Keeping it a Secret from older kids.

[darnheather]

Anyone been successful with keeping a cruise a secret with older children? My girls will be almost 15 and 10 when we cruise next year. I want to keep it a secret but I'm not quite sure how. I homeschool so I can't exactly pack while they are at school. Thinking I could maybe send them on a sleep over and pack then and when I pick them up have the car decorated for the trip down? I just don't think I could make it from VA to FL without them noticing something was up!

 

[Jesslm80]

My kids aren't as old as yours (8,4) and we had to tell them. We are actually driving from VA to FL right now. We told them a few days ago. Made a big box, decorated it, let them open it together and it got them all excited about packing and getting prepped these past few days for it.
If you can keep it a secret it will be the best surprise ever!

 

[bumbershoot]

I was a cantankerous teen and would have seriously rebelled if my mom thought she could pack for me for a trip.

Can't even imagine trying to pack for DS, given the homeschooling. Impossible. We let DS know the night before a cruise, but that was while we were at WDW then Uni, so the packing was done for all of that. (there were reasons other than "oh I love surprises" to keep it quiet...I personally despise surprises!)

When DS knew about our cruise, this is a different one than the surprise one, we did unit studies on places like Sint Maarten and St Martin. Bonus!

 

[darnheather]

Thankfully, my daughters are very laid back so I know they wouldn't care about what I packed. Very cool about the unit studies though that is something to consider.

I was a cantankerous teen and would have seriously rebelled if my mom thought she could pack for me for a trip.

Can't even imagine trying to pack for DS, given the homeschooling. Impossible. We let DS know the night before a cruise, but that was while we were at WDW then Uni, so the packing was done for all of that. (there were reasons other than "oh I love surprises" to keep it quiet...I personally despise surprises!)

When DS knew about our cruise, this is a different one than the surprise one, we did unit studies on places like Sint Maarten and St Martin. Bonus!

 

[coloradocutie]

That sounds completely fun! You may not be able to make it all the way to FL but you could completely pack for them while they were out (even prepare by putting it in a laundry basket and pretending you just haven't put those clothes away…or packing suitcases and hiding them) and when you go to pick them us, as you said, tell them you are taking them somewhere… even if they guess on the way it will make for a wonderful surprise! ( I have done that before with a surprise beach trip for my DH and the surprise added to the fun!) And it will just get harder to surprise them with something like this as they get older… go for it and have a fun time!

 

[Weedy]

Just my opinion but part of the fun of a big trip is the anticipation. A least tell them a few weeks out.
Why don't you want to tell them?

 

[alliecat523]

I only made it until 2 weeks out before I blew it with my daughter. I can't keep a "good" secret. Lol. Why not surprise them the day before. Put together something for the cruise and let them open it.

 

[divabydisney]

Yes I just did this! We sailed 8/24 to Alaska. My boys are 16.5 and my youngest turned 10 on the cruise. It was tough but well worth it. I knew it would be tough to pack. This is how I did it. I made a list of everything we'd need to wear. This was tricky since I had no idea of what to pack but once I did I listed it all out. Then since I do all the laundry I started pulling clothes out each week and putting them in my closet. The only clothes I did not pack were their dress clothes which was fine. Trust me, packing all of us in my closet maybe a 3x3 square was not easy. I just made piles and then a couple nights before we left, packed it all. Another idea I was going to do was take lie and say my parents needed my suitcases and take them over there. Then take clothes over little by little. Because they are older they didn't need my constant attention. Then when I did my reveal (I told them about 2 hours before going to the airport) I told them everything is packed except the dress clothes and their tablet/phone chargers. I will say, my 10 yo loved the idea, my older son was excited but isn't very emotional. You can do it.

 

[aggiedog]

We're doing this for our Christmas cruise. We have 16,16, 13, and 10 yos. No way I could pack for the teens. I'd have a mutiny. So we are telling them I got a gift certificate to a resort in Galveston. We occasionally travel for Christmas so it won't be too, too out of the ordinary. Then we'll pull up to the ship instead.

 

[EPCOTatNight]

Anyone been successful with keeping a cruise a secret with older children? My girls will be almost 15 and 10 when we cruise next year. I want to keep it a secret but I'm not quite sure how. I homeschool so I can't exactly pack while they are at school. Thinking I could maybe send them on a sleep over and pack then and when I pick them up have the car decorated for the trip down? I just don't think I could make it from VA to FL without them noticing something was up!

Tell them you're going a cruise, just not a Disney cruise. I did that when my son was 13. I told him that we were going on a Royal Caribbean cruise that left from Port Canaveral. When we got to PC, we then let the cat out of the bag.

 

[ksucats]

We did when they were 10&12. They had been on two before and we rebooked on board in the second one and didn't tell them. It was on the Magic out of Galveston, so we drove down from Kansas. We just told them we were going to Galveston for spring break. After the second night, my wife and I made up reasons why we didn't like our hotel. So I got on my iPad and acted like I was looking for other hotels. I said I found one and my wife packed us back up. Just so happened that our better hotel was a cruise ship. It was fun seeing their reaction when I paid to park at the terminal.

