Help! Need advice on when to tell the kids

[maxtomsmom]

This is our third WDW family trip, but we haven't officially finalized the details. We are waiting for our DVC to go ROFR and closing. If all goes well, we are hoping to go in mid April. Normally, I would have had the trip planned for months and would have told my kids at the 100 day mark and started a countdown. Now, I am waiting just in case things don't go well (Pixie dust come my way,please! ). We are hoping to finalize everything in early February. So here are my questions:

Has anyone waited until the morning of to surprise their kids? Mine will be 4 and 7.
If so, how did they handle the surprise? Were they over-excited, upset in anyway that they didn't know a head of time? DH and I think it might be fun to tell them in the morning, but given their ages it may be too much of a surprise for them.

Other thought is to tell them the weekend before. We are going during DS mid April break and weren't planning to leave until Tues. So we could tell them a few days before. This way he doesn't keep talking about it in school. He did that in Kindergarten for two months. We could do a scavenger hunt and let the prize be a postcard or something like this. DS6 could read the clues to the younger one.

What are other people's thoughts and experiences? Like I said, I can't tell them just yet. We most likely will go if the DVC doesn't work out, but I don't want to say anything without a plane ticket and a hotel reservation.

 

[noahdove]

See other comments in the above threads...they are great Good luck

 

[maciec]

We have done both. The first time that we suprised our kids we were arrived at the the airport. My dd was 4 at the time. She was bouncing off of the walls when we told her. It worked out really great.

The second time we told her that we were going, but we didn't say when. She wanted to be suprised. The suspense of telling her was killing me, especially as we got closer and closer. I wanted to plan with her and talk about everything. So I asked her if it would be ok if I told her a week before we left so that we could talk and plan and she said "yes." She too wanted to talk and plan just as much as I did. She was just about to turn 7.

I know that this probably didn't help you any, but I just wanted to share my experience.