Those that surprised your kids:

[Kalea]

What did you do that worked well? What do you wish you'd done different?

We're planning our 2nd trip and have decided to not tell the kids (9 & 4). It's killing me!

I don't know whether we should do a big reveal at some point or just let them figure it out?

 

[tng1920]

What did you do that worked well? What do you wish you'd done different? We're planning our 2nd trip and have decided to not tell the kids (9 & 4). It's killing me! I don't know whether we should do a big reveal at some point or just let them figure it

2nd trip in 8 days. Surprised DD7 by filling a box with clues. I thought it would be too obvious but it wasn't. We're such big Disney fans that items seemed absolutely normal lol.

Try surprising them with the Magicbands and video. If you place an order with Disneystore.com you can send a special message. I saw a pretty cool YouTube video of a family who had a custom puzzle made. The kids put the pieces together to read we're going to disney world. A cheaper alternative could be purchasing the character disney puzzles from dollar tree.

Hope one of these ideas helps !

 

[mymickeyfans]

We surprised our kids (8 and 3 at the time) the day before we left only because we had a very early flight the next morning. A huge box was "delivered" to our house addressed to them. When they opened it, balloons came flying out, one with a letter attached from Mickey and Minnie telling them they were leaving the next day. It was Halloween time so there was also Disney Halloween bags in the box filled with personalized T-shirts and activities for the plane ride. They were SOOOOOOO excited and had no clue leading up to the surprise. I'd do it again in a heart beat!!!

 

[mm1971]

What did you do that worked well? What do you wish you'd done different?

We're planning our 2nd trip and have decided to not tell the kids (9 & 4). It's killing me!

I don't know whether we should do a big reveal at some point or just let them figure it out?

We basically told them that I was home from work that day and would drop them at school. We got away with it all the way until the terminal. We did distract them with video games and agreed to give them notes if they were late for school.

I am still surprised we got all the way to the airport. They did question it, but seemed OK when we made up answers why it was taking so long to get to school. I'm pretty sure it would never work again.

For this October, I am bringing DD for her birthday. I plan to pick her up from school on Friday afternoon and heading straight to the airport. She will not know until I pick her up that we have a 6 day celebration with Mickey. No big reveal ahead of time.

 

[Altoqueenkelly]

I'm trying to figure this out too!!! We have a two hour drive to the airport and I'm pulling her from school for a few days in September (I know, I know... "bad mommy")

I love the idea of not telling them till you get to the airport but I don't think I can pull that off with a 2-hour drive. It normally takes us 5 minutes to get to her school... and they wear uniforms, so a seven year old would be suspicious.

I was thinking maybe tell her the night before, bags packed and everything ready to go. I love those commercials with the boxes of balloons and screaming "We're going to Disney World!" She hasn't been since she was four and she asks all the time, I can't wait to see her face!

 

[luvmy2babies]

I have enjoyed surprising my children although my son was just old enough to be surprised the last time I did it. For the first surprise Disney trip he was 10 months old.

The first time I laid out a display of everything I had bought for the trip while dd was out of the house. When she got home just seeing the display she squealed, but in the middle was a note “from” Princess Tiana telling her that I was bringing her and her brother to meet her and all of her friends and the plane was leaving the next day. It took her a minute. She was 7. I asked her where she could meet Tiana. She asked if it started with a D. When I said yes, she threw the note in the air and started cheering, dancing and singing, which got applause from her baby brother. We spent the rest of the evening watching a Disney movie double header on Disney channel and making our t-shirts.

Last summer, we drove to Disney. I told them 3 days ahead because we had always flown before and I wanted to give dd time to wrap her head around the idea of driving. Plus, I had some last minute packing and other stuff to do that I wouldn’t be able to do without them knowing. This one was small scale because I knew she had some suspicions. If I had one thing I would do differently is limit the people I tell that we are going anywhere. People think it is okay to mention in front of them that we’re going somewhere as long as they don’t say when and where.

Anyway, for that one I told them I was printing out a summer chore list because since school was out, she could help more around the house and since ds was older he could help too. I told her to wait at the printer for the list. When the list came out, she got a big smile. I asked her what it said. She said, “It says Disney 2013 Packing List”. I told her that was strange and asked her if she was sure it didn’t say 2012 (we had gone then too). She showed it to me and confirmed it did say 2013. She asked if we were really going. I said yes. She told her brother and I wish I hadn’t been laughing so hard. I didn’t even get pictures. It was neat to see ds enjoy the surprise too.