We are making that drive again this March, but it will be to try out Royal Caribbean and the kids know about it this time.

 

[funseeker]

Anyone been successful with keeping a cruise a secret with older children? My girls will be almost 15 and 10 when we cruise next year. I want to keep it a secret but I'm not quite sure how. I homeschool so I can't exactly pack while they are at school. Thinking I could maybe send them on a sleep over and pack then and when I pick them up have the car decorated for the trip down? I just don't think I could make it from VA to FL without them noticing something was up!

My children are 14,12 & 9. We leave Friday and as of now they have no idea. We are driving from PA so I thought the excitement of the announcement before we get in the car would make for smoother road trip.
I made a book with our names, ship, sailing date, itinerary on the cover. Inside has more details and lots of pictures. We are going to put each in an envelope and let then open and read the cover.
The packing is the hard part. I'm going to have to get them all out of the house so I can get everything together. My teen won't mind that I packed for him. I know his favorites (finding certain things in his room may be challenging though).
Good luck and enjoy!

 

[darnheather]

Just my opinion but part of the fun of a big trip is the anticipation. A least tell them a few weeks out.
Why don't you want to tell them?

Didn't tell the youngest for our Disney trip and she loved being surprised. They've both asked that future trips be kept a secret.

 

[KristiMc]

We did this last year. We had a trip to Disney's Hilton Head resort planned. We decided to drop our last day there and booked a 3-night on the Dream without telling the kids (13 & 10). We got up in the morning and the boys thought we were heading home to Ohio but we were able to get all the way to the port when they then saw the Dream in front of them. It was pretty cool. Our oldest had fallen asleep right before we entered FL or I think he would have seen the signs and figured something out. Our youngest was listening to music the whole time and didn't figure it out. It was pretty cool.

 

[Tonka's Skipper]

I tried to keep our 1ST Disney cruise (30 th anniversary) a surprise but the wife got the mail 3 weeks out and found the luggage tags. MY BAD. However , she loved being able to enjoy the preparing.

So my point is maybe your kids would enjoy knowing a bit early to!

Enjoy your cruise, let the Magic and Pixie Dust flow!

AKK

 

[wdwgirl21]

We leave in less than 2 weeks for our first Disney cruise on the Fantasy, and our kids (10 & 6) have no idea=) It has been so hard keeping this secret for 6 months! Since we are leaving on a Thursday, we are going to get them up for school as usual, but do some kind of surprise at breakfast and tell them we are going to Disney World for a couple of days. We are going to do Epcot that day, Downtown Disney and MNSSHP on Friday, and then a limo is picking us up Saturday morning from the resort to take us to the port. We are thinking about telling them Magical Express is full and let them figure it out when they start to see the Fantasy. Or if anyone has a better suggestion on how to reveal the cruise the day of we are still looking for ideas=)

 

[Lolo579]

Just a reminder that you can set up a complementary character phone call as a way to unveil your surprise. We did this for our son for his 6th Birthday this past February. We set up the call for the night before our cruise (you can have up to 2 phone calls which was good since the first one came over an hour early and we weren't ready...). The message is pretty generic, but it was still really fun to watch because DS had no idea about the cruise. Luckily, packing was pretty easy for me because DS is so young and we only live 2 hours from Port.

 

[Alabama GiGi]

Anyone been successful with keeping a cruise a secret with older children? My girls will be almost 15 and 10 when we cruise next year. I want to keep it a secret but I'm not quite sure how. I homeschool so I can't exactly pack while they are at school. Thinking I could maybe send them on a sleep over and pack then and when I pick them up have the car decorated for the trip down? I just don't think I could make it from VA to FL without them noticing something was up!

I would send them for the sleep over and pack all cruise specific items in a suitcase. The I wou have them each pack a bag for a trip. Have some clues made up with little gifts. Every few miles give them one of their gifts. The closer you get the more cruise relate the clues and gifts.

 

[EPCOTatNight]

We leave in less than 2 weeks for our first Disney cruise on the Fantasy, and our kids (10 & 6) have no idea=) It has been so hard keeping this secret for 6 months! Since we are leaving on a Thursday, we are going to get them up for school as usual, but do some kind of surprise at breakfast and tell them we are going to Disney World for a couple of days. We are going to do Epcot that day, Downtown Disney and MNSSHP on Friday, and then a limo is picking us up Saturday morning from the resort to take us to the port. We are thinking about telling them Magical Express is full and let them figure it out when they start to see the Fantasy. Or if anyone has a better suggestion on how to reveal the cruise the day of we are still looking for ideas=)

You must be on the same cruise as we are. You could tell them that you are going to the beach, and let them figure it out when they see the ship.

 

[wdwgirl21]

We are! I like the beach idea... thanks!