Have you surprised your kids with a Disney trip?

[friedela]

If so, please share how you did it!

 

[txcorey]

A few Christmases ago, I surprised my son. He was 7, I think. I wrapped up a huge box, had a large helium filled Mickey balloon in it with a large card attached to it that said, "We are going to Disney World in 9 days!" When he opened it, he said, "Oh, cool. I got a Mickey balloon." I told him to read what the card said. He was excited, but I think it took a while to sink in because he didn't react the way I thought he would.

I'm planning another surprise trip for him in June and his cousins are coming with us. I'm hoping to tell the kids when we're together and surprise them all at once. I'm trying to figure out a cute way to do it. His cousins have never been and he'll be super excited to go with them.

 

[daisy2013]

Yes they cried all the way to the airport because they wanted to go to school. One kept saying I will never learn to read and become a dentist. They were in kindergarten

 

[serenitynow]

Our youngest kid’s first trip was an even greater surprise than I thought it would be. He was 4. We told him we were going to St. Louis for the night and stay overnight at a nice hotel with an indoor pool. We had to get up at 5am for our flight to Orlando and he just sort of groggily got on the plane and promptly went back to sleep. He slept the entire trip. We had to shake him awake when the plane landed. He still didn’t really realize what was going on until we boarded the monorail for the Magic Kingdom. That’s when it hit him and began screaming and jumping up and down. Nice memory.

 

[Tiggerlover91]

Yes they cried all the way to the airport because they wanted to go to school. One kept saying I will never learn to read and become a dentist. They were in kindergarten

Yaaaaassssssss!!!! That. Is. Awesome! From a kindergartner too!

 

[Ralphmiller007]

Yes they cried all the way to the airport because they wanted to go to school. One kept saying I will never learn to read and become a dentist. They were in kindergarten

 

[Ralphmiller007]

I recorded telling my nieces about our trip so that I could show their parents....I told them my husband and I were saving up to get them a BIG gift, and asked them what they thought it could be. The four year-old said " A big, giant pool noodle!!" I was cracking up...I could have saved some major cash with her gift choice!

 

[cmarsh31]

Picked them up from school, DD had a half day, told DS he had a Dr appt. Went out to lunch....then drove to the airport. They couldn't figure it out bc they thought we had no luggage...so we opened the trunk! It was pretty fantastic. My DD does NOT like surprises. She loved it, but made us promise not to surprise her again without a day or 2 notice! It helped that it wasn't their first trip so they knew what to expect.

 

[katyjeka]

Our family decided to have a mini family reunion and surprise a lot of nieces and nephews including our girls. We had a cook out and while the kids were swimming the moms were in the house filling balloons. We filled our family room with a ton of balloons and had one filled with mickey confetti. We rolled up a paper stating we were leaving for WDW in five days and put it in the balloon with the confetti. The kids had to sit on the balloons to break them and when they finally popped the confetti filled balloon they were so excited...at the confetti. They paid no attention to the note until my father shouted, read the paper. I must admit it was a long 5 days for all of us. The kids drove us crazy with the famous, "how much longer". My sweet father in law is no longer with us but I'll never forget the day as he was in with the kids helping the little ones break the balloons. Such a nice memory.

 

[friedela]

Yes they cried all the way to the airport because they wanted to go to school. One kept saying I will never learn to read and become a dentist. They were in kindergarten

Oh my goodness I'm dying over here! LOL

 

[friedela]

I must admit it was a long 5 days for all of us. The kids drove us crazy with the famous, "how much longer".

Haha. This is why we aren't telling our kids until the morning we are leaving for the airport, lol. But what a sweet memory indeed, that is wonderful he was still alive to experience it with you all

 

[friedela]

Are any of your kids into watching YouTube families? My DD has told my DH on a number of occasions that those families are so awesome and that myself and her dad aren't cool enough to host a youtube channel of our family. WELL! At the moment I am in the middle of putting together our OWN youtube family episode breaking the news to the kids complete with music, video of us packing, shots of Disneyland and California, etc. We are going to sit them down the morning of and flip on the TV and let them watch just how cool we actually are, lol.

 

[Puppysaver727]

Planning on surprising my son with our trip coming up in just 33 days. The trip is for his 5th birthday which we will be celebrating there. I have a lightening McQueen suitcase on wheels, toy story backpack, two personalized t shirts and a personalized baseball hat ready for him. I also am making a picture book itinerary for him to see what we will be doing each day. He’s still learning to read so I thought the pictures would be easier for him to follow. I’m going to put it all in a giant box with some toy story balloons and have him open it 1 week before we leave. I’ll keep you guys updated on the reaction!

