Surprising the kids with a trip to Disney?

[brobrosmom]

I've read posts from people saying that they hadn't told the kids that they were going to Disney and then surprised them on the day they left or even waited until they got to Disney! But I have never read any posts letting us know how it worked out.

Have you surprised your kids with a trip to Disney? If so, how did you do it and what were the reactions?

 

[MickeyMomTo2]

We surprised our kids on the day of our trip last November, and it was great. They were shocked. We picked my first grader up from school and went straight to the airport. It was so fun!

I didn't think there was a downside to this until last week. My son was on antibiotics for a sinus infection. I had forgotten to give him his morning dose, so I had to go up to the school to give it to him. They called him to the office, and I gave him the medicine. Later, he told me that he thought we were going to Disney again! Poor thing--he thought we were going to Disney, and he got Augmentin instead. I had to explain that we would never surprise him in that way again, so if he gets called to the office, it won't be for a Disney trip!

 

[kadesha]

We surprised our kids. We told them that we were just taking a drive. (in the middle of the night) If they can't sleep sometimes we do that because they ALWAYS fall asleep in the car. They slept all night and when they woke up we stopped for breakfast. Then we told them that we were on our way home. (they were only 4 and 5 at the time) They questioned things a little but we were still able to convince them. lol! About 2 hours after we ate we drove under the gate and my 5 year old went crazy!!! She was so excited she could barely stay in her seat. I got some awesome pics! My 4 year old however had fallen back asleep and didn't really comprehend what was going on until we were at Pop walking to our room. It was fun and I hope I'm able to do it again someday!

 

[Zoebear]

Surprised everyone last year too. Woke them up at 4:30 for a 6 am flight. IT was great. They were thrilled, and haven't stopped talking about it yet.
We did explain to them that it will NOT be happening again that way again, so not to expect. It is a once in a lifetime sort of deal.

I can't point out even one downside ! Good luck with your decision

 

[megthewonderful]

We just got back from our trip that we surprised the kids with. We told them all of the packing that I was doing was to go visit grandma and grandpa for a week. However, once we were in the car we gave them a few small Disney presents, Then we showed them all of the Disney movies we collected to watch as we drove to Disney. Once they realized what we had said they went crazy! They couldn't even bear the drive! It was great! No regrets at all about keeping it from them until we were on our way!

 

[snowwhitemom]

Oh yes..... When my 13yo came out of her room for school and I told her to wear differ clothes...pack a few pieces, she did not know til we got to the airport...... but the best part was we flew done on Fir, ran our first 5k together on Saturday, her 13 b day and exactly one month from losing my father to cancer....and the race was for cancer research!!!!!! So it was huge, I assured her as we spent january in the cancer wing that when she had her bday we were going to do something special..... when i found the race on line i bought our airline tixs hours prior to flying, went to register for the race and when they asked which resort ... I had none, the CM gave me her cell phone with a pre dialed # and snagged ressie at CSR!!! Oh by the way NEVER EVER ran til that day...... oh my legs !!! Sorry for the mini trip report persay...LOL

 

[Kimmumum]

We have surprised our boys twice.

The first time we told our boys that we were going to our cottage (about 1 1/2 hours away). I had every thing packed. After 7 hours of driving they asked "are we almost there yet??". Which we thought was funny since they had been to the cottage many times. We stopped for gas and when I got back in the car I said "dad and I decided we aren't going to the cottage. We're going to Disney!!!" My 10 yo was speechless (literally which says alot) and my 6 yo said "AHHH do we have to???" He had been reading a fishing book about all of the fish he hoped to catch He got over it pretty quick!!! For about the next year we always teased them that we were actually on our way to Disney. They were always on guard.

The second time (July 2007 they were 9 and 13)we suprised them we woke them up about 2 hours before our flight with a note from Mickey. It talked about how much he missed them and he wanted them to come visit. He included a list of things for them to pack. I've never seen my boys move so fast We got to the airport and when we got to the gate they notice a family sitting there that resembled friends of ours. It was them. They were going with us. Double surprise

We have another trip planned for June 4th this year and haven't told them yet. Hmmm I wonder when they'll find out????

 

[katybugsmom]

We are doing a little of both!
Our June WDW trip has been planned for 6 months! We just went last summer, but with the great deal WDW had with the "Buy 4, Get 3 Free" deal we just couldn't pass it up! Our kids, DD10 and DS4, think we are spending a week in Myrtle Beach(we only live an hour away-I know, it's tough!) We weren't going to tell them at all, but decided to ask for help from a wonderful Fairy Godmailer who is sending them both postcards that should arrive around the last day of school for us here in SC!!!!! That way they will have a couple of weeks to drive me crazy-just kidding-to help me with final plans and it will give them something to really look forward to! We have a couple of Disney Outlets at the beach and we plan on going down there for some last minute shopping and to purchase Disney Dollars to take with us on the trip! I think it's the best of both worlds!!!
Hope this helps!!!!

 

[carrie6466]

We surprised DD with a Halloween trip last year.

She came home from school, did her homework and played for a bit. We already had the car loaded to go to the airport. As it neared dinner time, I told her we were going out to dinner. She asked where and ds said he wanted to try a 'new restaurant at the airport'. DH is taping all of this.

DD asks why the airport, so we told her we had to eat there so we could get on the plane to go to WDW. She then proceeded to inform us that she had school the next day! I told her that her teacher said it was ok
She then got seriously excited and started jumping up and down and saying she had to pack her Halloween costume, etc.

