Surprising your kids with WDW? We are!

[LadySiren]

So I was wondering if any of you are surprising your kids with your upcoming WDW trip, or have done so in the past. This is the first trip ever for our combined tribe of kids, although I've been many times in the past.

We decided to do a hunt of sorts for our kids - we're going to hide five envelopes with clues written inside, each envelope addressed to a different child. To get them started, I'm going to do a big poster board with the "rules" of the game on it. Each clue leads to the next one and the last clue leads them back to the house. Once they get back inside, they have one last puzzle to finish - each of the five envelope clues has underlined words in it. They have to find and cross out each of the underlined words / phrases in a find-the-word game I'm going to write up. The leftover letters in the find-the-word game will spell out "Walt Disney World" and then Mom is going to serve up a Disney-themed breakfast.

DH wants to wait until the night before we go to do the hunt; it's gonna kill me to keep it a secret until then, LOL. Anyway, here's the clues I wrote for our kids. I thought y'all might enjoy my bad poetry.

http://drop.io/LadySiren

Note: this is a free drop.io site; you should be able to view the document right from the drop.io page but you can also download the .PDF file if you're interested.

 

[Orlando313]

Sounds like a great idea! Get it on video if you can. I love watching those videos on youtube! My parents never surprised us because it was really the only thing we had to look forward to in those days. We didn't have a lot of money and that was the one thing that kept us happy was talking about our Disney trip for months and months ahead of time. One of my coworkers surprised her 8 year old son, said they were going to Branson, and once they landed in Orlando he was disappointed that they weren't going to Branson, go figure.

 

[goofy4tink]

I am...sort of. We all arrive at BWV on July 31, then we move over to BLT on the 5th. My dh is heading home, from BLT, on Aug 8. My dd, 16, 'thinks' we're going home then as well. But she and I are moving to Music for another 4 days!!!! She's going to be shocked to get all packed up, then head downstairs to 'do RAC' only to hand her bags over to Bell Services to be moved.

 

[PoohsFan1]

That sounds really awesome, definitely take pictures or record their reactions

We surprised our kids last March with a trip, and got mixed reactions towards it. The girls thought that they were going to be flying to their Grandparent's house (who lives 3 hrs away) and once they found out where we really were my youngest DD was jumping up and down excitedly, while my older DD cried because she was confused....she really wanted to go to WDW, but she also wanted to go to grandma's. Once she got onto ME, she was excited for the trip.

Our upcoming March trip (in 2 weeks), the girls know about the trip but little do they know that their grandparents are coming along with us....these are the same grandparents who live 3 hrs away from us so since they are flying out of a different airport than us, they will be arriving at MCO about an hour earlier. The plan is for them to walk over to our gate and watch for our plane to come in, and as we get off the plane, they will be there with opened arms.

Then we just booked our Sept. trip a few days ago (wasn't planning on returning for the second time this year....but who's complaining ) so we decided to again surprise our kids but this time we are not saying one word about it. We are still trying to figure out how we are going to surprise them. I kind of want them to be surprised by seeing the ME desk/buses but who knows, my DH usually can come up with something really creative for them. However, we are not telling them where we are staying until the ME drops us off. We are staying at CR for the first time (both of my girl's favorite resort). Can't wait to see their reactions to this

 

[wdwrich]

We did something similar when our kids were young (many years ago in 1982). We didn't tell them until it was time to wake up the morning of the trip and head out to the airport!

 

[dis75ney]

We'll be surprising our DS in May. We plan on waking him up at his normal school time and asking if he'd rather go to school or to Disney. We're pretty confident he'll say Disney, then we'll stop at a local diner for breakfast before our flight. Can't wait!

 

[kmk1180]

We not telling our kids till the morning we fly out.
We plan on waking them up about 5am and asking them what they
want to do today?
Then ask if they want to go to Disney world instead.

Partly doing it for our own sanity. They are 3 and 5 if we told then
they would ask everyday if we can go now. or tell us it's taking along time.

 

[mikamah]

Sounds like some great ideas. I want to surprise my son with an august vacation. He'll know we'll be off and think we're staying home, and taking a couple day trips, beach days, and in the morning we'll get up to go out to the store or something, and we'll drive to the park shuttle and fly. I haven't thought further, but maybe when we get to the park shuttle fly, I'll have a new tshirt and hat for him. I'll have to work on this. It will be tough not to drop any hints.

