Surprise or No Surprise....

[Peter Pan Poppa]

We are about to pay off our balance for our trip in March and our kids 7 and 4 have no idea. We've been the last 3 years and they have been begging and even asking in their prayers for God to provide a way for us to go. I'm the type I want to tell them immediately so that we can be excited for the next month and a half. My wife thinks it would be awesome to not tell them and literally tell them as we are loading them up in the car and heading down. I know there reaction will be great either way but I'm not very good at keeping secrets. The other valid point me wife has is that if we tell them now then we'll here every day for a month when are we going to Disney, when are we going to Disney, and on and on. My counter to that is think about the build up we'll have and then we get to go.

Anyway I'd love to hear what you guys think? I'd also love to hear reports from those that have surprised their families. I look forward to the responses.

 

[captainj]

Hey there,

If you read the first post of my PTR you can see the full story of why we surprised my kids last September. Basically we weren't going to go and told them that, then things changed to where we could go. My dh said there was no way I could keep it a secret, so of course, that's like a dare!! I kept it a secret for over 200 days!

My big thing was I didn't want to lie to my kids, I also didn't want to promise them something that we weren't going to do and have it bite me in the bum later (as I have seen on other reports and videos.) One lady told her kids they were going to visit aunt and uncle so and so. when she told the kids they were really going to Disney World they started bawling b/c they wanted to go see the aunt and uncle! I would have been devastated after months of planning if that happened.

So we told my kids we were going to St. Louis. This was not a lie as we flew out of st. louis. They kept asking what we were going to do and I told them i wasn't sure what we would have time to do. They asked about going up in the arch, going to six flags, etc. I kept telling them I wasn't making any promises about what we would do, but no matter what, we would have a great trip, have good food, a nice hotel with a pool, and that was all I would guarantee.

So they knew we were leaving on Saturday at some point but not what time. I asked them to go to bed early in case we decided to leave early. They had their mp3's, nintendo ds, etc packed in their backpack for the car ride to st. louis, which is a 3 hour drive for us. I went in their room Saturday morning, asked them both to wake up and handed them a clue for a scavenger hunt. they had to write the answer on the cards when they figured it out. Each card had a picture of something in St. louis to do. When they laid the cards out on the table it said:

Soup
Rise
Wii
Arrrrr
Gorin
2

On the back of the one that said 2 (it was the answer to a math problem) it said for them to open the box in the front room to find out where:

They opened the big box, I pushed play on our cd player so "When you wish upon a star" started playing, 2 huge red balloons came out of the box, and their dad and I shot confetti cannons at them. Inside the box was 2 tshirts that said:

There were new Disney crocs, a mini mickey mouse plushie, their fannie packs with autograph books inside, etc.

They stood there kind of stunned and I said, "Do you understand??" Then they both read the shirts and started jumping up and down, screaming, asking when (right then) where (pop century) how long (9 days) etc. It was sooooooooo worth the months of planning and secrecy to see that thrill in their eyes. The entire drive to the airport was, "Oh, so that's why you wanted to see our autograph books" and stuff like that. Priceless.

 

[Cassie Dean]

Our first trip two years ago was in January. For Christmas gifts we bought some new luggage and had each of our three kids open them. They were not all that happy with luggage as a gift but then daddy told them to open them. Inside we had printed out pictures of the castle for our 3 year old twins and for our oldest son who was 10 had written a note for him to read out loud. We told them that there Christmas gift was that we were going to Disney for a week...they were so excited. I printed out a calendar for our oldest to mark off the days until we left and for the two younger kids we did tear off sheets as a count down. It was really hard listening to them (especially the three year olds) asking are we going to Disney World today? over and over and over...but it was so worth it.

 

[Cassie Dean]

Last year we invited my dad to go to Disney with us. My step mother loves Disney and they haven't been since I was a child...more than 15 years ago. So for her Christmas present we typed up a congratulations letter saying that we were going to Disney for 11 days and where we would be staying and had a few pictures of Disney stuff on the letter...she was so excited. At first she thought it was a joke...but when the kids all said they couldn't wait for her to ride the rides with them, I think it finally sunk in.

We had originally planned to tell her on her birthday in August but my dad said he didn't think he could deal with her knowing about going to Disney that far in advance becaue she would drive him crazy about it.

I think it's great to surprise, but at the same time you want to see and experience all the anticipation...good luck with whichever way you decide to do it...I'm sure you'll have a wonderful trip!

