Going to WDW over one child's b-day but not the other.

[TandyR]

My husband and I have been talking about going to WDW for 11 days in Feb. of 2004. It would be over our youngest 4th birthday. It is unlikely that we will ever go to WDW over my oldest b-day because hers is in July and we Mainers can't do FL in July. I thought it would be ok, but a friend of mine said don't you think that is unfair to your oldest. Now it is getting me a little worried that it isn't fair. What do you all think? My friend seems to think going to WDW on your b-day would be heaven to a little kid, but I don't even know if we would do anything special except get a cake or something. My oldest doesn't seem to care as long as she gets to go to sea world and feed dolphins and go to one of the Kids Clubs at WDW. So I think I am worrying for no reason, but I was wondering what other people thought.

thanks

 

[crisi]

I think there is a big difference between being in Disney over one child's birthday and not the other and going to Disney to celebrate one child's birthday but not the other.

I also think there is a lot of difference in how families choose to celebrate birthdays. If you are a big birthday family and were going to turn your daughter into a princess at Disney for her birthday, that wouldn't be fair. But you sound like you are probably little birthday people.

Keep your daughters birthday celebration at Disney low key - save the presents for home, and I don't think its a problem.


(I'm come from a little birthday family - my husband is from a big birthday family - causes more strife in our household than the religion differences)

 

[ABCMom]

We almost always go to Disney in early June and hit my middle child's birthday. Like you we will most likely never travel there during one of the other kids birthday's. It has never been a problem. Although the oldest has said "I wish we could go to Disney for my birthday." He knows that in the middle of the school year it just isn't going to happen. We always eat somewhere special at WDW for the birthday but we always have the party, cake and presents with the family before we leave or when we get back.
If you explain to your children that you aren't going to WDW <u>because</u> of the birthday, that it just happens to fall in the same time frame, I don't see why it would be such a big problem.
(Also, the other two kids couldn't complain too much when they got to benefit also from some of the perks that Disney provided for the birthday boy! If you want to know more PM me)

 

[TigerLilly's Mom]

I think it really wouldn't matter, even you did a big thing for the birthday. Your oldest is getting the benefit of going to Disney World!! How lucky is that?! Trying to keep things even for our children is impossible and not beneficial to them anyway. I say go, celebrate, and you will all enjoy! Tonia

 

[Sonya in Boise]

No matter what we do (or don't do) our kids will turn it around on us when they get older.

My husband tells a story of how for "his birthday" his family went to the Indy 500 race. His parents told him it was his birthday present, but the whole family got to go as a vacation. When he wants to be a stinker, he will tell his brother "Well at least the whole family didn't get your birthday present".

I think it is fine to have a family vacation during a birthday as long as the vacation isn't the present or the vacation isn't because of the birthday. The vacation is the vacation and before we leave or when we come back will be the birthday party. You may want to bring a present to have her open while in WDW. What's a birthday without a present??

 

[Debbie7452]

Last summer this exact thing happened on our family trip to WDW. My son turned 4 while we were there (just a happy coincidence). I actually never gave a thought to it being "fair" and there was no problem with the other kids (2 others). There was not a peep of resentment. I would have been pretty dissapointed in them if they could complain about that!

We are a "big birthday" family too, although our Disney birthday turned out to be low key. We were so busy doing the Magic Kingdom, that his birthday became somewhat secondary. He got a birthday button and we had a nice dinner where he was brought a cupcake. Later he unwrapped 2 presents we brought with us. He loves telling everyone that he turned 4 at Disneyworld, so I guess it all turned out good for him. My DD's are 10 & 8, old enough to understand reality and they were very happy for him and wanted him to have a nice birthday.

 

[DisneyPhD]

I wouldn't worry about it. If your oldest seems a bit put out, consider getting him a gift from WDW and save it for his brithday. While not many things are as a good as WDW, chances are it is eaiser to find fun things to do for a July birthday then Febuary anyway!!!

My husband was at WDW a few times for his brithday in June, but never for his brothers in Aug. He said his brother didn't seem to mind because they were often camping for his Aug brithday and they all had a great time at both places. (Of course to this day my hubby LOVES WDW and his brother only likes it, hmmmm?)

