To Surprise or Not Surprise?

[Princess Leia Fan]

4 days til check-in and my 3 (10,9,6) won't know until well after we leave the house on the way there

 

[kristinradico]

We LOVE to surprise our kids with vacations. The look on their faces are priceless!! We are planning to go in June 2014. We talk about Disney all the time so we will continue to do that. On the last day of school, we are going to leave right from picking them up from school. We take a lot of road trips so they won't question it that much. We're only going to play their favorite Disney movies on the drive there to get everyone in the Disney mood (and to see if they can figure it out). We aren't going to tell them until we can point out the Disney World sign when we arrive!!

 

[Pesky]

I think it depends on your 4YO's personality. There are kids who do great with surprises and kids who don't. My DD is one who can roll with the punches. DS is more a planner. That said, yes, we are surprising them, but I have been prepping them (mainly DS) more than I would have otherwise by showing youtube ride videos to gauge interest and increase interest, talking over and over again about how I need to see that they ahve good manners and can wait in line to go to DLR or WDW and so on. We are surprising them first with the fact we'll go to the ILs for Christmas (in SoCal), then they will discover they are first going to another local amusement park (which is the key reason for not telling them about Disney -- I worry it would ruin the other park because it's NOT DLR), and only when we drive up to the hotel will they discover they are going to DLR for 4 days. I think you need to gauge your DD's ability to handle surprises and also your guys' ability to keep a surprise! That's the toughest part now! FYI, this will likely be the one and only surprise trip because as they age, I think it will be better to have them as part of the planning.

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

We've done both. Our boys first trip we told them, but they didn't fully comprehend what a trip to Disney meant. The following year we surprised them. We did a countdown chain but only told them we were counting down to a big surprise. Then we told them we were just going to Florida. We drove into Downtown Disney and they saw the Mickey buses.

Our sons have told us that they don't want to be surprised again, but we are. If I told them about our upcoming trip they would drive me crazy talking about it.

We are going to pick them up early at school. Our plan is to meet them in the hallway on their way to lunch. We'll have a big sign that says "We're going to Disney!" I think they'll be so excited that they won't care that we didn't tell them.

I gosh I would HATE being surprised like that. That sounds like more a nightmare for me.

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

We LOVE to surprise our kids with vacations. The look on their faces are priceless!! We are planning to go in June 2014. We talk about Disney all the time so we will continue to do that. On the last day of school, we are going to leave right from picking them up from school. We take a lot of road trips so they won't question it that much. We're only going to play their favorite Disney movies on the drive there to get everyone in the Disney mood (and to see if they can figure it out). We aren't going to tell them until we can point out the Disney World sign when we arrive!!

How long is the drive? I can't imagine 15 hours of "where are we going?"

 

[disneymom53009]

I am fortunate my husband works for a hotel that shuttles back and forth to the airport, it's a regular thing for my kids to go on rides with him to see the planes when he is working , so we planned to pick them up early from school and say we're going to pick up daddy from work and when they get to go on the shuttle ride everything will be packed in the shuttle and when they open the door were gonna have their carry on bags for the plane and balloons with Mickey on them. I have 9 days left the anticipation is killing me lol!!!!

 

[TillyDe]

I love reading all of these surprise ideas.
I am planning on a surprise for my Grandson when he is either 4 or 5 years old. I am a big planner (he is 20 months now). My daughter thinks I am nuts. Oh well.
We are kind of lucky on this one. We (my daughter and I) will tell my Grandson that we are going to see his Grandpa in Orlando. We will be driving and we will make the reveal that morning when he wakes up at the hotel in the northern part of Florida. We will tell him before we go to see his Grandpa, we are spending 6 days with the mouse. His Dad will not be going and will not know due to he has a big mouth.

 

[Ashlander]

We loved surprising our kids! It was a lot easier surprising them when they were younger. I would go with the surprise. She will love it and the reaction is priceless. We have surprised our kids twice and they love being surprised. We are planning our trip now for November and decided to tell the kids so they could help plan - even though I have most of the planning done already

 

[Autumnslight]

We're surprising our three and six year olds with a trip in a week an a half. We really wanted to surprise them, only partly because they would drive us nuts if they knew ahead of time. However, we didn't think they'd really "get" the surprise, since they've never been to Disney World and don't know much about it. So, we started watching more Disney movies, and making casual comments like "Oh, I hear you can have breakfast with Stitch at Disney World", or "You can actually visit Cinderella's castle at Disney World." Those comments lead to more questions from the kids, and then we end up watching YouTube videos, and talking about what we'd like to do "if" we can go to Disney World "someday."

This strategy has worked pretty well, in that the kids definitely want to go to Disney World now, and they have a pretty good idea of what's there and what they'd like to do. But, they don't think we're going any time in the near future. Any time they ask to go, we tell them "Hopefully someday, maybe in a couple of years." I can't wait to see their faces next week when we pick them up early from school to go to the airport!

Clearly I'm a fan of surprising kids, but it definitely depends on the individual child's personality.

 

[Gracie09]

We tell the kids that we are going after they turn five but not the actual day. So they can help planning but will sleep the night before.