Here's the place to list your SURPRISE cruise Scavenger hunt clues

[mommieofthree]

I am planning to surprise my family at Christmas with a scavenger hunt for them to find out about our May 2012 cruise. SO many people have posted that they either have done the same or are doing the same so I figured this would be a great place to share ideas about scavenger hunt clues and details....I am working backwards and only have my last clue so far (which I stole from a very creative fellow DIS boarder)- "the bad news is there is no more clues, the good news is we're going on a cruise!" Be creative an post away! Good Luck everyone!

 

[disneycrazy2004]

I love - we are surprising our kids with a cruise in June 2012. I read somewhere here in the board - someone got a poster saying "we are going to Disney" cut it up to puzzle pieces and hid around the house. The clue were to find the puzzle pieces and put them together....I would love to here some ideas as well!

 

[MissDaisyofTexas]

We also plan to surprise our kids at Christmas time for our June 2012 cruise. Can't wait to hear more ideas!

 

[Disney4Nina]

Several years ago I decided to take my daughter, SIL and grandkids to WDW at Christmas time and have it be a surprise for the grandkids. I had ordered a DVD about WDW and so after I arrived at their house I said Grandma has a DVD I think we should watch. At first they were very quiet and then they started looking at me with a puzzled look and I'm sure they were wondering , what kind of movie is this. I finally asked them if they knew why they were watching this DVD and one of them said "Do we ever get to go to WDW? I said do you want to go and they all chimed in with a big YES. So I said how about tomorrow and the looks on their faces were priceless.

So an idea for your scavenger hunt could be ordering a Disney Cruise DVD and hiding it and then having everyone watch it.

 

[mom2reese]

We did this for our dd this past Christmas for our June cruise. We booked our cruise on Dec 22...so this is what I threw together at the last minute.

1. I placed a card in the Christmas tree....dd didn't even notice it. I told her after she opened all her other gifts to look at the card. It said to "Go in the room where Daddy works and look for something that does not belong"

2. From there she went into dh's study and saw a Disney princess calendar. On the outside of the calendar I had attached a typed clue that read, "Open to Mommy's birthday month" (June, I had circled the 17). Then a clue was attached to that page that said something about "Go to the room where you like to play"

3. Then she went into her playroom and there was another gift on the floor. It was a Mickey bag filled with a beach towel, sunscreen, bathing suit cover up (all found on clearance since this was in December and last minute)
The clue attached to the bag said "Why do you need all this summer stuff in December, Do you have a guess? If not look in Mommy's stocking for another clue"

4. She wouldn't/didn't guess...so she went and got my stocking off of the mantle. It had a little plastic cruise ship trophy from a previous Carnival cruise. I asked her is she knew then....She said "We are going on a cruise to Disney World?" lol I said "close" and to look in Daddy's stocking. In there, I had another small Mickey mouse stocking and inside of it I had a note folded that she read aloud. It said "We are going on a Disney Cruise in June 201".

She was very excited and jumped up and down. Priceless memory! So fun and we've now had 6 months to plan and her to chat with some other little girls on our meet thread. She is seven and this was an exciting part of her Christmas day.

 

[liberty6201]

subscribing - i am surprising my boys with a Disney Cruise at Xmas to travel at Easter - love the scavenger hunt idea - all i know is i am going to have a box with Helium balloons (Mickey and Minnie) and attached a note saying "we're going on a Disney Cruise!' as the last idea! I have little gifts to attach to each clue like swim shorts, a fish extender , etc. Like th idea of the calendar (we are going in Mummy's birthday month too)
I get so excited every time we see the adverts on TV!

