled up to the security gate at the parking lot and said we were checking in.

 

[Ratpack]

Next month we are going to try and surprise our kids for the first time. We usually go at least once each year, but for the last two years we have done other things. Being in SC, we go to Charleston from time to time and to get there we pass right under I-95. I always tease the kids by acting as if the truck wants to turn. So next month we are telling them we are going to Charleston and when we get to I-95, I will go through the same act but this time plan to make the turn and say "what the heck, let's go for it!" Then there is the second surprise, another family is going with us and we plan to meet them on the route and surprise both sets of kids with us all going together.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

We are going to DLR in May to celebrate DS's birthday and DD's graduation from preschool, and we already told him we were driving to the TwinCities where the airport is to go to a Build-a-Bear Workshop, but what we didn't tell them is we are going to fly to CA instead and participate in the opening weekend of the 60th Anniversary Celebration. Can't wait!

Please please please work in the Build a Bear into your trip or you could have one very disappointed kid on your hands. If he has his/her heart set on building a Bear and you don't go do that, it's very possible that the trip will start off on the wrong foot.

 

[justgot2havefun]

We will be, we think on the first night...

 

[JulieHW]

We have surprised our kids for many of our Disney trips. But the one surprise they ask for is a scavenger hunt. They love them!! Recently, we hid a surprise in the basement and my dh used a cheap roll of yarn to string a maze through our entire house. They had to follow the yarn through the house (wrapping it back up as they went) until they found their surprise. They loved it!!

We have a trip planned for this summer which I am still trying to figure out how to tell them. For me it's part of the fun of planning the trip.

 

[ScarletBegonias]

These are just too cute! I can't wait until DD is old enough to understand and then try to do something like this!

 

[richmo]

However you do it, good luck!

I've never pulled anything off that big...the best I've done is one time we were going to stay offsite, but instead I drove up to Wilderness Lodge.

As my kids are older now, the hardest part about doing anything like what you're talking about would be to keep the calendar clear. It just fills up so fast.