 

[bluejasmine]

We suprised our two teens last Sept they are 16 and 13. We kept everything a secret and even did our packing in secret, then tha Fri they came home from school we had them do a scavenger hunt that included them running from room to room, out back,across the street over to the neighbors, calling grandma and signing on to the computer then they finally ended up coming back to the livingroom where DH and i were wearing mickey ears and had the disney travel documents spread out with mickey confetti. Told them they had half an hr to pack so we could load the car and that we were leaving in the morning for a 7 day trip. Their faces were priceless but alas I forgot the camera in my excitement which is typical for me really! LOL

 

[sharadoc]

Our surprise was definitely a surprise - we told my daughter the morning we left, and she didn't believe us. I had to show her a suitcase to convince her.

Then she was happy and excited.

But, I think there were some negatives:

1. Having a surprise meant no chance to save allowance, gifts, etc. for spending money. She didn't have any, so I had to provide it all.
2. Mentally, she wasn't prepared for the drive so it was kind of miserable.
3. She also didn't bring everything she would have in the van, since she didn't have time to pack.
4. I had to get her school work in secret, so she didn't have a chance to talk to her teacher about it.

Bottom line - we already told her about the next trips. Surprise just didn't work for us.

 

[SignMeUp]

As you can see from my siggy we are surprising our kids with our upcoming trip. We took our first family trip to WDW last April and talked about how we probably wouldn't be able to go back to WDW till our oldest was almost 10 (he was 7 last year). DH and I started talking about where to go this year for our family vacation and DH surprised me by saying let's go back to Disney! He said where else have we had so much fun?? and the kids are at the perfect age to enjoy WDW more than any other place. He's right .

We decided at first to keep it on the downlow from the kids just in case it didn't work out for us to go, but now we're definitely going (everything's booked!) and we still want to keep it a surprise until the last minute. We have to leave for the airport at 4:30am in the morning, so we'll wake them up at 4am saying "get up! Let's go to Disney World!" Up to that point they'll just think we're packing to go to grandma's house... and maybe they'll be a little sad about not going to grandma's house, but not when we get to our resort and see grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncle and cousins!

We're not leaving till the end of May and it's going to be VERY hard to pull this off without them finding out though. Hopefully I (and everyone else in my family since they're going too) can keep my/our mouth shut!

 

[MSMomTJ]

We are leaving this Saturday, and we kept it a secret until last week. We'd been debating about telling them the morning we leave, the night before, or a week before. I am glad that we did ended up telling them when we did.

To tell them, we left a box in the middle of the floor for them to find when they got home from school/babysitter. A note on top of the box told them that there were going on a magical adventure and the box would give them clues to the destination. My plan was for them open the box, pull out the first set of clues, look at it, move tissue paper, get out another set of clues, move the tissue paper, then make their guess and turn over their tickets to see if they were correct. That would have been great if just my 8-year-old was doing it. My 3-year-old just started grabbing paper and items and throwing them around. Oh, well.

So, my dd has been crabby since turning 3, and she was having none of the whole Disney thing. When I started telling her all the stuff she'd be able to do it, she was all "NO!" She didn't want to meet any characters, or ride any rides, etc. Her reaction really made me glad that I told them early. She's totally warming up to the idea now and is getting really excited.

My son would have liked being surprised, but he likes being able to look forward to the vacation. We're also letting him earn money every day.

I'm glad they know so that I don't have to hide it from them anymore! I have so much to do in these 5 days, I'd end up slipping up and ruining it!

Good luck, all your surprisers!!!

 

[FmrCastMembr]

Oh, I could never keep going to Disney World a secret! However, I do have two things that I haven't told them. First, we're going to ride Characters In Flight at DTD and I ordered t-shirts for all of us that have a graphic of the Tomorrowland Transit Authority (our fav!) and say, "Paging Mr. Morrow. Mr. Tom Morrow. Your party from Saturn has arrived. Please give them a ring." I can't wait to see the looks on their faces!

 

[LadySiren]

Oooh, those are some good points about not waiting until the last day to surprise them. Thanks for the ammo to use to get DH to agree to do it sooner.

Here's a sample of the poems (I use the word "poem" loosely here, LOL) I wrote for each of the clues. DH grumbled to me, "You made it too easy. They're gonna guess it with the first clue!" I had to remind him that this isn't supposed to be like taking the SATs and that the kids won't care that it's a little on the easy side.

Anyway, here's the fifth clue, which will be hidden inside a special Disney-themed book on my bookshelf. Enjoy, feel free to point, laugh, whatever.

Clue #5

Our littlest chipmunk
Has now got her clue.
And like the Rescue Rangers,
She’ll know just what to do.

A book is like a passport –
It’s the door to Adventureland;
In books you can be anything,
Even a knight with sword in hand.

The happiest place on earth,
Has magic that never ends.
It brings your favorite characters to life,
And lets you become their friends.

