When do you tell your kids?

[tbhh1234]

Our trip is 6 mos away. I think this is too soon to tell my kids, age 7 & 4. That is just too long of a wait. However, I would like to tell them at some point so we can do a countdown & I can prepare them for some things about the trip...such as flying for the first time. Lol. Can anyone recommend an appropriate time to start our countdown??

 

[puffkin]

DS8 is a 15+ trip veteran. We never tell him in advance. We usually just pick him up from school and head to the airport from there. It isn't that I want some huge "surprise" reaction, its just easier for us. We are so busy in regular life that I don't really feel the need for countdowns or anything like that. Time flies fast enough as it is for us. As for the planning, he knows we go often so he just mentions things on the fly about stuff he wants to do the next time we go to Disney. I make a mental note and try to incorporate some of that into our plans. I know my kids and my tolerance for things like this though and they would DRIVE ME CRAZY if they knew more than a few days in advance. It works for us.

 

[scrappinginontario]

My 5yo DD and I go to Disney a couple of times each year and she loves to be part of the planning so she knows pretty much from the start.

This year I surprised her with our first cruise and chose to wait and tell her about one month before we left. It was perfect!! She asked questions, made a countdown chain, looked at things about our ship, etc.

I love that we have fun anticipating our trips together!! Our next one is still more than 3 months away but she excitedly crosses days off her countdown calendar! We watch videos on YouTube (Disney Parks are our favourites) and talk about our trip. It's a daily part of our conversations and I love that!

Since all if this will be new to your kiddos including flying, I think you'd want to help them prepare and get excited too! One month out worked perfectly for us earlier this year!

 

[mommommom]

In the past we've let them know 6 months in advance, 2-3 weeks in advance, and for this trip, 4 days in advance. My kids are ages 13 and 10 now.

So far, the shortest notice has been my favorite. A few days to put their input in on what they want to do, but it definitely added to the element of surprise that we'd be at WDW in 4 days. I have never seen them so excited about a trip, and it was a lot of fun. Then again, my kids aren't as interested in the planning process, although they do like to chime in on things they'd like to do.

The downside for us was that it was hard to keep it a secret, and for you, you might miss out on doing a countdown and preparing them for the flight. Letting them know a few weeks in advance might be better your family.

Good luck!

 

[worm761]

Our trip is 6 mos away. I think this is too soon to tell my kids, age 7 & 4. That is just too long of a wait. However, I would like to tell them at some point so we can do a countdown & I can prepare them for some things about the trip...such as flying for the first time. Lol. Can anyone recommend an appropriate time to start our countdown??

It depends on the kids. I told DS18 with at least a few months. First, he doesn't like surprises and would not have been capable of processing them that quickly. He has Asperger's. Second, we always walked lots before a trip to get our stamina up.

Now, we did make the mistake of telling DD4 WAY too early. Now she is asking constantly when we will be going since she doesn't really know months yet.

I think that I am going to put together some family nights. Once a week do a dinner (there is a thread here for ideas) and an activity or two and watch a Disney movie. I am going to wrap/box the needed supplies so she has a visual of how many more Disney family nights we have to go before out trip. We leave 8 weeks from this coming Sunday.

 

[Gracie09]

We tell them a time frame when they are going. This trip when we started planning we told them they were going after they turned five. They turn five over the summer and we go in September. They doing get a specific date ( more because I need them to sleep the night before) so the morning of we wake them up with it's Disney day!
This way they get to help plan some of it but it's still kind of surprising

 

[branv]

We haven't taken DS for his first trip yet. But we are planning to take him when he is about 2.5. If I could, is probably tell him a month out and ramp up the park videos, themed dinner/movie nights, countdown, etc. Except we have a family member who notoriously seems to think it's okay to invite himself on other people's trips (seriously, when his brother and wife went on their romantic 20th anniversary trip to San Diego he was peeved, saying, "I wish they'd told me they were going. I would have liked to have gone too!" ), and worse expects you to conform to his demands. He even wants to share your room. . Anyway, as a result we hide trips from him. And since goodness knows a 2.5 year old will rat you out in a heart beat, we won't tell DS until a week out. On the plus side that also means only 6 days of, "When are we leaving" on repeat.

 

[MandiC]

We told our then 7 and 9 year olds a month in advance and that was pretty much perfect. For me part of the fun is the anticipation and a month isn't *too* long but they have some time to prepare.
I actually think I will tell them about our next trip a little more in advance so they can help pick FP+ and have some input on which parks and what meals we do. At least with our older kids, might make temh keep the surprise from the little ones until closer to the trip. Time passes a lot slower for a 5 year old than a 10 year old

 

[kiramay]

My kids have known since I booked (10 months before the trip). Around 7 months I started asking about what they liked and disliked about our last trip, and got input on dining. At 6 months I made our ADRs with their input and got all the places we wanted to eat. We have a lot going on now so we don't talk about it as much, but occasionally we'll look at ride YouTube videos. I'm pretty much done planning until August when I do fast passes. I'll want to make sure we hit their favorite rides.

 

[tbhh1234]

I let them watch some of the planning DVD & said we might plan a trip one day...far in the future when they were much older. Their favorite part were the water parks & hopefully staying in a little mermaid room. Oops. We are going in Dec & even though we originally booked a LM room at AoA, I just switched it in favor of the more 'Christmasy' WL. So, using their planning tips hasn't worked out so far. Lol. None of us have ever been so I'm not sure they would have any other input. I will shoot for telling them a month out from our trip. That way I can do a 30 day countdown & prepare them for the flight & maybe some rides. I only have to keep the secret for 5 more months! Oh my...gonna be tough! Thanks for your help!

