Surprise visit help!

[LALA8971]

My DH and I are planning on taking our DS (12) to the DLR in early December (2015) as a surprise Christmas gift. Any tips? He is 12 and this will be his 3rd trip, so I know we can't make it to Anaheim without him knowing we are going to Disneyland.......
Has anyone done this? How did you finally break the news to the person you were surprising? I have some ideas, but would LOVE input!
Also, what are some must see things around Christmas-time? This is the first Christmas trip for all of us!
Thank you!!!!

 

[Imdboss]

I surprised my DD with a trip 5 years ago. DS was only 2 at the time so didn't know any different. It was SO fun just the two of us. I picked her up from school and said we had some errands to run, she fell asleep in the car on the way to the airport. When we arrived she woke up and was a bit confused. I told her I had a surprise and when we got to the gate I told her where we were going. I got it on video, so fun to look back at her reaction. I would love to do a surprise trip again but it was so hard keeping quiet!!!

 

[ddwlms]

We drove the time we surprised our kids and they saw all the signs to LA, however, they never equated Los Angeles with DL. If the signs had said Anaheim, they would have known, but not LA. They were a bit younger than yours, so yours might realize that LA and Anaheim are close. Ours didn't realize until we turned onto Harbor Blvd. (although they did think it was cool that this strange city we were in had a Disneyland Dr., just like Anaheim)

 

[Luckymommatoo]

I think so much depends on your DS, and how he feels about surprises. I have a DS who's 11-1/2, and depending on the day or even time of day, he might not have the reaction I'm hoping for.

So for me, I would do the reveal earlier so DS could help plan -- eat at BB or Carthay? Which tour to go on? What does he want to ride first at DL? At CA? Etc. For me, anticipation and research is part of the fun, and for my kiddos, too. But maybe your kid would be thrilled with the surprise. I'd probably do a scavenger hunt with subtle DLR clues and the reveal at the end.

DLR at Christmastime is magical! For DS, the Christmas fireworks and snow falling were probably the highlight for him.

 

[LALA8971]

Luckily, he is awesome with surprises! For me, the planning is half the fun and he gets into it too. He has been involved with planning our other 2 trips and is already talking about our October 2016 trip, but this one has to be a surprise!

 

[pinkprincess30]

We created a grab-bag with fun things for the plane. Silly putty, stickers, favorite candy, snacks for the travel day, and a Disney plush. We made as much of it Disney themed as possible...Monsters Inc fruit snacks, etc. We will put the bags out for our boys when they get home from school and see if they can figure it out. We may even put their plane tickets way down at the bottom. We have their Mickey ears still from last trip too that we could put in the bags but not sure if we'll do that since it will make it so easy to figure it out! We plan to tell them the day we leave. Only 33 more days to keep the secret.

 

[Speechphi]

We surprised our kids this past Christmas.

We do a "pickle ornament" on the tree (first kid to find it gets an extra present), but we've always done a group gift (like a board game, dvd, etc) and just let the pickle finder be the present opener.

Anyhow....we always have done our pickle present a few days before Christmas so the kids have something fun to do while mommy gets everything ready for Christmas. This year, we did our pickle present earlier than usual. The kids opened up three presents in this order 1) new Mickey Christmas tees, 2) new autograph book, & 3) park hoppers. So they knew at 730pm-ish that they needed to pack & we'd be leaving at midnight (we drive from outside of Sacramento).

We're surprising them AGAIN (because it's fun!) on Monday with a one-day spring trip. We are telling them the night before that we're heading to The City early in the morning so they need to go to bed at a normal/school night time. And then we'll put them in the car around midnight. Our kids will probably figure it out somewhere around the grapevine (since that's when they usually wake up).

Anyone who's been to DLR before can't be surprised at arrival because they'll recognize signs, etc. but it's still fun & super magical when they figure it out! Have fun scheming!

 

[Speechphi]

I think so much depends on your DS, and how he feels about surprises. I have a DS who's 11-1/2, and depending on the day or even time of day, he might not have the reaction I'm hoping for.

So for me, I would do the reveal earlier so DS could help plan -- eat at BB or Carthay? Which tour to go on? What does he want to ride first at DL? At CA? Etc. For me, anticipation and research is part of the fun, and for my kiddos, too. But maybe your kid would be thrilled with the surprise. I'd probably do a scavenger hunt with subtle DLR clues and the reveal at the end.

DLR at Christmastime is magical! For DS, the Christmas fireworks and snow falling were probably the highlight for him.

I had dd help plan our surprise trip...I purposely looked at pictures of certain things in front of her & casually asked if she thought it looked like something she'd want to do if we went at Christmastime in 2015. She had NO idea (and she's my bright super intuitive one) that we were planning our 2014 trip! She even laughed about how sneaky is been & how I'd fooled her

 

[LALA8971]

Yeah, I have trouble keeping secrets from my little man. He tends to figure things out pretty easily. I am already planning a bigger trip for October 2016 (my friend and her family are coming, as well as my parents and my husband's Mom) and have involved him a little bit in that, knowing that I'm actually planning the 2015 trip too! I love the gift idea and we were also thinking a scavenger hunt with subtle Disney references.

Thank you everyone for your ideas! Keep em coming!

 

[Sherry E]

My DH and I are planning on taking our DS (12) to the DLR in early December (2015) as a surprise Christmas gift. Any tips? He is 12 and this will be his 3rd trip, so I know we can't make it to Anaheim without him knowing we are going to Disneyland.......
Has anyone done this? How did you finally break the news to the person you were surprising? I have some ideas, but would LOVE input!
Also, what are some must see things around Christmas-time? This is the first Christmas trip for all of us!
Thank you!!!!

If you have time at some point, join us in the Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread -- http://www.disboards.com/threads/di...erthread-5-awaiting-details-for-2015.3358217/

The posts on the first page of the thread cover a lot of different subcategories within the holiday season -- you don't have to read everything, but you will see if anything catches your eye that you want to read about. (If you see any tiny font, missing punctuation or notice links that don't quite link where they are supposed to, blame that on the recent conversion from our old website platform to a new platform. Some things went awry in the transition, sadly, and it will take me a bit of time to fix them.)

We don't have too many details about this year's holiday season yet, other than the fact that there will be no Believe...In Holiday Magic fireworks (because the focus will be on the new nighttime events for the 60th anniversary). We're not yet sure about other holiday events (the Christmas Fantasy Parade might disappear this year as well). We may not hear anything about the season for a long time, but as news trickles in and rumors begin swirling we will be chatting about it in the Superthread.

 

[LALA8971]

Thank you Sherry E - I will definitely take some time and look through that!

 

[Amommy21]

I have done a few things. One was we told DS we were going shopping like early morning crazy shopping and might see Santa. We put him in the car at 4am and when we pulled into the airport we told him. his response was precious. I had his Mickey ears and pulled them out for him to wear and revealed the luggage packed in the back of the SUV under a blanket.

The next trip a box of balloons was delivered (helium to rise up when opened) with a letter from Santa which included the invite to Disneyland, a couple details about reservations and activities we would be doing and a gift certificate. The note told him that his ride to the airport was arriving in 30 min. It was a success and he loved it. He was surprised when I pulled out the packed suitcases from the back of my closet all ready to go.