That trip had more surprises. I had planned with very little time, but had found money for 3 character meals and BBB. Since we didn’t have the dining plan, I decided to reveal the meals as we did them in case I had to cancel any of them. Then I decided to do to the same with BBB. They really enjoyed being surprised during the trip too. It worked out to almost a surprise per day.

We are leaving in 10 days. They are now 11 and 4. Our 2012 trip was the one that I let dd in on from the beginning and she has let me know she prefers being surprised so I haven’t told them about this trip yet. I actually told dd I wasn’t sure when I could afford for us to go back. It will be really simple as my daughter has watched so many of those youtube videos there’s no use in me trying anything elaborate.

I’m telling them the day before because our flight while not super early (9:40) will require us to leave the house really early for a Sunday, which means an early bedtime on a Saturday night, something dd doesn't usually have. The day before the trip, I’m going to get them up and let them know we have errands (which we will). The word errands I’m sure will nearly bring dd to tears, especially when I tell her the first stop is the Barber Shop to get ds a haircut. Not sure about that part yet. I'm going to try to get ds' haircut before then. But I’ll let them know I have something for them before we leave. I have a letter I made. It has pictures from our last trip and above the pictures it says: Let the Magic Begin: AGAIN! underneath the pictures, it says

Yay! School is over and
Disney World 2014 is a GO!
Let the Magic and Memories Begin: AGAIN!
Let’s go shopping then come home and pack. Our plane leaves ……

It ends there. But before they lose their minds, I will “search for and find” the other envelope. Inside the 2nd envelope is a picture of the “Fab 6” with the word “TOMORROW!!!!” in big red letters.

 

[Kalea]

Thank you all for the ideas!! I love it!

We were going to just let them figure it out on the 8-hr drive, but skipping the reveal seems like a mistake.

Last year (first trip) was only sorta kinda a surprise. They knew we were going but didn't know when. I picked DS up from school telling him he had a dentist appt. It took him an embarrassingly long time to figure out we weren't going to the dentist.

 

[jessp1021]

We haven't done a big reveal before but plan to this time. We are taking our daughter for her birthday and we are going to let her know a month before we leave. My plan is to give her a couple small items as "early birthday presents" aka stuff she will need for the trip after dinner. We will also have cake for dessert (we do dessert alot so this won't be out of the norm) but it will have mickey heads on it and "we are going to Disney" on the top of the cake. I cannot wait to see her face when she reads it! Good luck surprising yours!

 

[Ahodgson923]

We are going for the first time with our 6 and 4 year olds, and our current plan is to put the, in the car at like mind night when they are too tired to ask questions. They should sleep the whole drive and we will show up in Disney at about 7 or 8 am. We have done longer trips and the kids usually sleep until about that time in the car, so I have high hopes that it will work out.

 

[bjscheel]

I vote for reveal a few days ahead. I did ours at 10 days out since they had to miss some school. They said that was perfect as they still had a little time to plan, anticipate, and pack the things they really wanted along, but the wait didn't drag on forever either. We did a treasure hunt where they gathered clues for a code message that said "Look at the November calendar". They lifted the October calendar page and saw Disney World written across our dates.

You know your kids best, but after reading/seeing some surprises, I would consider the following:
Don't tell them you are going somewhere else fun and then switch it to WDW. They may still want to do that other thing and actually be disappointed.
Don't get them up at dark-thirty and expect them to be overjoyed right away.
Make sure they are not missing any events they consider important without warning.
If you're packing for them, make sure you get all loveys and everything else important!
If your kids don't react well to sudden changes in plans, tell them at least a little in advance.
Don't surprise first timers if they don't have any idea what WDW is like (not applicable in the OP's case).
If your kids will be missing school and might freak out about missing it without warning, tell them in advance.
Don't do it at bedtime the night before if you want them to get to sleep

 

[BellsFam]

DD will get her reveal 06/11, her preschool graduation day...

It will be three presents...

The first, is a bathing suit and cover-up and sunglasses

The second is a new Disney shirts for all of us... (we all wore matching embroidered Etsy shirts for our first two trips as our MK day shirts, they will say Mommy, Daddy, DD's name, and one for AK day also).

The last present is the Disney Planning DVD, (it's corny but she'll love it!)and my cell phone, (with a pre-recorded "Mickey" message on it saying something about her going to Disney), probably also an invitation from Mickey to the WL...

It's WAY early...but I want her to help with some planning parts also... rides, things she wants to do, etc.

 

[BellsFam]

DD will get her reveal 06/11, her preschool graduation day...

It will be three presents...

The first, is a bathing suit and cover-up and sunglasses

The second is a new Disney shirts for all of us... (we all wore matching embroidered Etsy shirts for our first two trips as our MK day shirts, they will say Mommy, Daddy, DD's name, and one for AK day also).

