Christmas Present Surprise - The Plan

[Masonpips]

Background: My kids will be 7 and 5 at Christmas. We will leave on 12/26 to head to Orlando, spend the next day at DTD, then to the 12/28 cruise. We are giving them the cruise as "our" present (not to be confused w/the Santa gifts). As I'd like to have presents under the tree prior to Christmas morning, I'm going to wrap the clues in different paper/boxes so we have several boxes under the tree.

We will give them the first box and send them on the hunt. The clue will lead them to a small cloth bag which will have several puzzle pieces in it. Once they have all of the clues, they can put together the puzzle and if they don't figure it out, we'll tell them. The puzzle will be a collage of pictures from our last 2 cruises, including shots w/them and the characters, the Magic, our friends who are joining us on this cruise, too, etc. I've debated using WordArt or something to put "M & L, See ya Real Soon on the Mickey Boat - Love, Mickey" across the bottom (using Photoshop to pull this all together and an on-line photo puzzle maker to make the puzzle)

Once they find the puzzle pieces at each stop, they'll also be a piece of paper telling them which box to open next for the next clue. That way they get to open presents and find clues.

So, in a very rough draft form, here are clues. DS (7) reads fairly well and should be fine with all of the words. Input/advice appreciated!

This is your first clue
It tells you what to do
To find out more,
Go to the kitty door (we have a pet door that's not used, we'll put the first bag in the area between the door/outside)

This is clue #2
What do you do?
Go under M’s bed
Use the eyes in your head

It's clue #3
What do you see?
There must be more
By the front door

Clue 4 - now it is time!
You must climb and climb
Up to the tippy top
And then you can stop (we have a 3rd floor playroom so we'll put it up there)

Clue 5 is here
It is not in your ear
Look inside the car
It is really not far (in garage in car)

We have come to clue 6
Soon you can begin to fix
The puzzle is shaping up
There is more in the cup (leave extra coffee cup out in kitchen)

Wow, time is going fast
I think this clue is the last
Near where L falls asleep
There is a window seat so deep (DD has a window seat in her room)

Any other ideas/thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[eek40]

not any more ideas but I have to say I LOVE IT! Sounds like a lot of fun, be sure to video tape it.

I surprised my nephew last year, we had a cake and told him we were having a special party, on the cake we wrote, Your going to Disney World IT took him a bit to figure it out but once he did he was so excited!

 

[cjsmith]

Sounds great. We did a form of this last year and we sent our kids on a treasure hunt ala Pirates of the Caribbean. My kids are older and still had so much fun. It did take them awhile to figure out the clues, but it was exciting for me to watch.
What a great Christmas morning you're going to have!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Wild4WDW]

LOVE THE IDEA!

When my 4 sisters & I were children we each receive one nice gift at christmas...i.e. bicycle or something. My parents always did a scavenger hunt with similar clues to extend the fun & excitement, it is one of my favorite childhood memories.

 

[Mr. Bill]

At Christmas, I gave my seven-year-old granddaughter a large Christmas-wrapped box. In that box was a birthday-wrapped box. When she saw that one I explained that the present was so expensive it had to be for Christmas & birthday. When she opened the smaller box she saw the promotion video for the Wonder Ship.

She thought I had given her a video as her present. Not until I explained that she & I would be eating in THAT restaurant, going to THAT beach, and sleeping in a room like THAT one, etc. did she understand.

The squeals of delight and the “bouncing off the walls” brought tears of joy to my eyes. I also made her a countdown calendar. Every morning she would mark off another day and announce how many days until we left on the cruise.

The postcards from Mickey & Minnie were the icing on the cake – they went to school with her. By the end of the school year, everyone in the second grade knew where Devina was going the day school was out. All of this added to the lifetime of memories that the cruise gave her.

Bill

 

[hydster]

We did a version similar to yours as well for our kids at Christmas. We had a nice dis'er send us a postcard from CC that we used as the present. We did ours to Twas the night before Xmas At the end of it we wrapped up several boxes one inside the other until at the end they got a framed postcard from Mickey and the Gang! They were shocked as we did this Christmas night so we hid the first puzzle piece and clue in the tree and then we told them we found a present on the branch of the tree.

It was a lot of fun but we didn't get to video it because we got robbed and hadn't replaced it but it was still a lot of fun for them!

Heidi

 

[Masonpips]

Here is my almost final draft (I've changed 2 pics, but it's basically the same)

I have contacted the on-line company to see what they can do (it's a 9MB file as-is and when compressing it, I lose some quality).

Thanks for all the feedback! P.S. The other family will be going with us; that's part of the surprise too!

 

[njfamily]

Hi MasonPips,
Love what you are doing for your kids. I'm sure they will love it too. Have a magical trip!