Surprise the kids???

[FaithTrustPixieDust]

I have never, ever, EVER been able to pull off the "surprise kids, we're going to Disney" stunt. Probably because DH and get so excited about the planning, we just can't help but talk about it with the kids.

It has been a few years since our last visit, and we just booked a spring break trip to WDW. The kids are not expecting it anytime soon. I'm wondering if we can possibly keep our mouths shut and pull off the surprise this time. We could tell them at Christmas, but that's still 3 mos til the trip. DD's bday is 2 weeks before the trip, but we don't want DS to feel like the trip is just for her. . . .

Do any of you creative geniuses have ideas/suggestions for me?

[faline]

You might want to search on this topic Folks report a variety of creative ways in which they've surprised their kids from getting the kids to believe they're heading to a different destination to dropping someone else off at the airport.

[sara114]

I bet we can come up with a 'wild' way to surprise the kids.....what are their ages? What time of the day will you be leaving? are you driving or flying?

#1 - Have a friend place a phone call stating that an emergency has occurred and need you to take them to the airport....thus "friend" can drive your vehicle back or friend needs picked up at airport (have suitcases in vehicle already to go)

#2 - Have fake sweepstakes "winner" letter delivered that you have won a trip to (??????) and includes entire family !

#3 - Have balloon bouquet delivered with card notifying everyone they are going to WDW. (disney balloons of course )

Give me more information, and I will come up with somemore

[LittleRoosMommy]

We have surprised our DDs a couple of times with trips to WDW. 2 years ago, we had planned a trip to WDW for Christmas.... the weekend before we were to leave, our DDs woke up to find their "wishing boxes" under the tree. ( We got the idea for wishing boxes from The Little Einsteins Christmas episode when oldest DD was just 1). Anyway, usually when they find their wishing boxes, they make a wish for something and then it magically appears at some point between then and Christmas Day.... This particular year, there was a letter with their boxes from Santa and Mickey! Once oldest DD, 5 at the time, read the letter to her little sister, 3 at the time.... they opened their boxes to find personalized t-shirts, autograph books, etc.... inside! Needless to say, they were soooo excited!!

Our most recent trip this past October, we decided to surprise the girls again. Since they are older, I decided to set up a scavenger hunt. I gave them their first clue and they went from there gathering clues all over the house. On the back of each clue was a letter. Once they had collected all of the clues, they had to use the letters to spell out the words "Walt Disney World". It didn't take them very long to put it all together!! They had a blast running around the house trying to figure out the next clue!!

They had so much fun w/ the scavenger hunt, that they've asked us to do it again!!

Hope you have fun surprising your kids!! Although it is soooooo hard to keep the secret, there's nothing better than to see their little faces light up with excitement when they find out their surprise!! Good luck and have fun!!!!

[disneyfan328]

I have posted a couple of times on this as we are surprising the kids for the 3rd time with a trip. This year its a xmas surprise. They will be getting a box from "Santa" filled with helium balloons and a banner announcing their trip. also in the box will be autograph books, shirts, stuff for the trip etc.

we have also done a disney themed dinner where everthing I served had hidden mickeys in it (pizza's placed on the table in the shape of a mickey head, cucumbers and tomoatoes in the salad placed to look like mickeys, chocolate chip cookies baked in mickey head shapes - after dinner we sat down to watch a movie ( a disney flick of course!) and a box was delivered which held a letter and stuff for the trip inviting them to Disney

in 2009 we were going at the beginning of May so we surprised them on easter. I printed up a picture that I had taken at Disney and had printed on it "The magic awaits you in May" at an online photo store (not sure I can name it on here) but its a major retailer's site. I had them print up the picture as a puzzle and then I split the puzzle pieces up inthe various easter eggs. Once they found all the eggs during the hunt they set out to work on the puzzle! it was a great way to surprise them and they still talk about all of the surprises.

when we tell them this year at xmas we are telling them we are leaving on jan 8th but we are really leaving on the 6th so we are going to surprise them twice! Good luck with whatever you decide!

[tinxmom]

i think we have "surprised" our kids every time we have gone although we do the surprise well ahead of time because we all really enjoy the anticipation of a Disney trip. We makea paper chain with the number of days until we leave and hang it from the kitchen ceiling. Every morning a different kid gets to take a link off and it is so thrilling to watch it get smaller and smaller until there is one paper loop left and we are leaving the next day!

We have broken the news by surprisepersonalized Mickey Ears in boxes hidden around the house with clues, put"magical" messages in fortune cookies, given them a handmade puzzle message that they had to decipher, etc.