 

[tinkrbell929]

I am planning to surprise my family at Christmas with a scavenger hunt for them to find out about our May 2012 cruise. SO many people have posted that they either have done the same or are doing the same so I figured this would be a great place to share ideas about scavenger hunt clues and details....I am working backwards and only have my last clue so far (which I stole from a very creative fellow DIS boarder)- "the bad news is there is no more clues, the good news is we're going on a cruise!" Be creative an post away! Good Luck everyone!

suprised my DD (11) this past christmas with a July 2011 trip on Disney Dream. My DH found "treasure chest" at Michaels and we filled it with Disney stuff (Disney cruise line bag (ebay) shampoo and conditioner, free cruise planning DVD) and an AWESOME treasure map my DH made!! (we even burned the edges to make it look authentic) check out some snap shots I just took for yall...

http://s1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa374/samantham929/

 

[liberty6201]

Samantha i tried to look at your photos but there was a password on the account

 

[tinkrbell929]

yikes!! i was just learning.. sorry about that.. try it now!!

 

[liberty6201]

Wow Samantha i LOVE your map and invitation!!!

 

[luvs2cruise]

subscribing...We are planning to surprise our kids at Christmas with a cruise for June 2012. I love the scavenger hunt ideas!!

 

[mommieofthree]

I love everyone's ideas, this is great! Samantha- that map is amazing.....how did DH do that? I mean with the fonts and stuff? It is really awesome!

 

[ChevyNat]

Wow, I love the map, very creative... May I steal your ideas!
I am surprising the kids at Xmas for our Jan.3rd 2012 cruise on the Dream...
I will buy some helium balloons and attach a map to it... guys thanks for all your wonderful ideas and sharing them with the rest of us!

 

[lillygator]

we are surprising the girls with a January Dream cruise at christmas...looking forward to the ideas!

 

[VKtravel]

suprised my DD (11) this past christmas with a July 2011 trip on Disney Dream. My DH found "treasure chest" at Michaels and we filled it with Disney stuff (Disney cruise line bag (ebay) shampoo and conditioner, free cruise planning DVD) and an AWESOME treasure map my DH made!! (we even burned the edges to make it look authentic) check out some snap shots I just took for yall...

http://s1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa374/samantham929/

I love, Love, LOVE your treasure map!! I might have to copy you if you don't mind! What an awesome idea! We are leaving the week after you so leave some fun on the ship for us!

 

[VKtravel]

subscribing - We are surprising our DDs the day before we fly out (leaving a day early). They think they are planning a driving trip to Kennedy Space Center but they don't know what date . We just told them to plan on it for June, July, or August because we don't want them to miss school. We are flying so this will be a double whammy for them! We are going to do a scavenger hunt and I thought about having a Fedex package sent to them to begin the hunt. Since I get a Fedex package every week from work they will think it's for me when it's really for them (no return address). The Fedex will tell them they are about to embark on a scavenger hunt and tell them the first clue. Haven't figured out the clues yet but we're working on it. I'm all over this site and YouTube ! I wanted to end it with the last clue leading them to the dining room table with a picture of the Dream on a giant cookie! When they open the box with the cookie in it, I am going to play the disney horn tune, "When You Wish Upon a Star". I downloaded the ringtone. Does this sound lame? I would love to surprise them early and have them help me plan, but my DDs will ask me EVERY SINGLE DAY, "Are we leaving today? Is it time yet? How many more days?" . Can't do it. They are very excitable, and LOVE surprises, so the day before we take an early morning flight out will be perfect.

 

[brucechase]

Here is what I posted when we did our second cruise:

I posted this in our meet thread. I kept it a secret for 2 months and it was killing me.

For those that are interested, I thought I would detail how my family found out about our cruise. I booked a while ago and intended on giving it to them for Christmas, but my wife went a little overboard on the gifts (IPod and Wii) and I decided to hold out. I originally was going to give it to her for our anniversary (May 11) but I then decided that it would be too close to the sail date. So the only other time was for her birthday (Jan 28). I decided to combine the gift with a surprise party to really throw her off. I needed some time to set everything up so I sent her and the kids on a treasure hunt, and that would give me enough time to set up the party. Now I really didn’t have any help on this and with work, it made it really difficult to do it all, but I think it turned out great.

