Surprise Trip for Our 6 Yr Old :)

[DISLOVE]

I need advice on how to announce our vacation to our 6 year old...


Our flight leaves at 6am which means we have to leave the house at 4 am.

Help us make this announcement to her. Ideas anyone? Everyone?

Thanks, in advance!!

 

[kristinw3girls]

We did this on our girls first trip. I woke them up at 4am and told them to get dresses, we were going to see Mickey. It took them a moment, but they went from 0-1000 miles per hour in about 5 seconds! They still talk about their surprise. I now wish I could get away with keeping it a surprise. They are older, and not easily fooled! Ot is a nice way to keep down the questions untill to morning of! Good Luck and enjoy!!

 

[wishtdream]

We surprised DD for her 5th birthday. We told her we were going out to dinner. The van was loaded that morning while she was still sleeping. We left at 4pm and told her it was a long drive to the restaurant. We stopped in Virginia about 7:30 after dinner we told her since we were in the area we were going to visit some friends. She fell asleep in the van.

This is her face when she read the sign above the gate.

maybe you could go out for breakfast?

 

[Mouse House Mama]

We did a surprise trip last time. The night before we mentioned maybe going to the beach to watch the sunrise. We woke them up after we had packed all the luggage in the van. They had no idea. We told them to get dressed because we were going on an adventure! They kept asking us where and we wouldn't tell. When we pulled into the airport they knew immediately! They were so excited. It was awesome.

 

[disneylovingfamily:4]

We are doing this in a few months for dd's 6th birthday also! I haven't figured the details out yet, but I am going to pack the car and load the kids in it while they are asleep (somewhere between 3-4am) ..thats all I have figured out

 

[PrincessParty]

DD turns 13 on May 23rd. We are picking her up from school on the 22nd, telling her we are going out to dinner. We live in Cincy, but flying out of Dayton into Cincy first ($100.00 cheaper at the time I booked.) Will eat dinner in the airport and when we go to "fly back to Dayton" we will head onto Orlando.

Doing the same thing for DD 10 in Sept, but need to figure out a new scheme. Same flights.

Enjoy it however you do it.

 

[DebRMN]

I will be watching this thread for ideas as, so far, this trip is a surprise. I didn't originally plan it that way, but it is working out so far.

I was just figuring on having the car packed & they will find out when we get to the airport (our flight leaves at 6am also)

 

[prince.john]

When my DD was 5 (now 7) she would always use my cell phone to take and look at pictures on it. Well one time I had taken a picture of a gift I bought her for Xmas (from kris kringle)... It was extremely hard gift to find, got it on ebay, anyway I took the picture to let Mom know I got it..... Guess who stumbled on it? At first I was mad at myself for being stupid enough to leave the pic there... But the reaction she had when she saw it was priceless... Began running around the kitchen screaming for joy, etc...Maybe you could do a little creative photo editing. (Make it look like she has on mouse ears, or standing at the WDW park, etc) then leave it where she can stumble on to it "by accident". It mat take a second or two for her to figure it out, but in the end she will.

 

[KelnRon]

My kids think they have a dentist appt. that morning & that we will drop them off at school afterwards. Everything will be loaded in the car the night before. The airport is about 3 min. away so it won't even cross their minds we aren't going to the dentist until we pull into the airport! Can't wait to see their expressions! However that early in the morning I don't think the dentist will work for you!

 

[PinkRhombus]

I'd not say anything....and when you wake her up, have a Disney shirt there for her to put on. Kids are REALLY observant.

 

[oregonmommyof2]

I am surprising my kids. ds10 and dd5 in September and I want to do like a treasure hunt with clues to the prizes, but I am not clever enough to come up with clues... Our flight is also at 6 am but we have a hotel reserved for the night before since we are an hour away from the airport... So our reveal will be the day before when we are getting ready to go to Portland...

 

[jenlynn0808]

DD was 9 at the time and we told her that Dad had a business trip and he had to fly to get there (we started this a few weeks in advance...Dad might have to go out of town far a few days, you know how he hates to do that, but he hasn't gone anywhere in a long time...then it adventually became he had to go). We woke up the kids (DS was 2-the day before) and headed for the airport. We had packed the car the night after they went to sleep. On the way to the airport we put in a special dvd that DH had made with clues (like a close-up of the fireworks over the castle-you can just see the top of the castle, a video snippet from Ashley Tisdale singing Kiss the Girl, and a shuttle launch-we were able to see this on our trip from SS). She was so excited when she figured it out! Hopefully we can do a surprise trip again for DS when he is older.

Have a great time!

 

[DISLOVE]

I like these... not sure I can pull it off at 4am.

Anymore ideas??

 

[mousetrip]

This is my first post on the dis!

WELL...was so excited to read all of the ideas! We are taking our DD5 for the first time this April. Originally I was going to keep it all a secret until we were in the car on the way to the airport but the more I read the more I thought that this may not be the best thing to do - here's why -
1-Isn't dreaming about it half the fun? Going to bed wondering if it will be as magical as you've heard?
2-Didn't want to throw her into shock upon arrival. Someone told me that for a 5 year old, they can really get overloaded with the senses... that it's just difficult to take it all in if you really have no idea what you're in for.

But, I still didn't want to give up on the idea of a surprise... so I'm compromising... I bought the Disney for Kids book and gave it to her to look through and asked her if that might be a place she'd like to visit someday. "Oh yes, mommy!! Someday can we go??" My reply was, "Yes, I think someday..." Then, I ordered the Disney trip planning DVD and when it arrived I announced, "Look what Mickey sent!!" and we promptly popped it in the player and watched. This was really all I wanted her to see... by now she knows about which rides she'd like to go on, who she might run into, has visions to dream about. Every few days or so she brings it up and I've just been saying, "Oh, yes, I'm saving up so someday we'll be able to go..." and she seems satisfied with that. She's even stopped asking for things that cost money so mommy can save faster! And she's not tortured with counting the days (60 something now...) but hopeful nonetheless.

SO, when the big day comes, we will pack the car while she's at school, pick her up and we'll head to the hotel by the airport. Her aunts live near there so I will explain that we are going to visit them. But as we get close to the hotel we will ask her, "If we could go anywhere in the WHOLE WORLD tomorrow, where would you pick?" Hopefully we will get the answer we're looking for, at which we will happily reply, "LET'S DO IT!!" I can't wait to get the video of that!!

Anyway, that's the PLAN!!