Ways to tell the kids

[spectrecat]

We're going on a two week long trip from NM to CA. We'll be spending three full days in Disneyland, and my mom is going to join us for that leg of the trip.

The boys were last in WDW in 2011, so it's been awhile since they've been to a Disney park. We've kept it a secret so far, and we think we'd like to keep it that way for a bit longer.

I'm thinking it would be funny to have my mom "randomly" show up when we check into our hotel since her flight will arrive before we drive in from Arizona. We're staying at the Fairfield, so they will see the parks nearby.

Any creative ideas?

 

[Bud Ice]

Stop by Downtown Disney area for dinner. Have a character showup or just walk to the park.

Disney merchandise or a cake.

 

[ADLFAN]

You have very lucky kids! I would let Grandma spill the beans and maybe surprise them with a Disney stuffed toy and a Rice Krispy treat! Multi generational trips are the best and they will treasure every moment later! Take a million pictures!

 

[Hojoanaheim]

When I was younger I ALWAYS loved when I got to leave school early, even if it was for a doctors appointment. If your ok with this, I think it would be so fun to surprise the kids this way. On the day you leave, have the kids bags packed before you pick them up from school and when they asked why they are leaving early you can tell them "We're going to Disneyland!"

If you don't want to take them out early, you can always just pick them up from school at the regular time and head straight to the airport. Then when they ask "Where are we going?" you can say "We're going to Disneyland!"

No matter how you surprise them, I'm sure they will be very excited!

Have fun!
Kriss

 

[mgd]

You have very lucky kids! I would let Grandma spill the beans and maybe surprise them with a Disney stuffed toy and a Rice Krispy treat! Multi generational trips are the best and they will treasure every moment later! Take a million pictures!

As nice and deserving as some grandmas are, I think they get too much of the good credit already without the bad, so let the parents get the credit for the trip. Having her show up as a surprise is nice though.

 

[spectrecat]

Great ideas!

We homeschool, so while that suggestion is my favorite, it won't work! LOL They know we're going to CA, but they haven't figured out the Disneyland connection.

I'm thinking that maybe my mom could FaceTime them from the downtown Disney area. Or we check in to the hotel, and then just happen to find Nanni when we go over to DTD. I sort of assume they will start to figure things out because we should be driving up to the Fairfield in the afternoon. They are 9 and 8, so they can read, and they will recognize things like Space Mountain. The current plan is to let them know she's going to go to San Francisco with us, which is true, too. I actually mentioned that today when they heard me talking to her about her flight!

This is so much fun to think about!!!

 

[spectrecat]

You have very lucky kids! I would let Grandma spill the beans and maybe surprise them with a Disney stuffed toy and a Rice Krispy treat! Multi generational trips are the best and they will treasure every moment later! Take a million pictures!

She's been with us for WDW in 06 and 09. She's a wonderful woman, and having her tag along is both a hoot and a huge help! (Especially now that we have a toddler!) We'd rather spend Christmas money on trips like this, building relationships and making memories.

 

[DisneyMommy403]

I surprised my then four & five year olds in 2012 by sending them on a Pirate Treasure Hunt. We gave them one map, and they chose who would be the navigator. We then hid clues around the house and the yard, and lead them to the Pirate Chest which was filled with Disney goodies for their trip (ear hats, autograph books, "I'm Going to Disneyland!" shirts)... to open the chest they had to recite a pirate password which was something along the lines of "I help my Mom, I help my Dad, and now I'm going to Disneyland"

They freaked out.

This time I'm going to pretend we're going to school, and pass it, and drive to the airport.

 

[superme80]

I can't keep a secret to save my life. So when DH gave me permission to book our trip I had to tell my boys. I told my oldest, "Guess who is going to Disneyland?" He had no clue. So I took him into the bathroom and told him to look in the mirror. His jaw dropped and he got all excited. We leave soon and he is thrilled.
Back in the dark ages, my parents surprised my sister and I with a trip to Disneyland. They checked us into the hotel under the guise of checking on my grandparent's reservations for their trip. Then she told us to grab our stuff. We were stunned. Then she told us that the next day we were going to Disneyland. We screamed. One of my best memories!

 

[lalasmama]

I have a few ideas... I did a surprise trip for my DD for her 8th birthday.

Originally, I wasn't going to tell her until we were there. I was going to tell her the whole way that we just need to practice each step before we could go to Disneyland... So, we needed to practice Grampy driving us to the airport. And practice printing our boarding passes. And practice TSA. And practice riding the DLRE. And practice checking into the hotel. And practice walking to Disneyland. And practice bag check. And practice giving them our tickets... DD has some special needs, and is easily anxious, so we do a LOT of practicing and walking through things before we do something whole hog, so this wouldn't have set off any alarms for her.

What I ended up doing was giving her a letter from Minnie Mouse with a list of things she needs for a trip to Disneyland (think Mickey ears, Dosmey gift card, entrance tickets). And then she opened gifts of each item. At the end, I asked her to read the list again, and it took her a minute to get what it meant. She didn't really believe me, though, until we were at Disneyland.

I want to do the "picking up from school early" rouse one of these days. Perhaps with one of our grandsons' trips.

I also love the scavenger/hint hunts. Especially once kids are old enough to work together to do it.

 

[spectrecat]

So we were at Target yesterday, and each boy got a tiny Tsum Tsum. We live in a small town without a Disney store or a Target, so this was a novelty. They are seriously thrilled with those little guys.