I decided to give them clues to the “ultimate treasure” that they would be able to find on the way. There was a total of 6 stops and at each stop, there was something related to the cruise and a clue for the next stop. I even spelled out the word CRUISE in the clues with highlighted letters (but they never got that).

I had a treasure box delivered at noon on Saturday. In it was a letter telling them they were going on the treasure hunt and the clue to the first stop.

At the first stop, they received a bag of tortillas and salsa – to signify Mexico

At the second stop, they received a bag of M&Ms and a coconut – for Mickey Mouse and Konk Koolers.

At the third stop, they received an artist palate – for the restaurant Animator’s Palate

At the fourth stop, they received a key – the first part of Key West

At the fifth stop, they got a lime and a compass pointing to West – this was for Key West

At the sixth stop, they received a bag of cookies (with a pirate on them) and a bottle of barbeque sauce – this is for Cookies Bar-B-Q on Castaway Cay

The hunt took almost 3 hours so I had time to set up the party, cook taquitos and wings, and get a 6 foot sub sandwich. I also had little snacks everywhere and made some Margaritas to finish off the refreshments. I finally packed a box decorated like a treasure chest with a water bottle, the return postcard from Mickey, and the itinerary. The water bottle was just like our last cruise, it had a picture of the Magic and the new dates of our cruise.

About 15 people showed up (I had invited about 40) so there was plenty of food and drinks. After the family arrived back at our house, I had them lay the clues out on the floor and try to solve the puzzle. After about 10 minutes of frustration (and I could see some tears) I gave her the treasure box. That’s when the tears started flowing – but this time it was happiness. I did go through and explain each clue to everyone.

It was a good time. I did get in a little trouble from some of the other men there saying that I made them look bad by going so far overboard. That’s OK, I doubt I will be able to pull something like this off again.

 

[VKtravel]

What an awesome scavenger hunt! That took some serious thought and time. Now you have me thinking...hard!

 

[txsoccermom]

subscribing - ........I would love to surprise them early and have them help me plan, but my DDs will ask me EVERY SINGLE DAY, "Are we leaving today? Is it time yet? How many more days?" . Can't do it. They are very excitable, and LOVE surprises, so the day before we take an early morning flight out will be perfect.

I give you credit for holding out that long! I booked our Dream cruise we just took in Mar, in late June 2010....thought it would NEVER get here I put my ticker on the bottom and it was something like 256 days (and now I'm more than 400 for our next one ). I thought about surprising them at Christmas, but Grandma got them Nintendo DS' so I thought it would be too much with that, and more time for them to say "I can't wait any more! Why can't we leave now?, etc"! So I totally understand where you are coming from

I ended up telling them about 5 weeks before we left - DH didn't even know, although I think he had figured it out. I sat them at the kitchen table, on a very cold, snowy TX day in early Feb. Had 3 gift bags for them to open - first one was a toy space shuttle and space books, and I told them we were going to Kennedy Space Center. No one was excited... Second bag was for DH to open - big smiles and very excited, b/c we were going to end our trip with 2 days/1 nt at Universal Studios (actually ended up having a blast at IOA). Lastly, I had a treasure chest/box and inside it had some sunscreen, sunglasses, "nautical" Disney pins, a small Donald and Daisy Duck and a puzzle for them to put together. It was something a DISer made, where Mickey is standing in front of his ship, holding a scroll, and inviting them to come on the cruise with them!

They were so excited (after throwing a fit b/c they couldn't get the 35 or so pieces together with the puzzle)! We knew they had no school the next day, so we were online looking at all the Dream videos and watched the DCL DVD about 3 times Next day, we made a countdown chain and then I had to start hearing, "Why can't our vacation start now? It's going to take so long for it to come!"

So wait, wait as long as you can (although we did have fun with the countdown, etc). This time, I'm debating about Christmas (as long as there's no "big" gift for them), Mother's Day, or the day before we would leave. Will have to put some thought into this one, b/c I want to videotape a true Disney moment

 

[tinkrbell929]

thanks... he is very smart.. and has a friend who is a graphic artist .. glad you like it.. i LOVE IT!!