Our kids don't know :)

[DisneySuprise]

and we don't plan on telling them until the day our flight leaves (like the commercial) - I am super excited, I haven't been back to disney world since 1998 - and my husband hasn't been back since the late 80's.

This will be our kids first REALLY big trip anywhere. We are doing it EPIC style too.

4 days at animal kingdom (with all the disney fun included), then driving to get on the disney dream for 3 days, then back to a townhouse resort for the remaining 5 days (to explore and do universal studios)

Our travel agent told us that we are the coolest parents ever, and that he wishes that we were his parents haha!

So there ya have it, we leave on Jan 4th 2014 and i am so excited, nervous, overwhelmed.. but mostly thankful we are able to do this for our kids.

 

[smak1026]

Have fun! You will have a blast and the memories will last a lifetime. We are surprising our two sons with a trip January 25.

 

[luvmy2babies]

Wow, I hope you have a wonderful time. That sounds like it will be wonderful.

I love doing surprise trips. I have surprised mine several times. This was the first year my son was old enough to be surprised too. I'm glad they like surprises. We did have one trip that they were in on from the beginning. It was 9 months of planning. My daughter said she prefers being surprised because (in her words) all that waiting was O-M-G Hard!"

Next year, I'm thinking of 2:

(1) flying down in April for 3 days on the Dream at the tail end of dd's spring break to celebrate her birthday. She turns 11 the Monday after we get back.

(2) driving down for 8 nights at Disney around May 22 after she is done with school.

Definitely going to book and do #2. #1 will depend on the tax refund and availability on the Dream once I get the money.

 

[DISNEYNV]

Wow! They are going to be super excited!!! I wanted to do this numerous trips to disney and we just never could hold the secret that long

 

[ChitownFamily]

and we don't plan on telling them until the day our flight leaves (like the commercial) - I am super excited, I haven't been back to disney world since 1998 - and my husband hasn't been back since the late 80's.

This will be our kids first REALLY big trip anywhere. We are doing it EPIC style too.

4 days at animal kingdom (with all the disney fun included), then driving to get on the disney dream for 3 days, then back to a townhouse resort for the remaining 5 days (to explore and do universal studios)

Our travel agent told us that we are the coolest parents ever, and that he wishes that we were his parents haha!

So there ya have it, we leave on Jan 4th 2014 and i am so excited, nervous, overwhelmed.. but mostly thankful we are able to do this for our kids.

Woohoo! Are you really just going to animal kingdom for 4 days? Or maybe you've mixed up the four parks? eta: just read you are staying at ak for the 4 days, got it

If you are going to surprise - highly recommend three things
1. Let your kids know a surprise is coming, otherwise they might be disappointed by things they are going to miss at home
2. YouTube Disney fails, just to prepare yourself in case
3. Let your kids watch some of the ride videoa on YouTube , you can tease them & say one day we will go on Peter Pan too.

It just helps kids transition & understand DW a little better before they arrive & therefore feel more comfortable on rides, esp if your kids have limited amusement park experience.


What else are you doing for the 2nd half of your orlando stay? The universal forum here is great for navigating the 2 universal parks.

 

[3pletprincesses]

Oh it is soo hard to keep to yourself. take it from me. We had a trip planned for August and due to dh loosing his job, we had to cancel. They were soo disappointed. They cried and cried over it and I promise to never tell them ahead of time. Well we are leaving in 11 days and guess what, they have no clue we are going. None what so ever. The last surprise, they were 4 yo and it was a bust. Took them a few days to get into it. Now they ae 7 and it should be more fun as they know what to expect. I will be telling them at the airport. too

 

[SEA333]

We are surprising ours on Nov 14th, too - the day we leave! They are 13, 9, and 7. They have been to Magic Kingdom before, just for a day. This time, we are staying onsite and doing all of the parks. So, once we tell them, the morning of, they have an idea of what it is all about.

We kept it a secret, too, for the same reasons - we never know if we are going to have to cancel. Good thing, too, because my company decided to move my department to North Carolina, and although I will be staying, nobody else will know this until it becomes official on Oct. 25th. The rest of my department will be leaving the company Oct. 31st. I was *this* close to having to find a new job!!

Good luck!

 

[The Hendies]

A few years ago we 'borrowed' a grandchild (age 7) to take to Disney. Yes, we told him at a little surprise event, and he was happy he was going, but there was no 'over the top' reaction. His mom was disappointed with his reaction, but how can the poor kid get excited about something he knew nothing about!?
Have your kiddos ever been to WDW? If not, then some YouTube videos of rides, attractions and shows might give them something to get excited about.