 

[Tay N Evie's Mom]

We took our twins on DCL for their 3rd birthdays. I thought it would be really special. But, we were so busy on board that we hardly had time to celebrate except at dinner. After we got home I felt like the cruise overshadowed their birthdays. The same thing happened to me for Mother's Day this year too. Were were on DCL and I forgot that it was Mother's Day except when we called my mom and MIL from Key West. I guess we were having way too much fun to think about what day it was.

 

[zurgswife]

My number 2 child got to celebrate his 5th birthday at WDW...we did a few birthday type things cake, presents...but didn't make a huge deal...he was excited but it never has been to big a problem with the other 3 siblings....

 

[travelitis]

I have the same dilemna with the 11 year old celebrating his birthday at WDW, even though his birthday is really 9 days before our trip. What we've done to make it as fair as possible is let each of our 3 kids pick a character meal. We're celebrating 1 birthday and 2 UNbirthdays. When I've told the CM's making the PS these are really unbirthdays, they still noted it as a birthday and told me it's OK to celebrate it as such. On the days of the unbirthdays, those kids will get to wear birthday pins, too. Just because they both have May birthdays doesn't mean they can't celebrate in November at Disney. We'll do cake and have a couple of friends overnight before going on our vacation to celebrate the oldest's birthday. The youngest 2 are happy with this arrangement, and only the older one has complained that they get to celebrate too.

 

[3kidsdisney]

we will also be traveling to disney on out twins 2nd birthday, but plan on doing the celebrating when we get home, since we will never get there during our 4yrs old birthday-July- way too hot.
i really think they are too young to even care but i did not want to make is a special event in Disney with the twins and not their
big brother.Good luck.

 

[beattyfamily]

It's so funny because I've been wondering about this as well. We're going in a couple of weeks and I thought about celebrating our 3 year old DD's birthday there with the special pin you get at City Hall and then at CRT that morning, but I thought that I shouldn't do that because our older DD whose 6 will NEVER have her birthday celebrated at WDW as it's June 2.

So I'm curious to see what people say here. I believe my older DD will be jealous and will wonder why we never go for her birthday and also say "it's not fair!"

I'm leaning towards not doing anything special for the 3 year old...

 

[mamamia]

We went to WDW in Feb. 2000 and we celebrated my middle DS's 7th birthday there. We didn't plan on going for anyone's birthday but that happened to be the time of year we wanted to go. Now at the time I had a 4 yr. old DS and a 9 yr. old DD. The other 2 were very jealous. We tried not to make a big deal out of it, but birthdays are really fun and we wound up having an illuminations cruise booked for the day of his b'day and I did do something with Gifts of a Lifetime (which was wonderful and inlcuded the whole family). And we also celebrated with breakfast at Chef Mickey's. Everything we did that day included the whole family but they were still jealous. The 4 yr. old cried half the day and the 9 yr. old was grumpy until she started participating in the events. We also tried explaining to them that we didn't plan to have his b'day there, it just fell like that. We are now going in November for DD's 12th birthday. And I do have a few special things planned for her. This time we did plan the trip around her birthday and we told our youngest, who is now 7, that we will one day celebrate his birthday in WDW. The problem with his birthday is that its July 4th. Not looking forward to that one. My plan for that one is to go on a Disney cruise and only spend 2 or 3 days in the parks and maybe a water park and to just do a few of our favorite rides/attractions. Of course that trip won't happen for another 2 or 3 years yet.

I am very into things being fair for all 3 kids. At the holiday times I spend the same amount of money (within $20) on all of them and they get the same number of gifts.

 

[Lora]

See now, this is what family planning is all about.

My girls were born 2 years and 8 days apart and I planned it that way.

As you can see from our counter, we'll be there soon to celebrate both birthdays at WDW. They each get a princess breakfast and their choice of some rides and that's it for the celebration there. And they ARE getting this trip as their birthday gift! What silly little toy can out-do WDW? (Although, I understand the "Indy" point.)

