favorite little 'extra' something to do for kids...

[poohkinandpiglet]

When we check in-- I always go to our room first and leave a special something on the bed for the kids. Last year it was autograph books, pens, beanies, and chocolates with a special note from Mickey.

Then, for the rest of our trip, every morning I'm the last one out of our room and I leave something on the bed for the kids to find when we return. Some days it's something as simple as a little chocolate coin on their pillow with a character on it. Other days it may be a sticker book or Timon and Pumbaa beanie animals. I plan the surprises according to the next days activites and kind of follow a theme. It's fun for me to do this for them!

To this day, my kids (ages 4,5) really believe the characters come into our room while they are gone and leave these gifts. It's priceless to see the look on their faces when we return to our room every night!

 

[liveforthemagic]

My kids are older (7 & 9) but Mickey left us something every night. He slipped it under our door while the kids were asleep. In our case, it was always an invitation to a PS or an activity for that day (Chef Mickeys, Sci Fi Dine In, etc.). They both loved it. We are going again next May (wohoo!!!) and I will definitely do it again. My son no longer believes--but he loved the surprise just the same. I think I will also do little gifts on the pillow next year--like candies or disposable cameras. I can hardly wait!

 

[tzuhouse]

Here's what I've got so far:

Tickets for Family Magic Tour our first morning at MK (It's a surprise)

Guest of Honor badges for both boys. They will each receive a box in the mail from Goofy, a week before our trip, with a note from Goofy and Donald saying how excited they are that we are coming.

Mickey ear hats with their names monogrammed in gold, to match the GOH badges. I'm hoping a flight attendant will be willing to take a small bag with the hats and "come find the boys" during the flight. There will be a card from Mickey saying he is looking forward to finally meeting them.

I have some pins that I've been buying, not for trading. Sean has several train pins and Ryan has several baseball related pins. (Mommy has some pins also I haven't ordered lanyards yets, but need to do it soon. Haven't decided how they will receive these, but there will be extra pins for trading on the lanyards also, once I have money to buy pins for trading.

There will be a pal mickey for each boy waiting in the room when we finally get there.

That is what I've come up with so far. I'm hoping to get a Wishes cruise for our first night there, as a surprise for DH and the boys. We will be celebrating our 15th anniversary in July, so it would just be a belated surprise.

Mary

 

[tzuhouse]

Then, for the rest of our trip, every morning I'm the last one out of our room and I leave something on the bed for the kids to find when we return. Some days it's something as simple as a little chocolate coin on their pillow with a character on it. Other days it may be a sticker book or Timon and Pumbaa beanie animals. I plan the surprises according to the next days activites and kind of follow a theme. It's fun for me to do this for them!

I love this idea. Maybe that is where the keeper pins will come in handy. Maybe I'll save them and Ryan can get a whole baseball team by the end of the trip.

Mary

 

[coopersdad]

We leave for our first family trip to disney at the end of this month. My DS 5 has been getting letters in the mail from characters. The last one was from Goofy and included a pin. So will the next two, Buzz and Pooh (who we will be having breakfast with) The last letter will be from Mickey with a Guest of Honor name badge.

I also found a Mickey pillow on clearance at Kmart which I plan to put in the room with a letter the night we arrive.

We also made a calendar that he gets to check off a day each morning. He loves doing that and counting down until our trip.

 

[tzuhouse]

For the past two trips I've packed some "bath dye" tablets and bath confetti. When it was time for DS's bath, we'd run the water, and then DH would distract him for a minute while I dropped the bath dye in the tub, then sprinkled the confetti on the top of the water.

Okay, I have never heard of bath confetti? Where do you get such a thing? Walmart? Bubble bath area?

Mary

 

[DW2006]

for our trip in Jan. 2006. I have Mickey pencils, Disney themed notepads (4x6), post it note and stickers (scrapbook quality...mickey, goofy, winnie the pooh) I plan to let the boys do travel/vacation journals...take a few mins each night to maybe record our favorite thing from the day. I plan to buy up several disney themed shirts for them to wear on a few of the days we are there. Looking forward to reading the rest of this thread and gaining even more ideas.

