The one day I don't get the mail...

3Mickeys

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jul 24, 2010
We are surprising our kids with our trip for their big Christmas gift. Our first ever cruise, and we have only been to WDW once. This is HUGE for us. I have been so careful to try to get the mail before the kids get home from school, but they love getting it. Our TA knows it is a surprise and sends things in plain envelopes. Well, today my almost 10yo gets the mail on the way home from the bus. You guessed it. An envelope to me from DCL. He freaked out.. "We're going on a Dis Cruise!" I was shocked and had to play it cool. Told him of course we aren't, Disney sends us junk mail all the time. They do know I get emails with promotions occasionally. I'm not sure he bought it and I'm so disappointed. Turns out the envelope had the info on travel insurance. It wasn't even anything good. :headache:

I'm going to try and not let this ruin things for me. We just paid off the total last week. Will I be getting more items in the mail? My 75 days prior is mid-Dec and I just need to make it until Christmas morning!! :santa:

Sympathy anyone??
 
Oooh- much sympathy coming your way from this Momma! Our cruise/DLR trip is a Christmas surprise for our kids. If they even got a hint that something was up there would be no end to the questions! Thank goodness my husband gets the mail!
 
This same thing happened to me in 2008 when I wanted to surprise my kids. Luckily I had an old promo they had sent us with a sunblock attatched, when he was concentrating on texting I threw the sunblock promo in the envelope and took the other stuff out, stuck a mickey mouse sticker on the envelope so it would appear sealed and then told him "You can open this".... he was none the wiser. Had he not been pre`occupied though, it may have been a botched attempt. Good luck keeping the surprise and have a wonderful cruise!
 
So much sympathy, we are also planning a cruise and have not told the kids, primarily because we don't want to hear "when are we going for the next 18 months" But yes, you will receive your cruise documents around the 75 day mark or so, so be on the lookout for those.
 


We are surprising our kids with our trip for their big Christmas gift. Our first ever cruise, and we have only been to WDW once. This is HUGE for us. I have been so careful to try to get the mail before the kids get home from school, but they love getting it. Our TA knows it is a surprise and sends things in plain envelopes. Well, today my almost 10yo gets the mail on the way home from the bus. You guessed it. An envelope to me from DCL. He freaked out.. "We're going on a Dis Cruise!" I was shocked and had to play it cool. Told him of course we aren't, Disney sends us junk mail all the time. They do know I get emails with promotions occasionally. I'm not sure he bought it and I'm so disappointed. Turns out the envelope had the info on travel insurance. It wasn't even anything good. :headache:

I'm going to try and not let this ruin things for me. We just paid off the total last week. Will I be getting more items in the mail? My 75 days prior is mid-Dec and I just need to make it until Christmas morning!! :santa:

Sympathy anyone??

I booked a (for me) last minute Christmas cruise as a surprise for DH and DD and my TA just instructed Disney to send HER all the documents, I just pick them up direct from her...and don't need to worry with the mail. Maybe your TA can do this for the rest of the documents?

And yes, I certainly sympathize -- this is an awesome surprise!!
 
This is exactly what I'm afraid of!! I've managed to keep my mouth shut for a year, but now that we're getting so close, it's so hard not to just let something slip! I really hope we can keep the surprise intact until Christmas morning.
 
I remeber the time we suprized the kids too
lying just becomes part of it
 


Keeping vacations a surprise is really hard. Once they have an inkling that something is going on, I have a hard time bluffing, I don't have a good poker face at all.

My kids are pretty oblivious, if they saw something in the mail and I told them it was just junk mail, they'd believe me. Earlier this year we went on vacation for spring break, spur of the moment trip, I was taking them to DL. I kept joking that we were going to Alaska, or somewhere else cold (it was February), they didn't really believe me but they still didn't know where we were going and kept telling me they wanted to go to DL. A week before the trip I gave them packing lists to follow so they could start packing their own things, and on the list it said "Disney tickets". They missed it until 2 days before we left, when I told them to highlight the things they hadn't packed yet!

Hopefully you can keep the surprise alive, maybe divert his attention elsewhere, start discussing that you had planned a family trip to visit an aunt in Michigan or something, or talk about renovating the house or buying a new car, hence no vacation money - good luck! :goodvibes
 
Thanks everyone for feeling my pain!
Every winter break we usually drive to Florida for a week with my parents. We drive right thru Orlando and keep on going, which is extra painful for the kids. They just assume we will do that trip like always. This son who saw the envelope is the one Disney fanatic who has talked incessantly of returning to WDW since the minute we got home 3 years ago. If anyone has fantasized that we would surprise them with a DCL cruise it's him! I so want to keep it a surprise because this is really going to be one of the few things under the tree. Everything else is going to be rather practical... clothes, socks, books... we can't go all flashy on video games, American Girl dolls, etc. when we are dropping a handful of G's on a 7 night Eastern!
I'm sure it will be fine, but I will have to be super careful from her on out. I'll have to lie until I'm blue in the face. Hoping the next 8 weeks are quick ones!
 
I am surprising my kids at Christmas for our first cruise, and it looks like we are cruising around the same time as you. I am going to take "getting the mail" of DS's chore list until after Christmas! I think you played it cool and it should be fine...but I think my kids would be able to easily beat it out of me and I wouldn't want that to happen after keeping the secret for so long!:rotfl2:
 
I have been keeping our crusie a secret for 2 years now (rebooked on board and didn't tell them). We are 34 days away and I think I BLEW IT today!
I have had a good lie for everything so far.

The kids think we are going to FL to visit grandma & grandpa for the holidays (explains the airline tix to FL), we are going to grandpa's fancy work party and hence the need for fancy dresses, etc.. I have had to work on FE gifts at work and hide everything even remotely crusie related.
Today, DD10 came home bummed that she didn't get a choir solo and without even thinking (and focused only on making my daughter feel better) I said "You wouldn't be able to sing it anyway because we'll be on the cruise that day". AAAARRRGGGH!

She looked at me funny and I froze. Couldn't think of a good lie to cover that one but she talked me out of it! She said "yeah right we're going on a cruise, that doesn't make me feel any better that we're just going to grandpa's and now I'm missing the WHOLE CONCERT!":scared:
 
I have been keeping our crusie a secret for 2 years now (rebooked on board and didn't tell them). We are 34 days away and I think I BLEW IT today!
I have had a good lie for everything so far.

The kids think we are going to FL to visit grandma & grandpa for the holidays (explains the airline tix to FL), we are going to grandpa's fancy work party and hence the need for fancy dresses, etc.. I have had to work on FE gifts at work and hide everything even remotely crusie related.
Today, DD10 came home bummed that she didn't get a choir solo and without even thinking (and focused only on making my daughter feel better) I said "You wouldn't be able to sing it anyway because we'll be on the cruise that day". AAAARRRGGGH!

She looked at me funny and I froze. Couldn't think of a good lie to cover that one but she talked me out of it! She said "yeah right we're going on a cruise, that doesn't make me feel any better that we're just going to grandpa's and now I'm missing the WHOLE CONCERT!":scared:

Too funny! I'm sure your DD will forget all about her choir solo once she's onboard :goodvibes
 

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