Normally, since their birthdays are so close and they have all the same friends and they're still young enough that I can get away with it...I only have one "kid" party a year. They alternate...and the other one gets a "family" party. So, I guess under normal circumstances, we don't really go crazy over the birthdays. This just happened to work out well for us since we like to go in the off-season. (We homeschool, so there's no problem with taking the kids out of school. The principal and teacher are going, too!! )

 

[AKASnowWhite]

While we were at WDW last November, my DD celebrated her 6th birthday. We made it PERFECTLY clear to her and her older brothers that this trip was not FOR her birthday, it was just by chance that her birthday occured DURING our family vactaion. On her birthday she got to choose where we would eat (she chose Crystal Palace with Pooh & friends) and she would have first choice of what rides/attractions we would do that morning (NOT all day....) We did gifts in the hotel room, cake with our dessert...It worked out just fine for us.

HOWEVER (there's almost always a catch... ) we are headed to DL this November, and DD wanted to know where we'll *be* and what we'll *do* for her birthday. She was a bit put out when I told her that we weren't leaving until a week AFTER her birthday this year.....she thought she could get another special birthday trip!

 

[Marcee]

My kids were just arguing the other day because DS birthday is in April and he never gets a pool party like his sister whose birthday is in July. So basically it is never going to be fair. Even though we live in CA we can not swim the first week in april (It has rained on 5 of his 6 birthdays).

Marcee

 

[mazzarafe]

Yesterday I changed the dates for the cruise we were suppose to be taking next Halloween. More for less financial stress on DH seeing how I'm a stay at home Mom. The trip we are taking in 2 weeks was not part of the picture at the beginning of the year, so that is making saving money for DH's new car pushed back alittle further.

The kids know we are taking the cruise next year and my in-laws are coming on the 3 night cruise with us. My older DD is 8 so she has a sense of time, but my younger is only 4 so she is clueless.

What we decided to do is push the cruise back about 6 months and go during my DD's 10th birthday. We will be on our last night of the cruise for her birthday and will not have her expect anything special. We just wanted to be able to say "hey we aren't going for Halloween but we are for something else that is special." My younger DD's birthday and my DH's are in September and it is still to warm in FL to get him down there for then, so I'll just have to celebrate a late birthday for my little one this trip.
When we do the cruise we can celebrate her "unbirthday" if it becomes an issue.

We haven't told the kids yet about the change in plans. DH wants to wait until after DD's birthday in May so she's not wishing this one bye to get on with the next one.

It is kinda hard to always make everyone happy, you just have to make the best of it. I think not making too much out of it is probably best. But I really like the idea of celebrating "unbirthdays!" Great idea.

 

[paduncan]

(first of all, I almost fell off my chair when I read title of this post- I had been thinking about starting similar thread but thoughtno one else could relate !!?)

Here's my deal. Youngest DS turns 5 on 11/4 right in middle of our 11/1 -11/6 stay. Like practically everyone else on thread, this was totally coincidental -- just a good time for our vacation. The kicker is that other DS turns 7 on 11/30, a few weeks later. I set up a birthday PS for younger DS and really never gave any thought about older one (since his bday isn't really when we'll be there...) I figure as long as we don't over do it (and limit DS-5 bday to just that one day..) And I've made it very clear that we are not going to WDW because of his bday, etc. But, nonetheless, it is Disney World (and our 1st trip) and I'm starting to feel a little bit like maybe I should also do something for older DS as well.

 

[disneymom3]

Tandy--
I just have to say that your older child sounds very well adjusted and that I wouldn't worry about it. If she doesn't think it is a big deal now, she's not going to then either.

For the people who think everything has to be fair for all children, I just think you are making your lives more complicated than they need to be. You are taking EVERYONE to WDW. As someone said earlier, "How cool is that?" It's not like you're leaving the non-birthday child in the room and taking the birthday kid out for the time of his life, for Pete's sake!

And yes, I do have children--three of them. We were there for the middle one's second birthday and the oldest was really excited for him that he got to turn two in WDW.

 

[dizfamily]

We went this past March...like March 1-8, I believe. Youngest dd's bday is March 15. We celebrated her birthday there twice...once at Chef Mickey's and once at Crystal Palace. My 8 yo DD is the type to say "that's not fair" but she didn't mind this at all. Yeah, she was a little jealous, but it really wasn't a problem. She was just happy to be at WDW!