 

[pinkdiamonds1007]

bump

 

[California Mom]

my time is getting closer....so bumping up for some more last minute ideas!

 

[Becky2005]

I didn't see this one mentioned, you can get a call from the Disney Princess (and Mickey)

https://secure.uvoxnetworks.com/disney/

I never thought about it but I read once someone had Cinderella call at the resort the morning they had CRT scheduled.

I'm planning on having the kids get calls before we leave (I haven't decided which way I'm doing it yet). You can get "going on a trip" under Encouragement and also under Good Morning for what they are doing during the day.

I had Ariel call DD on her birthday and she LOVED it.

I'm also working on getting a surprise travel package ready for the kids.

I have Guest of Honor badges for the kids (Princess for DD & me & then I made up my own version for the boys since at the time I was convinced they wouldn't get GOH badges back in - they say "Prince in Training" and "Everyday Prince").

I also have the Family Magic Tour booked for our last day & the Mickey's Magical Milestone tour booked. Both the tours are surprises.

I also had some Fairy Godmailers send postcards.

That's what I've been doing so far. It's our first trip, so I want to make it special but with 4 kids, can't really go overboard (but I know I will somewhat! Because that's what moms do on vacations! )

 

[Grumpy's Gal]

WE DID LOTS! Here's some of the things we did. (We had been before with our daughter. However, the two cousins had not been. So when we all decided we could go together...........)

This may be long......

I had some left over postcards that we had bought on a previous DW trip. I typed (yes, I used a typewriter! That was weird!) a postcard to each of the three kids. Said "I'm so excited you're you're coming from (insert name of their town here) to see me and my friends! Be sure and find me and give me a big hug! It won't be long now! Love, Mickey." On our daughter's, it was similar but said "so glad you're bringing your cousins with you this time. Be sure to show them around!" I put them in an envelope and mailed them to a friend in Florida. She dropped them in the mail and viola! Everyone was SOOOOO excited about their cards which arrived a week before we left!

Before we left for our trip, I stocked up on Disney stuff. I bought some tote bags at Hobby Lobby (craft store) that have four clear pockets on the front. I went to Home Depot and got three different paint chips from the Disney paint section. They are in the shape of Mickey's head. I inserted one of those into one of the pockets on the front of the tote. Viola - each tote bag now has a different theme color. My husband went online and used the color printer to print out each of the kids favorite Disney character. He included their name. That also went into one of the clear pockets. I folded up the tote bags. I inserted them into gift bags along with all kinds of Disney stuff - color books, pens, candy, a lanyard, a few pins for trading, tshirts, etc. You get the idea.

On cardstock, I made a card for each of the kids. It said something like....."I'm so glad you made it! Welcome to Florida! You can hang this tote bag on your bedpost in your hotel room and keep all of your stuff in it on your vacation! Have a good nights sleep and I'll see you tomorrow at the park! Love, Mickey!"
I tied those to each of the gift bags.

After we checked in at POR, my husband "had to go get a soda in his mug!" (He really ran the gift bags up to the front desk. He left them there.) It was about 30 minutes and the kids were all in their pajamas. A knock at the door....a Disney lady arrived on a golf cart-- said that Mickey had left these bags earlier in the day before we had arrived. She said they were from Mickey Mouse! You have never seen such BIG EYES in kids your whole life! They were so excited!

The lanyards had little clear pockets on them. My husband made (on the computer) on cardstock, a picture of their favorite character. It also had their name on it. Turn it over and it said, "I am staying at Port Orleans Riverside." Mom and Dad's cell phone is: xxxxxxxxxxx. My Aunt and Uncle's cell phone is:xxxxxxxxxxxxxx. We never had to use that but I felt better knowing the kids all had our number at all times. We had a lot of positive comments. One problem -- people would ask us where we got the lanyards and the kids would say "Mickey left them for us at our hotel room!"

Ok, I will quit rambling. ;-) We had so much fun. I just wanted it all to be perfect for my niece and nephew because I know they probably won't ever get to go again.

 

[Grumpy's Gal]

I thought of one more thing. I just told all about what we did for the cousins when they went with us. We also kept the priority seatings a secret until the day it happened.

