Soooo family of 4 plus an extra 2? One loooong drive!

[Nevada Jen]

I love the ears on their car seat idea. Or call it a family reunion in Tampa all through the planning process and have tshirts ready for when you get to your godmother and her daughter and as they are putting their stuff in your car say "Oh! I made matching shirts for the trip! " And whip out one that says Lame Tampa Family Reunion and then say "you know what? Never mind! Lets do these!" and pull out disney shirts.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I like the idea of Mickey ears on the car seats as well. Easy peasy, no worries about anyone spilling the beans, and the ears speak for themselves.
I don't do anything in the way of surprising for vacations but this would be the route I'd take if I did.

 

[fairygagamother]

I prefer to let them( grandchildren) know ahead of time so they can savor the wait & have something exciting to look forward to. However, my daughter, their mother, loves surprising them. One year we went we started our trip over New Years & the last present they opened at Christmas had t shirts for them. The print was backwards on the shirts so they had to put them on & look at themselves in the mirror to reveal “ we’re going to” on one & “Disneyworld” on the other. Their reaction was great!
Two summers ago, we drove to Florida from Texas & stayed at the beach for 3 days. When it was time to leave to go home, we went on to Orlando instead of home. They were absolutely clueless. As we got closer & closer to DW, we kept asking them if anything looked familiar. One fell asleep & the other one finally realized where we were & began screaming & waking her brother up. He didn’t believe his sister! Their reactions were share-on-social-media-worthy, even though we didn’t! It was really fun & funny for us all!

 

[Jenn_28]

What about that you're going to see family and then when you pick up the other passengers you give all of the kids as surprise pack full of Disney goodies? That way they are surprised early on and it doesn't get ruined and they are also surprised that they get to take family along? Just something to be cautious/aware of... we did this one year. We said we were going to see family and then surprised them when we got there but my ds, who was 7 at the time, was so upset because he really wanted to see the family we had said we were going to see.