Suggestions for surprising my girls?

[mwaldron]

WE are surprising DD6 for the 11/3 Wonder too! She will be 7 on 11/4. Two years ago we surprised her brother (for his 6th), and went to the Poly: Now it's her turn! Same 6 am direct flight as last time....the video will show two thoroughly confused and half asleep kids who aren't sure if they're dreaming or not.

 

[TNTcruise]

I googled scavenger hunt ideas and found a cool way to make a treasure map. Hope it helps -
Materials (paper, pen, used tea bag, paper towel, cooking oil)

Think about the map you want to make. It could be a path that uses landmarks, or it could be a verse that includes directions and distances. Make sure the start is easy to find, and the treasure is hidden somewhere where it won't be disturbed until the treasure hunters find it.
Use a piece of white paper and draw your map. Include the compass points and any verse or written clues needed by the hunters to find the treasure. Different colored inks work fine, some pencil crayons will work too.
Tear the edges off the page, to make it look like a treasure map.
When you map is finished, wipe the wet tea bag over both sides of the page. The page will turn a light brown color. The page should be soaked through by the time you are finished.
Crumple it into a ball and let dry over night.
Gently open the map, and wipe both sides with cooking oil. Blot off the excess with paper towels.
By this point, you treasure map should look hundreds of years old!

 

[alwayslisad]

of an idea is that ! I love it - thanks

 

[Priorityonecb]

We are surprising our 14 and 7 year old daughters with a Disney cruise and WDW vacation for Christmas. We are doing the scavenger hunt as well...although I haven't worked out all the details.

I was thinking of wrapping several Disney themed gifts (Haunted Manion Clue, Mickey ears, WDW bracelets, Disney t-shirts, etc). I think we will do something where they must solve the clue to get the next gift. They *think we are going back to Disneyland in October...so the surprise may not click in until the last package is opened. That will contain WDW for kids by Kids, all the paperwork, cruise and parks planning DVD's and Pal Mickey. They are sure to flip out!!! (which will be recorded of course!).

Oh....on the countdown ideas. We are going to get two (one for each dd) mason jars and fill them with Jelly-Belly's to correspond to the number of days until the cruise. They can eat one a day and watch their jars empty! I will decorate the jars with Disney stickers....and those jars will be a part of the scavenger hunt gifts.

 

[lenshanem]

Thanks so much everyone! I'm really getting excited! Today I found the CUTEST pirate costume for DD4. Now I'm on the look out for a costume for DD7. It will be a pirate theme for sure this Christmas!

I did pull up Oriental Trading Company and typed in pirate and found TONS and TONS of stuff. Pirate treasure chest, gold coins, pirate tattoos, etc. I love this idea!

Priorityonecb, thanks for the idea of the mason jar. We always do two countdowns for our WDW trips - a countdown chain where I let the kids color them and put Disney stickers on them and a calender I print off from the Disney website. I let them pick out the character. We put star stickers on the days until we hit our trip. I only do this about a month out. It helps them understand time better. I love the mason jar idea, though. I might give that a try! Maybe candy in the treasure chest for the days left until we leave? Course, it will be less than ten days!

 

[PONYTAIL]

What a great idea TNTCruise!!!!

 

[Cruella de mom]

I was the one that got to go on a scavenger hunt! I have wanted a disney Cruise for years but couldn't work out the details for our family of five so my MIL and SIL surprised me on this years vacation! Heres what they did. They blind folded me and put several clues in front of me. I got one question for each clue and if I got it correct at the end then there was an extra surprise:

Clue #1 was sand. I said "are we going to a beach?" and they said yes.

Clue #2 was warm water I said "is the beach someplace very warm?" and they said yes.

Clue #3 was whipped cream (my favorite dessert) and I was busy licking my fingers for several minutes. Finally I siad " does it have something to do with food?" and they said yes.

Clue #4 was a toy boat and I said "is it a cruise?" and they said yes.

Clue # 5 was a little Mickey mouse figurine and I Screamed " A Disney Cruise?!" and they squealed back "yes!"

Then we all jumped up and down and hugged each other.

Does that help anyone?