 

[pigletgirl]

I've always thought it would be cool to tell then when it was time to book FP+. I think 60 days out is plenty of time to get them excited, but it also isn't 180 days away either.

 

[pad406]

The first time we told them about 2 weeks out. As they didn't know any better there was no worries over the planning. After that we talk about Disney a lot as a family so I always know what they like so next time we decided a real surprise. We went to NYC for a long weekend and when they thought we were flying home we flew to Orlando instead. That was fun. This time we're going real bad. We'll probably tell them 2 weeks before we go but only that we're going to Disney for a week. As we have a 3 split stay, each time we move they'll think we're going home. We'll just drive into a different hotel. The only hard part is when we actually have to go home

 

[dreamit]

I told my dd(7) about seven months in advance of our upcoming trip (her first). She has the Birnbaum Disney World Guide WDW for Kids book, and really enjoys being a part of the planning process, and I don't think she'd do well with a last-minute surprise. Though, I'm keeping many aspects of the trip a surprise. There have been times, such as leading up to ADR day, that I'm frequently having discussions with her about the trip, but at other times I try really hard to not discuss the trip with her for weeks at a time. I want her to enjoy the present without wishing away time. When it gets to maybe two weeks out, I'll start some type of countdown with her.

 

[chewysmom]

Our first trip was in 2012. Dd was 12 and ds was 7. They knew we were going before the end of the year (we went in Nov-1st week of Dec.) but they had no idea when-until we woke them up that morning and said "We're going to Disneyworld!!!!" Their reactions were *priceless* and exactly what I hoped would happen.

I loved doing it that way b/c I could still get their input on things like where to eat, what to do, etc-but they still had no idea *when*. It was hard to contain *my* excitement though. There were so many times I wanted to yell out a countdown. (That trip was 5+ years in the making!)

This time, they've known about this trip since last October. They are now 13 (soon to be 14) and 9. They don't bug me about when or anything-they're old enough to figure out when. We do talk about our plans daily though, so that probably helps. It will be nice this time b/c now we can take our time packing and I don't have to hide anything.

Depending on your kids, I would probably wait until the 45 day mark, or even 30 days before. That's enough time for the excitement to build, but not so long that they can't understand when.

 

[imthemamahere]

Obviously, you know how your kids handle things best. For my son (almost 5), he likes the countdown/anticipation - for him, the building excitement as a trip gets closer is part of the joy. I think he'd be disappointed if we surprised him with a trip, no advance notice. But at this age, too long a countdown is "FOREVER!!!" and would just lead to frustration for him and me both.

The last time we went (when he was 3 1/2), we told him a bit less than 3 weeks before. Then together, we made a paper chain (with Disney themed activities I'd pre-selected written inside), and we began our countdown. He was happy to tear off a chain link every morning, and the visible reminder of how long we had left helped keep him from asking me, every hour on the hour, how much longer until we went.

For our upcoming trip, he'll be 5. I intend to tell him about a month before. I'm sure he'll want to do a countdown again, and we'll do some Disney "research" together to choose must-do activities in the parks, brush up on a few favorite movies, do a few crafts, etc, to while away the days until our departure.

For us, that's what works. I hope you find the "right" time to tell your kids, and they enjoy the anticipation, too!

 

[Disneymomma0783]

We almost always tell the kids as soon as it's booked! Our next trip will be oct 2015 and we are telling them at Christmas. I'm sure many will think that's cruel and unusual since it's such a long ways off but my soon (8) loves the anticipation! DD (2) will be excited but won't care about the wait. What we are doing though is telling them we leave a week later than we actually are! So we will have the countdown on, and they will goto sleep thinking "one more week!" But we will really be waking them up @2am to head to the airport!

 

[Gumbo4x4]

We always tell our kids where we're thinking of going on vacation before we book anything. If the trip is all about them, as it often is, we want to make sure we don't spend our $$$$ on something that doesn't interest them.

 

[BuzzinDownToDisney]

My DS3 knows we are going on vacation to Florida, he associates this with our trip down to visit my snow bird parents every year. So he's already excited about the plane, trip everything else. Beyond that we're gonna let him figure it out for himself once we get there, but we'll sneak some hints before we go like "Accidentally" leaving the planning DVD on the TV or "accidentally" leaving the Magic Bands in eyesight.

 

[Minnesota!]

We have done both the "I booked a trip for next year...here is when we are going" and the "surprise, it's 3am and we are going to WDW RIGHT NOW!" and my kids ABSOLUTELY love the surprise more. They beg me to surprise them now. This last trip, it was my birthday and so I told them we were going out to breakfast super early to celebrate. We went to a diner at 4am, had breakfast, and then gave them the MagicBands. They FREAKED! I absolutely love doing that.

I told them we are not going back till next year and they promised me to not tell them the exact date - wake them up with the surprise that morning

 

[Crl1817]

We have only been once. Ds was seven and dd was seven months. Obviously it didn't matter with dd. I honestly can't remember when we told ds. We definitely told him ahead of time and we showed him YouTube videos of a bunch of the rides to see which ones he wanted to go on.

This time we are planning on a surprise. It will the their Christmas present. I think we will have them open an "early" present with tshirts and autograph books the day before we leave. We are doing it this way in part because dd is now four but really bad at time and she would ask us multiple times every single day, driving all of nuts. Ds likes surprises so I think he will be very excited to find out the day before. We also have the quirk that dh's work is unpredictable and it is always possible we will have to cancel the trip. If that happens at least it will only be the parents who are disappointed.

If it weren't for the cancellation concern and dd's lack of time related skills, I would probably go for about a month out. Enough time for the kids to help plan something, and to do a count down calendar and all that. But not so far out that it gets old or feels like it is taking over the everyday fun stuff.