Surprising your kid on the way to airport?

[Lizziotti]

so I've always told our kids about our trips so they could enjoy the excitement and planning. However I thought this time I'd do something different.

My first idea was to pretend we were on our way to school and then say "you know what? I don't feel like taking you to school today lets go to Disney world!!" However now our flight doesn't leave until 5pm on a Saturday. So that won't work!

Any ideas how I can tell my dd on the way to the airport?

 

[marasmallworldfan]

We did that for my kids last year. I told them my husband had to go on a business trip. When we got to the airport I told them I lied and we are going to Disney. They thought I was kidding and would not get out of the car. Never got the reaction I was hoping for

 

[KellaCat]

Maybe tell them you're going out to lunch and drive to the airport instead? Or something boring like grocery shopping? Dentist appointment?

I usually tell the kids, too, since I'm probably more excited than them I can never keep it inside! But I'm going to try to keep our February trip a surprise! Flight leaves early Sunday morning, though, so I'm not sure how I'm going to convince them to get out of bed at 5am on a Sunday without spilling the beans!

 

[ReluctantDisaholic]

We surprised them at the airport on our first trip - we said we had to drive a co-worker's luggage to the airport since he couldn't fit it in his car - they were 6 and 8 and we woke them up at 4 am so they were pretty easy to fool Then we gave them a paper with a picture of the castle and "Surprise - we're going to Disney World!" on it...

 

[senadler]

I do so much planning for Disney that I have never had the opportunity to do a surprise trip. My two oldest (15 and 10) would catch on pretty quick. But now I am planning a trip for just myself and our youngest (4) for the spring. We just had a big trip with everyone in October, so my being on Disney webistes is the norm and the little guy will never catch on. Good thing he can't read since we just got a magnet from Disney with our important dates for booking that he immediately put on the fridge . I still haven't decided when to tell him, maybe at the airport, but he is all about Disney and the most animated of all the kids, so I am so excited for his reaction.

 

[BarbieGal457]

My sister and her husband surprised their 7-year-old twins at breakfast an hour before they had to leave in September and they were less than excited, really not the reaction we all hoped for. We were more excited than they were! They were super tired and one was upset about missing his soccer game. The first sentence out of his mouth was actually "but I have a game today!!" They said they cheered up as soon as they got off the plane though! They don't mind flying so at least that didn't upset them.

On the flip side, my parents did this to me when I was about 8 or 9 and I LOVED it and remember every moment! We drove but they surprised me right before we got in the car, and surprised me again when we went to say bye to my Disney-loving grandma who was packed and coming with us! It was awesome and I'll never forget it, and love watching the video. My next door neighbors knew and they were waiting outside my house to surprise me with Disney Dollars! All in all, truly magical.

I like the idea of telling them you're going somewhere they find really boring and then surprising them that way! I think it might work really well. I know I'd rather go to Disney than the dentist or grocery shopping!

 

[Pills]

We tried. Man, did we try. Actually, what I had wanted to do was give my older daughter the Birnbaum's WDW for Children book for light reading on the plane when we were on the way to the gate.

There's a whole story with Hurricane Irene in 2011 that I'm going to leave out, but we had planned on going the first date of free dining in August, and our flight was leaving the exact time that the eye of the storm was supposed to be over NYC. We then were able to go two days early (no FD for those days) and we got a 7:45 AM flight from JFK. We got up really early and told them we were going to go on a road trip. We get to the airport, and my little one asks why we're there (I'd purposely gone a slightly different way to fool them), so we told them we were going to see if there was anywhere interesting we could fly to instead of driving.

And then the Airtrain from long term parking, which is supposed to run every 10 minutes, doesn't come for 20. Got to the counter 5 minutes after we had to check in, so my kids arrived with me saying "we're going to Orlando" a bunch of times to the agent, and that's how they found out. Ended up taking the flight that night.