The last present is the Disney Planning DVD, (it's corny but she'll love it!)and my cell phone, (with a pre-recorded "Mickey" message on it saying something about her going to Disney), probably also an invitation from Mickey to the WL...

It's WAY early...but I want her to help with some planning parts also... rides, things she wants to do, etc.

I forgot to add that the last present also has a bunch of stuff I downloaded for free from the allears website. Kids planning sheets, trip journals, etc.

 

[dpswift]

We surprised DS with a Disneyland trip last week. We told him that we were dropping DH off at the airport. He did not seem surprised by the amount of bags we had. The only thing that got his attention was when he saw his stuffed animal in one of the bags.

 

[mrsgoose8]

Don't want to hijack, but want opinions. Much like a pp, my DD probably had an idea since people seem to freely talk about it around/ to her, even though she doesn't know when we are going. My kids are 4 & 2 so a bit young for the surprise but MOMMY LOVES SURPRISES! (When will someone surprise me with a trip??

I absolutely love the idea of the box delivery with balloons and t shirts. We are going about a month before my DDs 5th birthday and it's the closest we will probably EVER go to her birthday (mama no likey Florida in July!). But, we are driving (split over two days, arriving to FL second day but not going to Dis till the 3rd day). When should I do the box? Before we leave? A week before? Or the day before? I'd. Love to wait for the hotel /we arrive in florida but my DD is into the states and geography so once we got into Florida she would know!

Thoughts?

 

[Kalea]

I vote for reveal a few days ahead. I did ours at 10 days out since they had to miss some school. They said that was perfect as they still had a little time to plan, anticipate, and pack the things they really wanted along, but the wait didn't drag on forever either. We did a treasure hunt where they gathered clues for a code message that said "Look at the November calendar". They lifted the October calendar page and saw Disney World written across our dates.

You know your kids best, but after reading/seeing some surprises, I would consider the following:
Don't tell them you are going somewhere else fun and then switch it to WDW. They may still want to do that other thing and actually be disappointed.
Don't get them up at dark-thirty and expect them to be overjoyed right away.
Make sure they are not missing any events they consider important without warning.
If you're packing for them, make sure you get all loveys and everything else important!
If your kids don't react well to sudden changes in plans, tell them at least a little in advance.
Don't surprise first timers if they don't have any idea what WDW is like (not applicable in the OP's case).
If your kids will be missing school and might freak out about missing it without warning, tell them in advance.
Don't do it at bedtime the night before if you want them to get to sleep

Thanks for this.
You hit on a couple of issues we're looking at. Right now we're thinking about trying to leave at 4am, and we're hoping the kids will sleep a bit in the car. So if we do a reveal, we can't do it either the night before or first thing that morning.

DS doesn't do well with negative last minute changes, but he likes surprises as long as they are good.

I'm considering trying to swing a 'reveal' while we're on the trip. Maybe when we stop for lunch, they'll return to boxes in their seats.

 

[luvmy2babies]

Don't want to hijack, but want opinions. Much like a pp, my DD probably had an idea since people seem to freely talk about it around/ to her, even though she doesn't know when we are going. My kids are 4 & 2 so a bit young for the surprise but MOMMY LOVES SURPRISES! (When will someone surprise me with a trip??

I absolutely love the idea of the box delivery with balloons and t shirts. We are going about a month before my DDs 5th birthday and it's the closest we will probably EVER go to her birthday (mama no likey Florida in July!). But, we are driving (split over two days, arriving to FL second day but not going to Dis till the 3rd day). When should I do the box? Before we leave? A week before? Or the day before? I'd. Love to wait for the hotel /we arrive in florida but my DD is into the states and geography so once we got into Florida she would know!

Thoughts?

Our last trip was like that. We drove half-way on May 30th and the other half on May 31st. We checked into Pop and went to Downtown Disney for a while on the 31st. But did not get to MK until June 1st.

I told them 3 days ahead of time. But we had always flown to Orlando before and while we had done driving on trips, we had never done this type of road trip so I wanted to give them time to let it sink in, that we’d be in the van for a long time before we got to Disney.

My daughter is into Geography too. I made her a road trip book. It kind of outlined the plan for getting to Disney. It had a map showing the route between where we live and Disney. Each state we encountered had a section. It started with a picture of the sign at each state line and behind that were coloring sheets and information sheets about each state. I found a picture of the hotel we would be stopping at on the way and put that in with something like “Yay, we are half-way there!” In the Florida section it talked about the Welcome Center because I had plans to stop there.