 

[ReAnSt]

On the ship they sell small die-cast versions of the ship itself, it would be great if you could get one of those in advance and wrap it for her.

Ever since I saw the Carnival cruise commercial with the big wrapped up ship, I thought it would be so neat if DCL had a big ship that could be wrapped up to do like on the commercial.

Becky

 

[denizdfaz]

Hi! I gave my 10 year old a silver cruise ship charm on a silver necklace to wear today for her birthday--we are leaving on the November 20 cruise and she was so excited to see the little present and put it on immediately.

I found the silver charm cruise ship with tiny pink painted windows at
JC Penny's jewelry department and even better, it was 50% off as was the necklace--both came to under $20! She can add it to her charm bracelet when she tires of it around her neck.

Yipppeeeee, 16 days to go!!!!

 

[mmouse37]

We surprised our kids with the Maiden Voyage of the Disney Magic back on Christmas in 1997....the ship was not sailing until 1998, but we wantedto surprise them with the cruise.....at the time WDW had a DCL preview center and I had purchased t-shirts ahead of time and wrapped those along with a certificate that I made up inviting them to to board the Disney Magic for its Maiden Voyage....

MJ

 

[eoconnor]

WE are on the Wonder 11/20. My two little ones 10 and 9 think we are going to Seaworld for a few days, than going to a pirate museum where we have to change hotels. Little do they know the museum is in Nassau and the hotel moves.

 

[JNorris]

We surprised our kids with the Maiden Voyage of the Disney Magic back on Christmas in 1997....the ship was not sailing until 1998, but we wantedto surprise them with the cruise.....at the time WDW had a DCL preview center and I had purchased t-shirts ahead of time and wrapped those along with a certificate that I made up inviting them to to board the Disney Magic for its Maiden Voyage....

MJ

Wow, mmouse, those 2 pictures together are just priceless! What a great family!

Judy

 

[mmouse37]

Wow, mmouse, those 2 pictures together are just priceless! What a great family!

Judy

Why thank you!!!

MJ

 

[JNorris]

We are surprising our DD7 also. We have been on 2 DCL cruises, and she knows we have another 7 night booked for Sept 2006. What she doesn't know is, we also secretly booked a 3 night cruise for March of 2006, and we are taking her 2 cousins with us! I cannot even give her a hint that there is something she doesn't know, because she will keep guessing until she figures it out.

My husband works in D.C., and we live in S.C., so about a week before we go, I am going to tell her that we are flying to Orlando to spend a few days in FL with Daddy, who will be flying from D.C. When we get to the Orlando airport, she will get a huge surprise when her Daddy and 2 cousins walk up to her. Then we will drop the big bomb: we're all going on a 3 night cruise! We are really going to get her good!!!

Judy

 

[Tenorsinging]

I just returned yesterday from our *double* surprise trip for my daughter who just turned 6 on the MAGIC~!!!!!

Man, was it something else. We had planned the cruise waaaay back in February, and had to keep the secret since then.

First fold was we told Pookie that we were going to Boston ..on a business trip with her dad. We were actually going to the SWAN!!!! We arrived at night, and rode a limo to the hotel...so she had no idea where we were. Even walking thru the lobby of the Swan (obviously our first trip there) she still thought we were in Boston. When we got to the room, (this was Thurs. the 27th btw) we sat her on the bed and told her that we were not in Boston, but at Mickey World as a birthday surprise (her b-day Oct. 30) for her. Friday was EXHAUSTING...because we did AK, MGM, and Epcot.. ...Saturday she assumed that we were going back to the airport, when we were really going to the Port.

We are just laughing cuz we can see the ship from the car, but she has still not seen it yet. When we get out and she FINALLY see's where we are..she goes NUTS!!!!!

If you are interested in more of how our story goes, I wrote a live thread last week, it's under "Tenor and her Peeps" Magic 10/29. We had a blast and I was with a group of crazy Dis'ers.

 

[khakismum]

I just replied to a similar thread. Go to http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=952125 to read what we did for two trips - one our Dec 17 cruise. This is more appropriate for older kids though.

Enjoy!