Breaking the news

[angel703]

We took advantage of FTP so that we could take our kids (6&3) to WDW in October this year along with my in laws. The kids don't know yet and its their very first time. Any suggetions on creative ways to tell them. I want this to be a very memorable moment.

 

[Pooh67_68]

Do you have a Disney store near you? You could go there and pick up a few things to make a suprise package for them to open say the day befor you are to leave. Get items that they will be able to take with them, like:

Autograph Booh for characters to sign
Disney Fat Pen
Small plush of a favorite character
Coloring book (s)
Caryons
Maybe a few Disney Dollars so they can buy something themselves (with an alduts help of course).

Good luck with however you decieded to tell them.

 

[miche61]

What an awesome surprise! We love to surprise our kids.

How about a post card from Mickey (or other favorite character) inviting them to come visit them?

A friend of ours gave her daughter a Barbie plane with real plane tickets in it, telling her they were going to the World.

I think this winter when we go, I will have to come up with some way to surprise them. I bought them each a Mickey or a Minnie doll, and when they get up in the a.m. (very early flight) I will have their doll on their pillow with a note that today's the day! They know we are going, but don't know the date.

 

[loriandmatt]

the way we did it twice....

first time (DS was 5) didn't tell him, while he was sleeping, set his packed suit case next to his bed with a brand new stuffed mickey sitting on it. We woke him up, he was thrilled with his new mickey and we asked him if he wanted to go visit him. He was out of bed like a shot and ready to get in the car.

second time we surprised him....(he had gotten out of a body cast just 1 month before) We said since he was such a trooper thru his ordeal that we wanted to take him someplace nice. "Where would you like to go?" "How about miniture golf?!?!?! "OK, we'll take you mini golfing, but how about we do it at Disney World?" He looked at us like we were on crack, then got very excited, then looked at us like we were on crack again!!!

Once he trusted that we weren't pulling his leg we were off.


Can't surprise him like that anymore - he is too swift on the fact that i am packing.

- lori

 

[LoriZH]

lol, we did it to our dd and our niece when they were younger. What we did was tell them that they had to get up really early the next day so we could close on our new house (we just bought a house) instead they came downstairs to find their suitcases, park hoppers and fifty dollar bills (compliments of grama and papa) next to their cereal bowls. My dd screamed she was so excited, that is when she was four.

We are once again doing it this October with them and our ds's(twin boys 6)What I did was buy gift card holders that they sell at TDS, stitch, mickey, sully and winnie the pooh. We are going to put their hopper passes, their disney dollars and their MNSSHP tickets in the little holder and pick them up at school and hand them to them in the car. I don't know how we are going to say it yet, but we are telling them that we are going to NH for the weekend. We are flying so we are trying to think of a creative way to do this. So any ideas will help!

 

[mudd]

When we took our boys we never said where we were going, they figured to grandma's which also lives in florida. We said no that we were taking them to the boys farm. the youngest woke just as were passing the boys farm exit. He had to wake the other to let him know that we weren't going to the boys farm. They finally figured it out when they started seeing the signs in orlando. They never aske many questions of where we were going just went along that we were going somewhere.

 

[HurricaneWarning]

I thought about doing this with our son.... but i like watching him getting excited about the countdown to Disney world.

 

[snowgooseltd]

We've surprised our kids and grandkids several times over the last few years. One time my DIL packed their things while they were in school and the morning we were leaving, woke everyone for school, as usual, with "Come on...get up...time for school...who's got the first shower? Okay, instead of school....how about we go to Disney World?" You never saw five kids move so fast.
Last year my daughter was turning 30. This took some serious planning because she's a teacher, but it worked. We had dinner for the entire family, 14 of us, kids and adults, and after dinner had her open gifts. She opened some small gifts and then my husband gave her ours. Inside the box was a note that said "How 'bout we all go to Disney World tomorrow morning?" All arrangements had been made in advance, of course, her school knew and everything was packed. This was an adults only trip and a couple of her college roomates met us at the airport in Orlando....great way to turn 30!! Needless to say, the five grandchildren were not too happy with us, so we just had to go again and take them with us. Oh the burden of that!!

 

[erinsmom]

I'm planning for a package to arrive from "Disney World and Mickey" inviting my DD to celebrate her 5th birthday at WDW. I bought a princess suitcase several months ago and inside will be a note saying:

Pack your Bags, you and your family are cordially invited to celebrate your 5th birthday at the most magical place on earth!

I plan on it "arriving" about a month before we go so that we can share the excitement with her and the anticipation of going.

 

[angel703]

Thank you for all of the wonerful ideas. I have to say I would kinda like to tell them a little bit ahead of time. I know when I was a kid part of the experience was not being able to sleep for a week before our vacation.

 

[drcmk]

Some of the ideas about surprising kids with a trip are very charming and I almost wish I could do that. But, I am so excited about planning a Disney trip that I want someone to talk to about it!! My DH and friends get sick of me pretty quickly, so I HAVE to tell the kids. I enjoy us planning and waiting together.

 

[Highland Lass]

Gosh , you are all sooooo good at keeping secrets !!!!!

I am taking my family to WDW and on a Disney Cruise in December and theres absolutely no way on this earth that I could keep it a secret until the day we left.........

I am too busy on-line checking out the Hotel on I-drive, the shops, restaurants etc , daily, and yelling "Look at this " for them not to know where we are going......and its only 112 days.......but whos counting.

