We leave in the morning! Best way/place to tell the kids?

[piperett]

Hello everyone! We have been in FL since yesterday staying with family near Disney (about 2 hours away). We are leaving at 6:00am in the morning for Disney World and the kids have NO IDEA! I've done online check-in, and we will be going straight to Pop to drop off our luggage and get our tickets. Our original plan was to just "pull up" at Disney and let them figure it out. My daughter is 6.5 and a very good reader. I know there will be tons of signage along the road and I'm thinking she may figure it out. DH really wants to pull up and "see the castle" and then tell them "We are at DISNEY WORLD!" I don't think this is realistic, so I'm asking for help.

What is the best way to handle this? He doesn't want to sit them on the couch and tell them before we leave in the morning so that's out. I'm afraid if we just let them "figure it out" then I'll miss the whole thing on video. I can't video for an hour in hopes that I catch them at the right time!

Are there any cool Disney-related places we could stop at when we are really close? Maybe we could drop the bomb on them there? Rest stop? Store? etc. I've only been once in my life and I have no recollection of arriving at the park and what leads up to it. HELP!

I'm under a time crunch obviously, since we leave bright and early in the morning. Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated!

 

[RMerrell]

I've never been able to hide a trip from the kids, I always plan everything 90 days out for dinner and hotel 6 months minimum. One year we took my niece for her birthday and woke her up at like 5 am jumping on her bed saying she needed to get in the car we were leaving to go to Disney. There really is no way to hide it, there are billboards on the side of the interstate with Disney trivia, if you can find the electrical tower in the shape of Mickey that's cool too, can't remember if it's coming in on the east or west side we've gone both ways on 193. When you get into Kissimmee there are tons of signs and advertisements before you even get to the entrance that says welcome to Disney plus all the other Disney ads on property before you even reach the huge parking lot before you board monorail to even see Cinderella's castle.

I think for that age something cute like Mickey shaped pancakes that say we're going to Disney. You can tape that. I hope this helps have a great time!

 

[piperett]

Thanks for the idea! We've kept this secret since October. It's been really hard. lol I'm sure it will all fall in to place!