 

[dd50]

When mine were young I would tell them a week before because I didn't want to hear "are we going today" every day for months.

 

[MSMomTJ]

I am also trying to decide when and how to tell my kids, ages 8 and 2. They have never been and my 8-year-old only knows that Disney is a "some day" kind of thing. So, this will be a big surprise.

Part of me wants to wait until the morning we leave and tell them, but another part wants to tell them a week or two early so that they get to experience the anticipation. I know my 8-year-old would love to look at all the sites and help me plan a little bit, and my 2-year-old doesn't *really* know what WDW is, so she'll need some prepping. On the other hand, I don't want to deal with their not being able to sleep the night before and the 'how many more days?' (Which i would hear even if we had a countdown calendar.)

what to do, what to do....

 

[eeyorepixie]

first trip was a surprise and it was a memory I will cherish forever!

2nd trip not a surprise, kind of a let down, compared to first trip. Yes, we did the countdown and had special countdown dinners on milestone days...

this is our 3rd trip with our kids- It is a surprise again, it will be one of my DD's actual B-day

and actually it is a surprise within a surprise...we will go that is the first surprise, then on our 10th day at POR we will be all packed to leave and ready to say good-bye to POR but really we will be going to the POLY...

the funny thing is the POLY is going to be a surprise to my DH too
He thinks we will be staying at POR our whole time!
Of course I am going to let him in on the surprise the night before at a dinner at Kona

 

[cbvacation]

We took our kids in 2002 when they were 4 and 7. We planned several surprises for about nine months, and amazingly kept them all secret. We started at Christmas, when we gave the kids a large traffic signal bank that we set up in our kitchen. We talked about taking a family vacation, and agreed to save all of our spare change and any gift money in the family bank. Later we agreed to go to Smoky Mountain National Park. My daughter (3) fretted for months that she would fall off a mountain or get eaten by a bear.

When October finally rolled around, we left for "Tennessee." We drove all night, and almost were busted because my son (7) had been learning the states in school, and couldn't quite figure out why we were in the Carolinas since we left from Ohio.

When the kids woke up we had just crossed into FL and stopped at a rest stop to give them the news. It went something like this - "really? when? today? but, I wanted to see the mountaaaaiiiiinnnns!"

The next surprise was that their cousin and aunt were flying to Orlando to join us for the week at that very moment. A third surprise during the week was that their Grandpa, who lives in FL, joined us in line for the HDDR one night. They were so surprised to see him!

To stay honest, we really did go to the Smoky Mountains on our way back home for a few days.

It was great to keep the secret and to surprise them over and over. But, I posted this because I've been debating doing it again! We are going in six weeks, which they know about. However, I also booked a week for us at the beginning of June - we will leave the day after school ends. Maybe I'll keep that trip a secret - at least for awhile!

 

[candykisses]

We just surprised my son last year for his birthday.

Last year was a horrible year for our family. My husband had been bed sick and bed ridden since March. At the same time our 6 yr old sheltie started to get sick and the vets couldn't save him. He died in June. In the meantime DH was also getting worse. He was in the hospital having 3 major operations in June, July and Aug. Then he had to go to a sub acute care center until Dec.

I know long set up for the surprise, sorry....Oct was Ryan's 16th birthday. DH decided that I should take Ryan and his older brother to WDW for his birthday. We didn't want to leave DH, but he said that would be his present to Ryan.

Ry went to school. Brad and I packed all his things, went and had lunch with DH and picked Ry up after school telling him that we were going for an early dinner. Now I knew that once he was in the car the texting would start and the ipod would be on and he wouldn't look up until we were at the airport.

I was right at the airport he looked up and said this looks like the airport not Red Robin. Why are we here? DH was on the cell speaker and we all said we're going to Disney World. It was great! We went to the Halloween party! Hopefully DH will be well enough for the next trip.

 

[milmore104]

SURPRISE!!! We surprised our DD for her 7th b-day. It was priceless. Really I love watching the video of her finding out. I cry everytime! Last year we told her we were going and did the whole count down calander any everything. I really regret not keeping it a surprise for her. It's the ultimate surprise for a Disney kid.
My DH is like you and can't keep a secret. But alas we have the DIS boards and can get things out on here. Plus we came up w/ little codes to talk about it in front of her which made it interesting for him. Good Luck!