How did you surprise your kids?

[Bob Parr]

Our kids have birthdays a week apart in Nov. and we want to surprise them with a trip to the World in Feb. I'm looking for some clever ideas on how to break the news on their birthdays.

[dealia]

Our first trip to WDW had been postponed many times. So when we were finally able to go we did not want to risk disappointing the kids again. So we gave them a gift to unwrap. In it was a Disney shirt to wear, a custom made autograph book and a WDW travel brochure. At first they were "yeah ok"
Then they realized we were going to go for certain this time. The girls both screamed and asked "when are we going?" (I had secretly packed everyone's thing already) My answer was "Right NOW! I thought the were going to hyper ventilate.
It was a great trip!

[faline]

You might get some ideas from this prior discussion.

[faline]

It was a great trip!

How cool!

Welcome to Intercot!

[ginger19]

We've done it a couple of different ways. One christmas morning the kids woke up to find Mickey ears. They followed the trail to the christmas tree where they found luggage tags, autograph books and a note from Santa on disney letter head.

This past trip I filled a giant box with helium-fillled balloons. When they opened the box, the balloons went everywhere and they had to run around to find the one with their name on it. Each had a message written on it about going to disney. I even surprised DH and had one with his name on it that told him he was going to the Richard Petty experience for his birthday.

[javamama]

The day after my sisters wedding, we asked our 6 and 3 year old if they wanted to go on an airplane ride(I work for an airline). So they so they said where are we going to Disney?? They were screaming and jumping all over our house. For 5 months they had no idea, I was packing for a week they had no idea. It was great to see the joy in there little faces

[MyDisneyworld]

Great ideas. We already booked our next trip for next year and have not told the kids so this will help. We are trying to decide when to tell them but I think we are going to try and wait until the night before if we can hold out that long.

[jonahbear2006]

we waited until we got there. We left a day early and drove to nashville and they were under the impression THAT was the trip. We left at bedtime and told them it was time to go home, they slept until we arrived at Fort Wilderness. I woke them and told them to get out of the car. They looked around, still groggy, and asked what we were doing stopped..I said, "Don't you know where we are?" They had been just once before. Finally a child turned around at just the right time, to see a Disney bus drive by and she said, "ARE WE IN DISNEY!?!" When I said, "yes," they all looked up to the sky and smiled one of the most beautiful smiles I ever have seen on their faces. They got really excited and asked when we were headed to the parks!?! I said, "RIGHT NOW!" It was a hard trip on me to drive like that and go right to animal kingdom but it was so worth It!

[Dreamin' of Disney]

I helped me cousins out with this not so long ago. The kids had already known we were going, so this is a little different, but I bought Disney World authentic Park t-shirts for each of them, and mailed them to them with a letter from Mickey for my boy cousin and a letter from Minnie for my female cousin.

The next week when I saw them they were so excited to show me the 'packages' they got from Mickey and Minnie!

[joonyer]

We picked up our boys, (then 10 & 8) from school on Friday and took them on a "fake" camping trip to Florida. We had only told them that morning we were going camping. We had been doing a lot of tent camping so they didn't think much about it. We had the car already loaded and got all the way to the entrance of WDW before our youngest figured it out from all the road signs. Boy, were they excited. We had a great time "camping" at Wilderness Lodge.

[amorillo]

for my son's 11th b-day... we woke him up in the morning and asked him where he wanted to go to eat for his special day... (it was EARLY) he replied "i don't know" so i suggested "how about Marrakesh????" which was followed by a lot of screaming and yelling!!!


this coming year is my daughter's 13th b-day... we've always taken a 7am flight to MCO... but this year... i'm sending the kids to school like any normal day... then I'm going to have Emma paged to the principal's office (like she's in trouble)... and we'll be headed to the airport!!!! can't wait to see her face!

[princessjojo]

I wish I had enough self-control within me to keep a trip a secret from my kids. But they do all of the planning, within reason, and we do all the paying. I've thought about telling them our coming trip has been cancelled since me and my older DS are headed to Utah & Wyoming a week after we get back from WDW, but I get too excited aobut going...

[mook3y]

This year, we picked our kids 7 & 5 up from school about an hour early and just headed out of town - took about 20 minutes for them to ask what we were doing and we just told them we were going out for dinner.

After about an hour, when we passed the place we usually eat at when we go for a drive, they were "you missed it!"

At that point we told them we were had a surprise and that we were headed for Kansas City.

We checked in to the hotel and let them each pick out brochures of what they wanted to do while we were in town. They spent the better part of the evening deciding where they wanted to go in the morning. they picked the zoo.

so our "zoo" shuttle took us to the airport and boy were the kids confused. lol.

There were like - "this isn't the zoo".

That is when we told them we were flying to Disneyworld for vacation.

The really funny part of all of this was bout 5 weeks prior, my son (7) and I had a conversation that lead to him to declare that he could be trickier than me.......

On the plane, he told me I won.

[mook3y]

While my last post probably wont help you much for your kids birthdays....

While we were at WDW this year, we mailed a post card for another intercotee from mickey and minnie that told them to go look in their cookie jar for a surprise.

They told me that they had put the tickets inside the cookie jar.

I heard back that getting a postcard from mickey and minnie telling them where to look blew the kids away!

People post here pretty often that they are headed to WDW and are willing to send out a post card.

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