I think I'm going to order a few more Tsum Tsums and give them to them the morning we drive from Arizona to Anaheim. We are also going to match in Disney dollars the amount they've been earning as spending cash for our "big trip", but obviously we haven't talked about Disney dollars. We could give them the Disney dollars about halfway on the drive, (or the dd first and then the tsum Tsum,) and then we could give them their actual Disney tickets when we're nearing the parks. From there we could either do the thing where my mom happens to show up at the hotel, or we meet her over in the downtown Disney area for a snack or meal.

I have a feeling the Disney Dollars may tip them off, but it's hard to say because they've never used anything like that. If we get the gift card kind, they may just think it's spending money and not for Disneyland. Surprises sometimes work for them, but I won't let it get to a point where they are frustrated...i understand the need to "practice" as mentioned above, and with my 9 year old, we often don't clue him in to our plans until it's about to happen because for him, a change of plans is difficult to work through.

I'm practically giddy just thinking about our trip!!!

 

[Dinohood]

you could have your mom tell the boys she needs help getting around somewhere aka disneyland and that the boys would be perfect for the job.

 

[xlxo]

Heard this on the radio yesterday. It's like I ate all your Halloween candy prank. Tell the kids we are going to Disneyland.... not.

There's some ideas on youtube...

 

[spectrecat]

Heard this on the radio yesterday. It's like I ate all your Halloween candy prank. Tell the kids we are going to Disneyland.... not.

There's some ideas on youtube...

That one was sort of cute. It was different enough than the Halloween candy one which I find mean. (Call me too sensitive, I don't care. I don't think being mean to kids is humorous. I also have an overly sensitive kiddo, and causing him pain is not okay.) But this one was more like a surprise!

 

[luulu1999]

I think you should def tell them before you get to the area and they figure it out on their own, our last trip the kids knew we were going just didn't really know when, so they went to their nanas that morning I got everything ready and packed in the car then their dad came home from work and while he was getting a shower and changing I went to get the kids and said are you guys ready to go to Disneyland we are leaving right now...they were really excited!

 

[Delilah1310]

I don't mean to be a horribly negative person here, but I do want to add a bit of caution about the "surprise" reveal.

Could have been DS's age - he was in kindergarten at the time - but we showed up one day after school and said "guess what, we're going to DL .. and we leave right now!"
He was very confused about how did we pack for him, how could we possibly fly there without tickets ... when we got there, he was very unsure what to make of it all that night and the whole next day (we had been before, so it was not his first trip).
He just wasn't himself that first night and next day because he was having trouble processing the whole thing ... I think it was maybe too overwhelming of a whirlwind for him.
Plus he seems to like to plan ... to talk about it, to pick which rides he wants to start each day with ... It seems to feel more real to him to be involved in all that leads up to the trip.

You know your kids best, obviously, but I just wanted to suggest that perhaps surprises aren't for everyone.

 

[Davin_Felth]

Now you have me concerned. Our plan has been to wake the kids up early Saturday morning, set them on our bed, then let them know we have a fun day planned and we have to get going (we need to be leaving by 5AM). We're going to give them new Disney shirts for them to wear that day as their clue. DS is 4 (5 in January), DDs are 6 and 10.

I don't think they'll be too confused about how we packed. We're moving soon, so we already grabbed their "summer" clothes to pack up and talked about taking them to pack for the April trip they know about.

 

[TalkDisnerdytome]

Suprise them with Disneyland then when you get to Disneyland suprise them with Grandma. Maybe have dinner somewhere either in the park or at DTD or near by and have your mom show up at the table before you start to order or have her waiting at the table for when you get there. On your way to Disneyland maybe stop at a landmark a couple cities away to take a picture of the kids and right before taking the picture say, " Smile you're going to Disneyland!" (or something like that) Then take the picture to get their reactions.

 

[spectrecat]

I think the surprise really depends on the child. We tried to surprise them last month with a weekend trip that we'd talked about, but they didn't remember. They hated the suspense, and it ended up being frustrating, especially for ds1. We won't let that happen again, despite everything being totally fine when we arrived, and he's not upset about it anymore.

DS1 does well when he's prepared, but when plans change, he can struggle with a transition in the plan.

I think we've settled on telling them the evening before or the morning of our drive there. We're seeing the Grand Canyon and some other sights in AZ first, and I'd rather them not just be wishing for Disney while having the opportunity to enjoy these other places. (We camp frequently... they do love State Parks, but it's not Disney! Lol) We're going to have Disneyland casually brought up in conversation, and say something like, "how about we go tomorrow/today?" We'll figure out the grandma surprise once we get there. Honestly, some of my excitement before a trip to WDW was just anticipating it, so it might be nice to let them have those feelings before we actually arrive in Anaheim.

 

[NewbieMouse]

I would just say to keep it a secret as long as you can. We have done this twice for DLR, and once for DLP. For DLR, once I told them before we went to the airport, and another time when we were in close by (already in California). We stopped for lunch at a Burger King or something like that and told them then - "Disneyland is down the street - Let's go!". At DLP we were actually in the room at Sequoia Lodge, and it wasn't until they looked out the window and saw the park in the distance, they were like, "That kinda looks like Space Mountain...". I am also keeping our spring WDW trip a surprise. We are going to Houston first and when we go back to the airport, we'll just tell them we're going to Orlando instead of going home.

My advice would be to tell them as close to actually going there as possible. Surprising them is so fun.