SOOOO much fun to see their excitement (and my kids are older teens now and still go nuts when they get surprised with an upcoming Disney trip!)

[FaithTrustPixieDust]

Wow. I am blown away by your ideas so far. Someone asked for more detail, so here goes:
Kids will be 9 and 11.
We will be flying.
Likely leaving one day before spring break starts.
Likely will pick them up from school and head straight to the airport.

Keep the ideas rolling in! Thanks!

[DisneyDog]

We are going over spring break and also surprising DS9. We surprised him last time, and got him all the way to Orlando before we told him. My mom lived in Florida at the time, so we just told him we were going to visit mommom and he never thought twice about it. We pretty much have to surprise him, because if we tell him now, he won't sleep between now and April. I'm toying with ways of surprising him at that time.

We aren't just doing Disney. We will also be doing Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Kennedy Space Center. I'm thinking of gathering a bunch of little items that represent each park and putting them in a box for him to open that day, and figure it out like a puzzle. I can't wait!

[azcavalier]

We surprised them once, and we gave them each a small suitcase. In the suitcase were clues (not hard clues) as to why they get the suitcases. It took them a minute to figure it out, but then they were excited! It was the only time we've ever done it.

Has anyone on here seen the YouTube video where the Mom surprises her daughter that they're going to Disneyland that afternoon, and when the little girl realizes it's not a joke, she just starts sobbing? It's heartwarming, and kinda funny. Just search for Lily's Disneyland Surprise on YouTube.

[disneyfan328]

@ op - my kids are also 9 & 11 although they will have birthdays right before we go! This is the perfect age to do a scavenger hunt or the fortune cookies thing. I am sure you can pull off something. Give it a try - you'll be amazed at just how much more excite there is when you know something they don't and then seeing the looks on their faces is absolutley priceless!!

[Trev&Ev Mom]

Wow. I am blown away by your ideas so far. Someone asked for more detail, so here goes:
Kids will be 9 and 11.
We will be flying.
Likely leaving one day before spring break starts.
Likely will pick them up from school and head straight to the airport.

Keep the ideas rolling in! Thanks!

We surprised our boys this past March. My husband started talking about a "business trip" a few weeks in advance. I packed the bags ahead of time. The morning of the trip, we sent them to school as usual and told them my husband was going into work later because he had an appointment close to home first. We picked up my older son first (11) and told him that Dad got called to go on the business trip today and that I was taking him to the airport to say goodbye and then bringing him back to class. We then picked up my younger son (7) who demanded to know why he was being called down to the school office at 11am. We told them flat out "because we're taking you to WDW for ESPN Weekend"!!! My 7 year old didn't believe us. He kept asking "Really??". My 11 year old actually cried!! The school secretaries were crying...it was hysterical!! They went home, quickly changed into football jerseys and off to the airport we went! It was an amazing surprise. All of their teachers and coaches knew, but we were able to keep it a secret for months! Good luck!!

[bshaw96]

We did a surprise trip once. Left the last day of school. We told the kids we were going to the beach for the week, which is why we were packing. It is about 2 hours to the beach, and about an hour to our airport. Luckily, at the time, they had no sense of direction. When we "got lost" and ended up at the airport, we told the kids we were gonna get out and wait for daddy to park the car so we could get directions. Then he walks in with our luggage and we tell em it's time to fly to Disney, priceless

[iheartdisney]

There is a thread in Mousellaneous about "Mickey Mail - Pay it Forward." People who are traveling to Disney in the very near future will send you a postcard from the parks. We did this for our last trip. A dear, sweet Intercotee sent my boys each a postcard "from" Mickey and Donald telling them how excited they were to see them in just a few weeks. When they got the mail and realized we were going they were hopping up and down and could barely contain themselves. I acted like Mickey and Donald had ruined the surprise. They thought that was so funny - that mom's surprise got ruined by her favorite pals. A memorable way to surprise them for sure!

[MonkeyBaby]

Here's how we did it on Christmas Day...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Bxl...caAUAAAAAAAAAA

and we were afraid the box wouldn't last until they opend it

-Dave

[disneyfan328]

how do I post a you tube link like that?

http://youtu.be/xk6mJchPU64 lets see if this works

If this works its the video of us surprising our kids on Christmas!

[joonyer]

We always drive to WDW and one year we just told the boys we were going "camping" (which we did a lot of anyway) in Florida, and had the car already loaded when we picked them up from school. They didn't figure it out for sure (although they were suspicious) until we went past the signs going into WDW property. Boy, were they excited and surprised when we arrived at WDW and "camped" at Wilderness Lodge. That was a fun, fun trip.