Anyway, when it's just us with our daughter, we leave a "Disney Surprise" on her night stand every night when we go to sleep. When she wakes up, there's always something there from Mickey and Minnie! She loves it. It can be something mall or something large -- she still loves it!

 

[newtowdw1]

In addition to my 7yr old girl, I've got a 9yr and 12yr old boy and 14yr old girl....that I also need ideas for. The little girls are easy to please with all of the princesses items.....

so, what's anyone got for boys?! and older girls?

THANKS!

Belive it of not, older kids still like toys. Chinese yo-yos are a real hit with the high schoolers I teach. The Star Wars movie release may give you a chance to pick up something pretty nifty too. Sunglasses or goofy hats? google 'darth tater' and you'll find a cool Mr. Potato Head dressed up as, who else? Darth Vader. Under $10.

 

[952LisaR]

Bump again - great ideas

 

[disneymac]

I love this thread! You all have given me such great ideas - I'm so excited to go and try them out! I just can't wait to see their eyes when they see everything Disney for the first time! Thanks

 

[PatsGirl]

I also did the "gift each night" left on their pillow so that when we arrived home from the parks they each got something that related to the park we went to that day. I purchased all the gifts beforehand, either on Ebay or the Disney Store, for a fraction of the cost in the park stores. This was a combo US/IOA and Disney trip followed by a cruise on the Wonder. First night was autograph books to be used for our first park day the following day, second night was Spiderman/Spongebob t-shirts, etc. I tried to follow a sequence that made the gifts useful; i.e., autograph books the first night.

The best surprise of all: MM luggage tags and snorkel sets our last night. Kids thought we were coming home to MA -- the look on their faces when they realized that the next morning we would be driving one hour away to Port Canaveral and getting on the Disney Wonder was worth every $$ I spent. This will definately fall into the BEST OF THE BEST family trips!!! To this day, it brings tears to my eyes just thinking of how surprised they were. I am a single mom who told them the chances of ever going on a cruise were slight but that the Disney cruise would never happen. Well, never say never.

 

[Danemom]

Our main one is the gift each day. It is getting much harder as they get older so I don't know how much longer it'll last.

Here's a special note some of you Tink fans may like.
At our house, the tooth fairy leaves very, very tiny handwritten notes. Tinkerbell would surely leave these too! The kids think they are the coolest. DD showed a friend's DD her note and my friend's daughter, who is 16!, whispered to her mom "how did they do that?" so it should work for older kids that might be getting skeptical of the magic.

You just write your note on the computer in the smallest type available and use a handwritten looking font. Mix a tiny bit of white glue with water and some fine glitter and brush it over the paper. After that dries, cut the note out. It should be a small square - maybe 1" x 1". Roll it up like a scroll and you're ready. These turn out really cute. A little extra glitter on the windowsill will add some magic!

 

[Jen D]

For whatever reason my dd has never appreciated surprises as much as something she picks out herself, so when we're at WDW she gets to pick out a new pin every day. Not exactly inexpensive, but not as expensive as some souviners, and she really likes agonizing over which one to pick.

One day she picked out a Mickey and Minnie bride and groom pin for her daily pin. I thought it was an odd choice but I got it for her. Later she gave it back to me as a present-- that day was our anniversary!

 

[Windy City Heather]

Here's a special note some of you Tink fans may like.
At our house, the tooth fairy leaves very, very tiny handwritten notes. Tinkerbell would surely leave these too! The kids think they are the coolest. DD showed a friend's DD her note and my friend's daughter, who is 16!, whispered to her mom "how did they do that?" so it should work for older kids that might be getting skeptical of the magic.

You just write your note on the computer in the smallest type available and use a handwritten looking font. Mix a tiny bit of white glue with water and some fine glitter and brush it over the paper. After that dries, cut the note out. It should be a small square - maybe 1" x 1". Roll it up like a scroll and you're ready. These turn out really cute. A little extra glitter on the windowsill will add some magic![/QUOTE]

We just played with this and we think it is the coolest thing ever! Thank you.

 

[Danemom]

Glad you liked it! We think it's a lot of fun!