It was so awesome...and we got every second of it on tape. Everyone who has seen it says it worked out great. So great that I want to do it again some day LOL

 

[WDWfeelslikehome]

We told DS3.5 we were going to visit Uncle Mortimer. We have relatives in Florida, and he really doesn't know there names so the play on names worked for us. He was excited for the airplane, he once in a while would say, Disney?, because that is the only place we regularly fly to. But the secret was still intact, when we landed and the drive picked us up, DS though the driver was Mort and was excited to see him. When we went under the arch way DS's mouth dropped open and he looked at both of us and said DISNEY! He was excited and bouncing as much as he could in his car seat. Then for about 30 seconds he got a pouty look on his face, DW asked him what was wrong, he said Papa Tricked. He didn't like the fact that he was tricked, but as I said that lasted all of 30 seconds before he went back to pure joy. We'll try it again sometime, but it is hard to keep up the secrets sometimes. I managed to pull off a surprise b-day weekend in WDW for DW once before DS was born, and she only found out 3 hours before the plane took off, that too was hard, but she didn't give me the pouty face.

 

[clutter]

I told my dd, kindergartner at the time, that I was picking her up for a dentist appointment. When I got there, I told her I was taking her to Disney!! "After the dentist?" Um, no, that was a story.

 

[pixiewings71]

We've surprised our girls twice. The first time I packed their bags for them and the night before we left for DL DBF and I packed the bags in the van, the only thing pending was my makeup bag and that was easy to get into the van without the girls seeing, DBF just took it out while they were having breakfast. We got in the van as if we were taking them to the sitter's and we just kept driving, we told them we thought we would just go for a drive and we did....for 6 hours, all the way to Anaheim. lol We drove right past DL to our hotel and they didn't even notice, when we got into the hotel they did see all the Mickey's everywhere and asked if maybe we could go to DL and I said "we will have to see, let's get to our room first". When we got to the room I gave them the packet and asked DDthen9now12 to read it, they both got very excited when they realized we were going to DL for 3 whole days!!!! LOL It was so much fun that the following year we surprised them again, this time we did a scavenger hunt around the house. I printed up a bunch of clues and they followed to clues to the next clue and the next and the next etc etc until they finally found the pirate treasure, which was our packet wrapped up in pirate skull bandanas. They loved that too! And then we surprised them AGAIN that trip by upgrading our parkhoppers to APs while they were spending time with their "father" on a Saturday, we went and upgraded and spent the day in the parks without the girls, then the next day before we left for home we went back and got them their APs, man they were 2 excited girls!!!! They LOVED it every time.

 

[JohnsonsRUs]

We surprised DD with a last minute trip a couple years ago. It was our Winter Break in February and we told her that we were going to see her grandparents for the break, who live about 2 1/2 hours away. We told her that we had to get up early because they had tickets for a winter festival and we had to get there early, our flight was at 6:30, I think. We drove to the airport and when she asked why we were at the airport we told her that a friend of theirs was flying us up to their house (they really did have a friend with a plane). We finally told her when we got into the airport and she saw the signs for Orlando. There were 2 other families who we met down there and spent time with, which she also didn't know about and neither did they.

It was a great trip, but I don't think she got over the shock of the surprise until that night when we finally got back to the hotel and she started jumping on the beds saying "I'm at DisneyWorld!"

 

[zeusywoo]

Yes, my friend gifted us a 4 day trip to Disney Beach Club Villa's. We didn't tell her until after prom right before graduation as the trip was a week & half later. It was great. My hubby said you & her go do a Mother Daughter trip. That was my surprise. It was wonderful.

 

[iluvjus]

I am hoping to surprise my son with our trip in August....A coworker once said she had Mickey call her house on xmas to tell the kids. I wish I knew how she arranged that. I can not wait to go!!!

 

[pixiewings71]

I am hoping to surprise my son with our trip in August....A coworker once said she had Mickey call her house on xmas to tell the kids. I wish I knew how she arranged that. I can not wait to go!!!

You can get an Enchanted Phone Call from Mickey, you can do a search for it on Google and find it. I had Cinderella call DD when she turned 8 at DL, she thought that was the coolest thing!

 

[iluvjus]

Thanks so much!! My sons bday is a couple weeks before we leave, I will try to have Mickey call on his bday!!!

 

[pajules]

We did the surprise trip for DS's first ever trip to Disney. I was originally going to wait until the day we left, but had to change plans when DS got sick they day before we left. I felt so bad for him, I decided to tell him about the trip to cheer him up.

Lets just say it worked! I took a shoe box and filled it with some t-shirts I had bought at the Disney store, 2 pins, 2 candy bars with disney wrappers on them that I got here on the DIScreative page and a sign that said, "Surpise, we're going to Disney World and We're Leaving Tomorrow."

It was a great surprise for his first trip. Now that he has been there before I'm looking forward to making a countdown wall for our next trip.

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

We made a last minute trip to DLR at Xmas 2007. We went the 2 days after xmas. We threw the kids in the car at 2:30 am (its a 6 hr. drive) and they woke up just before we pulled off the freeway. I had my ODD (then 6) start looking for a place to eat breakfast. She commented that there were a lot of Disney signs. She started reading street signs and low and behold, we were on Disneyland Dr.!!! It was so cute! I got it all on video too.