From pirates to flying elephants,
Fairies brassy and bold,
Mermaids, gargoyles, and talking dogs,
And mice with hearts of gold.

Do you know yet where we're going?
If you've got it figured out,
Come back to the kitchen
And give Mom and Dad a shout.

Edit: Erm, fixed an error in the last stanza...note to self: obsess much?

 

[chrisxtwo]

We have surprised our two MANY times. Last January, we woke them up for school and had them get dressed and ready then on our way out the door with their backpacks on, we asked "Do you want to go to school or Disney World?". They both said Disney World. And we said "OK, then let's go!" Neither of them believed me until they saw the car all packed and then they flipped out. We have also picked them up early from school with the car packed. Last May, we booked a Disneyland vacation that included a character call so I had Mickey tell them we were going to Disneyland for the first time. (Also their first airplane ride)!

We have also surprised them by having their grandparents meet us at Disney. They walked right past them in the lobby!

In the latest surprise, we are headed to Disney World on Saturday! We fly out on Saturday but we'll tell them when they get home on Friday. That way they will have time to pick what's going in their carryon and which pins they might want to take to trade. The last few weeks they have been talking about how much they miss Disney World but they know it's a lot farther away now that we live in Kansas (we moved from NC last year). They have been really understanding when we tell them "I'm not sure when we'll be able to go again".

 

[MaggieMoo'sMom]

We are surprising our dd4 with our trip in May. We are telling her we are going to the beach, which is not a lie because there is a beach at the Poly!! We are driving down which will require an overnight stay in Lake City. I guess we'll tell her when we see the WDW sign as we get there the next day. I cannot wait!!!!

 

[MSMomTJ]

Oooh, those are some good points about not waiting until the last day to surprise them. Thanks for the ammo to use to get DH to agree to do it sooner.

Here's a sample of the poems (I use the word "poem" loosely here, LOL) I wrote for each of the clues. DH grumbled to me, "You made it too easy. They're gonna guess it with the first clue!" I had to remind him that this isn't supposed to be like taking the SATs and that the kids won't care that it's a little on the easy side.

Anyway, here's the fifth clue, which will be hidden inside a special Disney-themed book on my bookshelf. Enjoy, feel free to point, laugh, whatever.

Clue #5

Our littlest chipmunk
Has now got her clue.
And like the Rescue Rangers,
She’ll know just what to do.

A book is like a passport –
It’s the door to Adventureland;
In books you can be anything,
Even a knight with sword in hand.

The happiest place on earth,
Has magic that never ends.
It brings your favorite characters to life,
And lets you become their friends.

From pirates to flying elephants,
Fairies brassy and bold,
Mermaids, gargoyles, and talking dogs,
And mice with hearts of gold.

Do you know yet where we're going?
If you've got it figured out,
Come back to the kitchen
And give Mom and Dad a shout.

Edit: Erm, fixed an error in the last stanza...note to self: obsess much?

I think you did great!

 

[baby1disney]

While my son knows that we are going to Disney in November...well he might not be if he doesn't shape up in school soon!!! Good grades..but classroom behavior..needs to be better!!!

But...what he DOESN'T know is that my sister is going!!! I'm taking her as a graduation present to her. She's graduating college in May..so this is goin to be fun!!! He won't know until we pick her up at like 1:30 in the morning. I'm going to tell him that I need to drop off something to Grandmother's house and then we'll be leaving. Then I'm going to have my suster come out to the car and act like she's going to say hi/byes to us. Then..she's going to act like she's going back inside and I'm goin to say to her.."Aren't you forgetting something????!!!??" And then..that's when I'll let her tell him that she's going with us!!! He's going to be sooo excited!!!!

Not sure if the scenerio is going to go exactly like that..but somewhat close to it!!!

To the OP...GREAAT JOB!!! I might have to use that creative thinking like that for next time!!!

 

[sgtfirstwife]

I have never done this at WDW but when we lived near DL (about 30 minutes away) I surprised my daughter with a trip for her birthday during the week on a school day. I told her she was going to the dentist. She was really upset that she had to go the dentist on her birthday, We had AP and she could get a free gift card by going on her birthday. So all the way there she kept asking me how much it was going to hurt, why she couldn't see her regular nice dentist....I was really feeling like a mean Mom. I had her going all the was to the tram. She thought we were parking in Disney parking because the dentist shared the parking deck Needless to say she was thrilled to find we were at Disney and not at the Dentist chair






ill

 

[madisonwi]

We have surprised our guys twice- the first time we just drove to the airport and let them figure it out- we got it on tape, it was great. The second time we told them 2 weeks early as a surprise in the form of a Christmas gift.

The day of surprise was definiately better!