 

[LuvMyEAR]

If this is not your family's first visit to WDW, springing a surprise can be very disappointing -for you -if you wait until just before leaving. It really is safer to find a cute way to announce a trip in the future and let them absorb the concept. A wrapped gift of a suitcase, or backpack or anything they will use for travelling is always fun. After all, what child does not like unwrapping a surprise? Just seeing a parcel with their name on it triggers GOOD excitement in their mind. Of course, that can happen just before you leave, as well! For a child who has never been to WDW, it is just a concept, really an unknown. Not all children are happy to be thrown suddenly into an unknown. For kids who have great memories and know what kind of fun is ahead, it is generally a much happier surprise.

Our DD and DSIL surprised their 6 yr old, picking her up from school one morning, on route to the airport. Even while she had been there before, that fell absolutely flat. She'd been there when she was 4 and had hazy memories, but she was kind of resentful (really!) of being taken away from her fun classroom. She warmed up, as they flew, but it was an effort to coax any real joy until they were there.

On the other hand, our younger DH and DSIL surprised their boys at 9 & 11, after several awesome trips. They were told they were going to drop their Dad off for a business trip. We were waiting at the airport with their Beloved Duffy Bears sitting atop their suitcases. The Duffys were dressed in adorable travelwear, complete with little straw hats, holding Dollar store Disney balloons. The reaction was priceless. The older one got it right away but the 9yr old was deeply concerned that his father wasn't coming. As soon as it was clear we were ALL going, he was just shaking with excitement.

After all was said and done, we have talked a lot about these things with the kids. They are unanimous.... while the surprise was fun, they prefer to know ahead of time. We have done a lot of trips through the years and the months leading up are very precious. We have themed meals, experimenting with new Disney recipes. We countdown all together and celebrate milestone dates, like only 50 days to go. They very much want to be part of the planning, and make lists of old favourite and new things they hope to experience. We get 6 months or more of fabulous anticipation and on any given day, they can tell us "just ___ days to go!" In fact, if we are lucky enough to have another trip, we are letting them handle the FP+ booking.

 

[AntimonyER]

We surprised our kids (and Mother-in-law) with a MNSSHP visit while we were already in Orlando for another reason. It was funny because my M-I-L started noticing and making comments about why we had exited where we had, and my oldest (a bit of a know-it-all at times) was adamant we WEREN'T going to a park and this was the way to the movies (We told them we were going to Disney Springs to watch a movie). But there was a LOT of excitement, and we were glad we had made it a surprise like we did.

Of course the best story wasn't Disney, but universal back in November of this year. My daughter had finished reading the Harry Potter books, and so we decided to take them as an early christmas present. We had a personalized Hogwarts acceptance letter made, and had it "delivered" by a stuffed Hedwig, which was waiting on the table when we got home from watching Crimes of Grindelwald. She was a little bewildered at first, but then got very excited once it processed what the letter meant. THEN we told them we were leaving the NEXT day, and she burst into tears (happy ones).

That being said, my wife said no more surprises, not because they didn't go over well, but because she can't STAND the wait to tell them anymore, haha.

 

[Suprize2017]

We’ve surprised our kids twice, and will surprise them for a third time next week.

1st trip: Kids were 9, 9, and 10. We told them we had to go to the airport to see their grandparents off. That was a lie. We got to the airport and the grandparents told them they weren’t going anywhere, we were! The two boys were super excited, but my daughter, the 10 year old, panicked a bit about missing school. Fortunately, I had gotten all their work from their teachers and had it all packed. I had also written a note for her best friends and had asked the teacher to give it to the friends so they knew where my DD was and why she hadn’t said anything. Knowing those two things were crucial in allowing my DD to relax and then the excitement hit her as well. Trust your gut on your kids. Our DD reacted exactly the way we expected, but we were prepared and were able to still love the moment. After we told the kids where we were going, my husband and father in law went out to the car and brought our luggage in. We had also bought the kids their own day packs and had them filled with fun stuff for the trip. It was easily one of many highlights of our first trip! The only negative was having to haul all their school work with us, then doing the work while on vacation.

2nd trip, two years later, kids were 11, 11, and 12: We had wanted another last minute reveal again, but several factors came into play that forced us to do our reveal several weeks ahead of time. Our family enjoys games, so quite spontaneously decided to combine an afternoon of family games with our reveal. We wrote, “We are going to Florida Feb 22” on index cards and cut them out by letters. Each time a kid won a game, they got a letter. When all the letters were passed out, we told the kids it was time to unscramble them for a fun message. It was awesome. Even though we hadn’t planned on telling them when we did, we loved letting them know and being able to share the excitement in the weeks leading up to our trip. Another bonus to the earlier reveal was that each child was able to get their make up work done before we even left.

