How to tell the kids about our Summer 2014 trip?

[JessicaRabbitof3]

Hi.

We are officially booked at the Grand Floridian Sugar Loaf for 5 nights/6 days May 27th - June 1st. This will be the 2nd trip for DS6 and the first trip for SD8 and SD9. I have dreamed about doing a surprise trip but I want the girls to be involved in the planning. We are going to tell the kids this weekend. I am making a countdown calendar and giving them folders with all the restaurants and park maps. I would love some more ideas to make the unveiling special. What else can I do or give them to help them plan?

Side note...we are telling the kids that we are going July 13th-July 18th. ; ) I am still not sure how we are going to tell them come time to leave. We may tell them before we leave home day of OR we may just tell them that we are going on a work trip with Daddy. DB travels a lot for work and we go with him for some of those trips during the summer. They would not think anything about it and would more than likely not even ask questions as to where, lol.


I can not wait to see their reactions this weekend. This trip has been 3 years in the making! : )

 

[Newsies]

Hi.

We are officially booked at the Grand Floridian Sugar Loaf for 5 nights/6 days May 27th - June 1st. This will be the 2nd trip for DS6 and the first trip for SD8 and SD9. I have dreamed about doing a surprise trip but I want the girls to be involved in the planning. We are going to tell the kids this weekend. I am making a countdown calendar and giving them folders with all the restaurants and park maps. I would love some more ideas to make the unveiling special. What else can I do or give them to help them plan?

Side note...we are telling the kids that we are going July 13th-July 18th. ; ) I am still not sure how we are going to tell them come time to leave. We may tell them before we leave home day of OR we may just tell them that we are going on a work trip with Daddy. DB travels a lot for work and we go with him for some of those trips during the summer. They would not think anything about it and would more than likely not even ask questions as to where, lol.


I can not wait to see their reactions this weekend. This trip has been 3 years in the making! : )

First off, CONGRATULATIONS you're going to have a great time at Disney World, and I'm sure your daughters are going to have the best time ever there.

Second, for having them help plan: You were talking about the countdown calender. Maybe at the end of each week you can assign them a task: you can ask them to collaborate and come up with a list of 5 "things" they want to do at Disney World- for example, one week you might ask them for 5 restaurants they want to eat at, the next you might ask for 5 characters they want to see, or 5 rides they want to go on, etc. Which will not only give them a chance to help plan, but also give them a good feel on what they're going to experience at Disney and the types of things they're going to see.

I hope my suggestions helped you and I hope you have a wonderful time at Disney- so excited for you!

 

[Happyjen27]

I would tell them that you're going to pick the summer's vacation out of a hat.

I might sweeten the pot a bit by telling them some of the options:

Stay at home and spend the money working on the gardening.
Go to a local hotel in your town and visit the bounce house, library, go hiking and use the public pool.
Have a staycation where they can stay at home, but watch all the TV they want all day long, and order out food every night.

And then, in the hat, every single piece of paper says DISNEY on it.

I would stay away from offering any vacations that might sound good, because you don't want them to wish for those instead.

Enjoy your reveal!!

I've got my own surprise trip cooking up right now. I haven't even HINTED that they are going to the World yet. Thankfully our neighbor is going the week before us, so all theoretical conversations have been about their trip, and what my littles would advise them. I've gotten a lot of information that way, it's been great. They have NO IDEA. I'm picking them up from school early under the guise of going to the dentist, and we're going off to the airport instead.

 

[luvmy2babies]

One thing people tend to do if they want to surprise their children but want them in on the planning is give them a date that is later (usually much later) than the actual date. And then at some point it’s SURPRISE! We’re going now! Or We’re going tomorrow! There is a thread on here where the parents did that, it’s called “Very Emotional Disney Surprise”. The children thought they had a year left to wait. Have tissue handy.

I’m doing something similar. We have gone in June the last 2 summers, and after the last trip, we decided we definitely want to return after school is over in 2014 to celebrate her finishing elementary school; so my daughter expects to go some time after school is out. So, we’ll be able to talk about different things about the trip and what she wants to do and probably pick her BBB dress. My son is 3 and he just wants to go back. What neither of them knows is we’re booked for April. My daughter’s spring break ends the day before her 11th birthday so I’ve booked a birthday trip. Her birthday is the 28th. We leave Tuesday, April 22nd and come home Sunday, April 27th.

What I’m thinking right now is to wait until it is very close to the day we leave (not sure how close yet) and tell her that since there’s only a month of school left that to begin to celebrate her birthday I wanted to give her some things I got for our next trip and suggest we make a countdown calendar together. The surprise will be how many days we actually have left.