 

[k_reile]

I had big plans for my "Mommy and son only" trip this past September. I wanted to wait to tell him on the plane. DH wanted to tell him the day before so DH could see his reaction since DH was not coming with us. The problem was that we had been camping all weekend for my sons birthday and he was EXHAUSTED!! My son had absolutely no reaction at all!!! He got more into it later but at the time nothing!! I was so bummed!!

 

[Pesky]

That's awesome! Yep, we're surprising our kids too -- they won't know until we arrive at the hotel and figure it out. Thank goodness for DVD players in rental cars! Sounds like an awesome plan.

 

[4xmom]

We surprised the kids in Sept. They had no idea until we drove under the Disney sign. We got them from school and said we were going for a surprise. Stopped at South of the Border to buy fireworks. They thought that was the surprise and we were the greatest parents ever!! I drove through the night to Jacksonville. Woke them at 3am, told them we were lost and staying at a hotel. The next morning in Denny's they were asking if we were in NC or SC. Had to stop the waitress from telling them we were in FL!! They fell asleep as we got on the road to go "home". I woke them as we got to the sign and told them we were lost again, but I did find this place. They couldn't believe it. When we walked into AKL, their grandparents were standing there waiting for them. They were in shock so no over the top reaction. But it was great anyway! All day one would come to me and say, I can't believe we are really here.

I know it is hard to keep it a secret, but it is so worth it!!!

 

[jensen]

We did this once... took the kids to the airport under the guise that Daddy had to drop something off. What Daddy was dropping off was our luggage. While he was doing that, I took the kids into the airport and starting asking if they wished they were getting on a plane, too. If we got on a plane where would we want it to go? (Disney, of course) That sort of thing... Then when DH met up with us, I "told" him what we'd been talking about and we "decided" that we should just get on a plane and see if we ended up at Disney. It was fun... until DS decided it wasn't a good idea... who wouldn't tell his teacher? How would we get our clothes? What about his homework? What about the dog? He got all freaked out and didn't want to go! We practically had to drag him along.

I never did that again. But, we've surprised the kids at Christmas several times and DD just recently told me that if we surprise them this year for Christmas (she obviously knows that I'm planning to) that I should do the big box full of Disney stuff again.

I filled a box full of things that we take on our trip like her dresses and glow toys and spinners and plushes that we've bought on previous trips. Then we have a whole month of counting down and planning an excitement before we leave... planning is half the fun, right?

Good luck on your surprise and have lots of fun on your visit!

 

[BooCar3126]

That is what we are doing! We leave tomorrow morning and the kids have no clue! They will not know until tomorrow morning when we get up to "go to school" and they get their letter from Mickey saying they are heading to the airport and he is so excited to see them tomorrow.

I hope you are better at keeping excitment than I am. I have been killing myself trying to not let them know. They know we will be going as we got the trip as a gift for Christmas last year, they just do not know when!!!

I hope you have fun! They will love it!

 

[laughinplace199]

Good luck to those of you planning surprises. Please come back and tell us how they went!

We did a mini surprise this summer (I've never trusted myself to be able to pull off surprising the kids with a week-long Disney trip). We were going to Vero Beach for a few days and the kids knew about this trip. we arrived on a Tuesday and the kids thought we were going home on Friday.

We checked out early Friday morning to go to the "airport." When we were a few miles from the airport, I pretended to get a text from the airline saying that our flight was delayed until that evening. My DH asked what were we going to do. We were too far away to go back to Vero. How could we kill time for 4 or 5 hours? I suggested that we go to AK since it's a small park and could be done in a few hours. The kids went crazy - they just couldn't believe their luck!

When we got to AK, we let them in on the rest of it. We were spending Fri in AK, having dinner at Hoop de Doo Fri night, going to MK on Sat, and then flying home on Sunday after a big breakfast at Chef Mickey's. They were so excited and loved being surprised!

Here's a picture of them after we told them our plans:

 

[DisneySuprise]

We are ordering shirts off of etsy with a mickey silouhette and the words I'm going to disneyworld.

The day we are leaving, we will wake them up (Jan 4th) - we are going to put these shirts in a gift bag (plus some colouring books/crayons for the airport wait) and set them on the table, we are going to say that we forgot we had 1 extra christmas present to give them and it's waiting for them etc.

This will be their first time on a plane, at disney world, in a NICE expensive resort, and on a cruise.. lol - their reaction better be good or i'll die a little bit inside this trip is costing us a pretty penny. (or if you live in canada like us, where we no longer have pennies.. a pretty nickel, a few dimes and a hell of alot of quarters)