3rd trip, two years later, kids are 13, 13, and 14: After the second trip, all three kids told us if we ever go again, they wanted to be surprised, and wanted to be surprised as close to departure as possible. So for trip 3 we will let them know one week ahead of time. My husband really wanted a morning of reveal, but I really didn’t like doing homework on the trip. I’m hoping with the one week they can get some (all???) of their work done before we go. So we compromised and went with a week. We will tell them next Thursday.

 

[cmarsh31]

We’ve surprised our kids twice, and will surprise them for a third time next week.

1st trip: Kids were 9, 9, and 10. We told them we had to go to the airport to see their grandparents off. That was a lie. We got to the airport and the grandparents told them they weren’t going anywhere, we were! The two boys were super excited, but my daughter, the 10 year old, panicked a bit about missing school. Fortunately, I had gotten all their work from their teachers and had it all packed. I had also written a note for her best friends and had asked the teacher to give it to the friends so they knew where my DD was and why she hadn’t said anything. Knowing those two things were crucial in allowing my DD to relax and then the excitement hit her as well. Trust your gut on your kids. Our DD reacted exactly the way we expected, but we were prepared and were able to still love the moment. After we told the kids where we were going, my husband and father in law went out to the car and brought our luggage in. We had also bought the kids their own day packs and had them filled with fun stuff for the trip. It was easily one of many highlights of our first trip! The only negative was having to haul all their school work with us, then doing the work while on vacation.

2nd trip, two years later, kids were 11, 11, and 12: We had wanted another last minute reveal again, but several factors came into play that forced us to do our reveal several weeks ahead of time. Our family enjoys games, so quite spontaneously decided to combine an afternoon of family games with our reveal. We wrote, “We are going to Florida Feb 22” on index cards and cut them out by letters. Each time a kid won a game, they got a letter. When all the letters were passed out, we told the kids it was time to unscramble them for a fun message. It was awesome. Even though we hadn’t planned on telling them when we did, we loved letting them know and being able to share the excitement in the weeks leading up to our trip. Another bonus to the earlier reveal was that each child was able to get their make up work done before we even left.

3rd trip, two years later, kids are 13, 13, and 14: After the second trip, all three kids told us if we ever go again, they wanted to be surprised, and wanted to be surprised as close to departure as possible. So for trip 3 we will let them know one week ahead of time. My husband really wanted a morning of reveal, but I really didn’t like doing homework on the trip. I’m hoping with the one week they can get some (all???) of their work done before we go. So we compromised and went with a week. We will tell them next Thursday.

That helped my 10-year-old too, knowing I had already discussed it with her teacher - but she couldn't believe he had known for months! (They talk disney frequently, he's taking his kids in April & asks her advice!). My 13 year old just immediately texted his friends

 

[DisLiss]

We learned from other vacations, that our family enjoys our vacation time best if everyone takes part in the planning and discusses their expectations ahead of time, so no surprise trips for us. We're more of a countdown family.

 

[sponica]

We learned from other vacations, that our family enjoys our vacation time best if everyone takes part in the planning and discusses their expectations ahead of time, so no surprise trips for us. We're more of a countdown family.

My 2.5 year old on a daily basis: i wanna be 4, we go to disney when i'm 4. (she'll technically be 3 but it will be close enough to 4 it was easier to say we're going back when she's 4).

 

[friedela]

If this is not your family's first visit to WDW, springing a surprise can be very disappointing -for you -if you wait until just before leaving. It really is safer to find a cute way to announce a trip in the future and let them absorb the concept. A wrapped gift of a suitcase, or backpack or anything they will use for travelling is always fun. After all, what child does not like unwrapping a surprise? Just seeing a parcel with their name on it triggers GOOD excitement in their mind. Of course, that can happen just before you leave, as well! For a child who has never been to WDW, it is just a concept, really an unknown. Not all children are happy to be thrown suddenly into an unknown. For kids who have great memories and know what kind of fun is ahead, it is generally a much happier surprise.

We did WDW just last year and have been researching Disneyland together ever since. They know every ride they want to do at DL! They keep asking when we can go and our response is always, "guys, it takes a few years to save up for a trip like that again". LOL. So they'll be happy surprised I am quite certain Our kids are 6 and 7, so not old enough to book fast passes or really plan the trip, but we have talked lots about what they would want to do at DL and I am featuring some of those picks (meeting Captian America, the Incredicoaster, Indiana Jones, etc) in the video I am making so they can see shots of what we are doing. Last time we did a countdown together and honestly by the time it was time to go they weren't even excited anymore, we had been taking about it for months, it was just so far out that I felt counting down kind of fizzled out the excitement of it. To a 6 year old a month feels like a lifetime, lol. Heck.. even a week feels like a lifetime,