Leaving the cold wet UK for warm Florida ....YAHOO

 

[dancechick99]

A couple of years ago, we took a trip to Vermont. My family has a house in southern Vermont so we spent a week there. Some where along the line, my youngest DD6 at the time, got it in her head that we were going to Vt. to buy a horse. The last day in the house, we packed our stuff and loaded the car. We told my DD that we were going to pick up our horse and go home just in case she noticed we were driving the wrong way. What we did was brought her and my older DD8 who also didnt know and wasnt really buying the whole horse thing to their favorite resort in Stowe for a week. I know its not a Disney story but you could tell your children that you are going to buy a horse in Fla. and take them to WDW instead.

 

[cndncruiz]

We wanted to surprise our kids as well and originally we were going to wait until the day of but we chose to tell them before hand.

We took our kids to the play "Peter Pan". They were SO SO excited to see the play. I had called the actor playing Peter Pan one week prior and asked her if she would assist me in surprising the kids.

After the play was over, we were on our way out and the kids grandparents led them to the back door where the actor would come out.

I had created a letter with Disneyland logos which was addressed to the kids and the return address said it was from M. Mouse, the return address was toontown, anaheim California.

Peter Pan came out and sprinkled pixie dust on their heads and asked them to hold some dust as well. She read them the letter which said things like, "Minnie and me can't wait to see you." The kids thought we were just going to Vancouver (we live in Canada) and the letter said, "you think you are going to Vancouver but the truth is your parents are going to surprise you and take you to Disneyland. You get to take your very first plane ride". We saw the play exactly one month prior to our departure date so that gave the kids one month worth of countdowns.

They were thrilled. My son looked like he was in shock and my daughter was so thrilled.
A crowd gathered from the theatre and people were crying and the crowd all clapped and cheered.

I had contacted the Vacation Planning Department and arranged to have them send postcards to the kids and within a few days of finding out about the trip, each of my kids received a post card saying "We are looking forward to your visit, love your pals at Disneyland".

It was a very magical night.

I am sure none of us will every forget it.

Good luck with your trip.

 

[Otto's Doll]

Every year we get our DS (10) and DD (8) a small 'end of school' present.

We decided to take our children to WDW this year, instead of next year, due to all the great "Military - Armed Forces Salutes' being offered. (we literally planned this trip in about 5 days)

We gave the kids the box with their end of school gift, but told them they had to wait until the beginning of the new school year to use it (We leave 2 days after school starts here in PA).

We had taken the box from our Passporter and put the WDW info tape, a bunch of brochures and the plane tickets inside.
They opened it up and looked at it for a minute, and then suddenly my DD understood. Her eyes lit up, she asked "Are we going?!" and I just shook my head yes (while I cried, cause she was sooo happy). She screamed and yelled for about 20 minutes! My son was absolutely thrilled, and keeps talking about all the great rides he can't wait to do. Although he is most excited about BB!

Thanks for sharing all your great stories!

God bless,
Otto's doll

 

[Dizma]

WOW! You all have such great ideas. We too are surprising our kids this fall with a trip to the world. It's so hard keeping my mouth shut. We had planned to wait till the morning of, to spring it on them. Don't know if I can hold out that long. I love the post card idea. I may decide to do a treasure hunt adventure collecting all kinds of WDW clues along the hunt and see how many it takes to figure it out. This mom is getting very excited!

 

[BoCat]

We're taking my sister & niece to disney in September. My niece
will be 11 years old next week. So we're trying to figure out a neat way to tell her on her birthday that she's going. I think she already suspects something but she's not quite sure. I thought that maybe we could write one word on one sheet of paper example: You're going to DISNEY --and wrap each piece of paper in a box and have her open boxes 1 - 4 in the right order.
She would have to open this gift first because everything else she's getting for her birthday is Disney related and she might or might not take the hints. Any other suggestions???? THANKS

 

[melindaandrob]

We are counting down to our surprise trip. Dh can't believe I have kept it a secret. We haven't told anyone, even my inlaws! Our plan is to pick the kids up from school and drive to Buffalo where we will stay overnight. I did up a word search that has a hidden message that they can do in the 25min. it takes to drive to the U.S. border. I didn't want to go through customs without them knowing where they were going.
Hope it goes off without a hitch!

 

[Deafmedic]

Our DDs(5/10) already know we're going but I really don't think they have the concept of time down yet. Our trip is scheduled for Jan. 16-26 at the GF. They have school on the 16th but we were thinking of sending them to school and surprising them at 1 o'clock after lunch to pick them up. Not sure how I'm going to tell them when I pick them up but the general plan at the moment is for me to pick them up in my truck while the DW is waiting at home with the DTwins putting final packings into the Expedition. We have thought about giving them small packages with their Disney money(each has over $200 they have earned thru chores) and a small stuffed animal. Love the ideas and plan all have posted.

 

[Doc and Family]

We surprise our boys also, from time to time.
They still dont know about December trip.
In November, we woke them up, got them dressed and told them we were going to visit a friend. After a couple of hours on the road, initially they were watching Disney movies (God bless the person who thought to put Video systems in cars), then listening to Disney music, the older one, then 5, asked who was our friend. When we told him, they both started screaming and shouting and couldn't sit still.
Another time, we left their little suitcases by the door and when they woke up and came into the front of the house, we asked them where they were going, since they had obviously packed.
This time, we think Santa is going to leave them a wonderful present-their new AP's, and see if they can figure it out.
Surprising is hard to do.
It is a hard secret to keep.
But if you pull it off and catch it on film, man it is wonderful.
Good Luck!