I also put our planned park days in the book and after that the same details about our trip home. Throughout the book, it also had some lines for her to write down any thoughts she had. She enjoyed it. It became a conversation piece because she could talk to her brother about where we were and it helped him too. I found all of the images I needed using Google. I just copied them into a word document.

 

[mrsgoose8]

Our last trip was like that. We drove half-way on May 30th and the other half on May 31st. We checked into Pop and went to Downtown Disney for a while on the 31st. But did not get to MK until June 1st.

I told them 3 days ahead of time. But we had always flown to Orlando before and while we had done driving on trips, we had never done this type of road trip so I wanted to give them time to let it sink in, that we’d be in the van for a long time before we got to Disney.

My daughter is into Geography too. I made her a road trip book. It kind of outlined the plan for getting to Disney. It had a map showing the route between where we live and Disney. Each state we encountered had a section. It started with a picture of the sign at each state line and behind that were coloring sheets and information sheets about each state. I found a picture of the hotel we would be stopping at on the way and put that in with something like “Yay, we are half-way there!” In the Florida section it talked about the Welcome Center because I had plans to stop there.

I also put our planned park days in the book and after that the same details about our trip home. Throughout the book, it also had some lines for her to write down any thoughts she had. She enjoyed it. It became a conversation piece because she could talk to her brother about where we were and it helped him too. I found all of the images I needed using Google. I just copied them into a word document.

I would love to make a book like this!! i wonder if i can actually crank it out though. LOL!! those are the exact dates we are going- the 30/31 and arriving june1!

 

[jaiminee krikit]

Our last family trip was a 10th birthday/Christmas surprise for my DD. I made a scrapbook of our previous trips and gave it to her last during her family birthday party. She was pleased with just the scrapbook When she got to the end, the last few pages said "When you wish upon a star.... Pack your bags, we leave the day after tomorrow!" It took her a second to realize what it meant, it was great! She was a little disappointed that she was missing the last day of school before winter break, but we had tickets to the last MVMCP on our first day, and she said "I get to party with Mickey instead!"
It was difficult, though. I wanted the trip to be perfect for her, since it was a big trip. I kept asking her things like "Next time we go to Disney, do you want to try this restaurant". I had to be careful, though - BOG opened up right before we got there, and I tried every day, every hour, to get an ADR. All the BOG on my brain, I constantly found myself singing "Be... Our... Guest..." My husband had to point out for me to stop so she wouldn't catch on!
Good luck with your surprise! And have fun!!

 

[ImaDVCwannabe]

I am glad I found this thread. I have been trying to figure out how to tell my kiddos about our trip. We will be there September 16-22. My Aunt will be joining us on our trip and since she lives in Seattle WA and flights were way cheaper there than from our small airport, we made the decision to drive to her house the day before (a four hour car ride) our flight leaves.

I had originally planned to tell them a few days before we left but the day before we leave my ex, my oldest daughters dad is getting married. Our daughter is in the wedding and since we love the soon to be wife I don't want the excitement of the trip to diminish my daughters excitement of the wedding. So now I'm not sure telling her before the wedding is a great idea. I'm also not sure telling my kids the night before we leave is the best choice either

So I guess I'm trying to decide if I should say something before the wedding and not have it be a huge reveal like I wanted or if we should plan to do a huge reveal in the morning before getting in the car and driving to my Aunts house or waiting until we get there so she can be apart of the surprise as well

 

[Altoqueenkelly]

I am glad I found this thread. I have been trying to figure out how to tell my kiddos about our trip. We will be there September 16-22. My Aunt will be joining us on our trip and since she lives in Seattle WA and flights were way cheaper there than from our small airport, we made the decision to drive to her house the day before (a four hour car ride) our flight leaves.

I had originally planned to tell them a few days before we left but the day before we leave my ex, my oldest daughters dad is getting married. Our daughter is in the wedding and since we love the soon to be wife I don't want the excitement of the trip to diminish my daughters excitement of the wedding. So now I'm not sure telling her before the wedding is a great idea. I'm also not sure telling my kids the night before we leave is the best choice either

So I guess I'm trying to decide if I should say something before the wedding and not have it be a huge reveal like I wanted or if we should plan to do a huge reveal in the morning before getting in the car and driving to my Aunts house or waiting until we get there so she can be apart of the surprise as well

In this case I would wait until after the wedding. Maybe just tell the kids you are going to visit Auntie after the wedding... Maybe she can have the surprise for them when you arrive at her house? So they would know about going to Auntie's house and when they get there (wedding would be over) they get the BIG surprise!