when to tell the kids?

[juliebug]

ok, so we are planing our first Disney trip! My husband soo wants to tell the kids at christmas with a big box saying we are going. but i think omg no way they will then have to wait 10months! we are going oct 27th-Nov 2nd 2012! by the way the kids are 7 and 10.

so would you tell your kids 10 month in advance?? i would like to tell them on my sons birthday. That is Aug 10th so that would be 3 months before we leave.

 

[Emilylou]

We are also planning our 1st ever Disney trip for the fall 2012. our kids will be 9 and 7. We don't plan on telling them until the morning we leave.
if we did tell the sooner I will 3 months would be a good time. 10 months for kids is a long time.

 

[pad406]

10m, no way they'd drive us mad last year we told them about 10 days out and that worked well for us (similar age kids). Next year we're doing a 3 day stay in NY first and don't plan to tell them at all. Just wait and see when they figure out its Orlando not Dublin the flight is going to

 

[LuLuO]

I made the mistake of telling the kids about a year out and they drove me crazy asking every day if we were going to see Mickey today. This time we are telling them the morning we leave just in case there is some horrible storm or illness that causes us to postpone.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I definitely wouldn't tell on just one child's birthday, when the trip is for both. I could see more problems stemming from that than from telling them early.

DS has known about a couple of trips pretty far in advance, and actually likes being part of the planning - so if IS their Christmas gift, money-wise, I would tell. They are both old enough to understand the calendar.

But if it's not really their Christmas gift, you could certainly wait. You could tell them at Easter, or even on the last day of school.

When DS was around 2nd grade, we had a paper chain in which every 7th day was a different color, so at first we counted weeks until our trip, then days. Something like that might help, too.

 

[gillenkl]

Neither choice - I'd probably do it the day before we left or the morning of. Considering it's your first trip - ten months is too far out - they will drive you nuts - and just to tell one child on their birthday isn't fair to the other child.

We only did one surprise trip and we gave them each a surprise box in the car - it had a tshirt that said "We're on our way to Disney World" and then a "ticket" for our resort stay.

 

[sewnmomma]

We leave in 2 weeks,haven't told GS yet.He has no idea what WDW is really like as this is his first trip. DD & SIL plans are all to get on plane only telling him they are going on a adventure. They all leave in AM, my DH & I leave later in afternoon. They plan on hanging around resort or DTD. We will al meet for breakfast next morning. He has no idea we will be there.After breakfast we go to AK for the day( he loves animals) So far these are the plans unless DD gives it away.

 

[juliebug]

Thanks everyone it's not really there christmas present i already have all those i might do it between their birthdays. that way they can help plan some their birthdays are 30 days apart plus i was going to give them disney gift cards for their birthdays! hopefully this will help my hubby understand to just wait dang it! he wanted to tell them 3 weeks ago at 1 year out ahhhhh

 

[Alesia]

I'm with your husband, but then again I think the anticipation is the best part. My daughter knew about 14 months in advance. I felt like if I waited to tell her that I would be robbing her of most of the fun.

 

[bjscheel]

A couple of months out would be good. For first timers, I would not do morning-of. I think first-timers need that time ahead to talk about it and learn about it. And, planning and anticipating is a big part of the fun!

My girls usually know months ahead of time. They know now that Disneyland is in the works for June 2013. But for their 4th WDW trip, we told them at 10 days out (we didn't decide to go until 5 weeks out) and that was a nice length of time for kids that already know all about it.

 

[rt2dz]

Neither choice - I'd probably do it the day before we left or the morning of. Considering it's your first trip - ten months is too far out - they will drive you nuts - and just to tell one child on their birthday isn't fair to the other child.

We only did one surprise trip and we gave them each a surprise box in the car - it had a tshirt that said "We're on our way to Disney World" and then a "ticket" for our resort stay.

I agree with this, especially the bolded part (bolding mine).

We do every couple of trips as a surprise. This one wasn't, and I'm very sorry about that. While my kiddos have enjoyed the planning parts, especially now that they are getting older, the surprise ones have always been the best ones because there were no expectations at all.

 

[Celidh]

I agree with a pp that anticipation is important to kids. I think they deserve the excitement and the chance to brag to friends.

I would loved to have "dropped the bomb" at the last minute but my kids are old enough, i thought they deserved to help plan and also, they had a chance to save money. I planned on buying them a hat, tshirt, hoodie and one toy (it was a first trip and they may never make it back). They were told that anything else they wanted was up to them.

My partner and I told them about 3 or 4 months out. That gave them the summer to save. My younger son, 11, told me that part of him wished I had waited to tell him because it was torture waiting. He also said he sort of wished we had surprised them at the last minute. I would have loved to do that, just wake them up and say, "lets go" but there is no way I could have packed all their clothes without them knowing!

There's my 2 cents and my son's too.

Good luck.

 

[luvmy2babies]

If you were simply going to say "On our next vacation we're going to Disney World," and they wouldn't drive you up a wall and they'd help plan, 3/4 of a year out might be okay. If you plan to make a big deal out of revealing the trip, I'd definitely do it closer to the date. I'd do a big reveal at Christmas if I had a trip planned for like February or something similar. But really I'd do it closer than 3 months. For a fall trip, you might have a "back to school" party with just your family…do something fun to end the summer, then announce the trip, give them each a Disney themed gift to give them something to look forward to and maybe some motivation to start the school year off well.

For my daughter's first trip, I put a huge display of Disney stuff (mostly princess stuff) on the couch and when she got home from a play date, I brought her in with her eyes closed until she was in front of it and then revealed it. In the middle was a note from Princess Tiana saying she was looking forward to meeting her. We left the next day.

With my child I can't do anything that will take her attention off of school. If we're going somewhere during the school year, I do a couple of week's notice if it isn't big like when we spent spring break at the beach. We went to Orlando last month for a Sea World trip for her fall break. She had a Thursday and Friday off and I picked her up from school an hour early that Wednesday. When she was walking to the van she said, "it would have been nice if we could take a vacation even though this break is short." When she closed her sliding door (we have a minivan) there was a sign that read "You are going to Sea World." That was how she found out. We went to the airport from there.

My daughter already knows about our trip in June, but that is mainly because there is a big cruise being planned that a lot of people from our church will likely be going on and I decided we would not be going. I don't want her to hear about it and think we aren't doing anything. I figured she might want to help plan but other than telling me she wants all the same character meals again and wants to dress up and be a princess, she won't talk about it much. When I mention it she will answer whatever question I have about what she wants to do when we go back but prefers not to talk about it because of how far away it is.