Official (not really, but we'll pretend) KOTS club signup

[Momof2J's]

Not a dumb question at all! I printed the picture out on an iron-on transfer (got them at WalMart) and ironed it onto the shirt. Very easy - I am not "crafty" and I was able to handle this project!

Thanks! I would really love to do this

 

[sara74]

I will have to read this whole thread when I have the time to really sit and plan our reveal.

We are surprising the kids with a trip May 1, 2008. We are staying at SSR for the first time and the kids have no idea. They know that we will return to WDW someday but I have told them that the baby needs to be older before we go - hey, it's true, he will be older when we go! So far I don't know anything about how we are planning to spring it on the kids. I will have to see how DD's reading is progressing (she is our oldest and is in Kindergarten) to see if she could reliably read a clue about the trip or if we have to be more obvious about it.

I can't wait!!!

 

[sweetnsassy]

I'll never forget when I was a KOTS! I had just turned 22 and my little brother was turning 10 years old. My mom planned a special Disney trip for our birthdays, but we didn't tell my brother until the day of his birthday when we woke him up wearing our Mickey ears and said "hurry up we're gonna miss the plan, we're going to Disneyworld!" He thought we were kidding and in typical 10 yr old boy fashion tried to roll over and go back to sleep, lol. When he realized we were serious I will never forget the look on his face!

Alix

 

[Momof2J's]

Well, we have been keeping this trip a secret since June!! I was so ready to have the kids find out I think I was more excited for Christmas Morning! I took a box I had from the Disney Store & inside had the envelope from Disney Destinations, 2 autograph books, 4 Disney luggage tags, personalized park maps and 2 sets of Disney Dollars. This was a surprise trip for DS7 and DD3. I had tissue paper on top of everything and had a note that read to the effect of that since they've been good kids this year mom and dad had a special present just for them.

Here's how it went:

DS read the letter while they were perfectly positioned in front of the Christmas tree with the video camera going. After he read the letter, they lifted up the paper and here goes the conversation:

DS "Disney Destinations"
ME "Yep, that's where the envelope came from"

Nothing.....

DS "Oh look, Disney ornaments"
ME "No, those are luggage tags. You use those to put on your suitcase. There are 4 of them in there, one for each of us"

Nothing....

DS "Are these autograph books"
ME "yes, what do you do with those?"
DS "Have the characters sign these"
ME "where do you have to go to have them signed?"
DS "Disney"

Nothing.....

DS "What are these?"
ME "Those are Disney Dollars. Pirate ones for you & princess ones for your sister. Where do you think you can use those?
DS "Disney?"
ME "Yes"

Nothing.....

Me "Do you know what your present is?"
DS ...shakes his head & shrugs his shoulders....

Me " We're going to Disney in 12 days!!"
DS "We are, I can't believe it!!"

From then on that's all he could talk about for the entire day. I thought for sure he would catch on, but DH is like you've been telling him we're not going for another year or so he probably didn't think they would get this so soon. DH was probably right, but it was kind of funny that it took so long for them to figure it out!

 

[solferino]

We surprised DD with a trip, although it wasn't part of her Christmas present and did the reveal Christmas eve when we went to his parents.

What we did was give DH's mom and dad a Segway tour around the world at Epcot as their gift. (DH got his on Christmas day) I made up a presentation folder with the reservation number and info, as well as a press release from Segway about the tour. Oh, and a cute little Santa on a Segway ornament from cafepress.

FIL is reading the folder information out loud and says to DD, you know what this means? Gramma and I are going to Epcot and we get to go on the tour I wanted to do the last time and couldn't. What would you think about going to Disney again M-----? and DD says- I think I'm supposed to be in school that day, so I don't think it's going to work out for me. (But she sounded so sad when she said it!!!)

So I spoke up and told her that her teacher and school director already knew about the trip and everyone was ok with it. She was like, oh, so when do we leave?

Little does she know that we're going for lunch at CRT on the day of her birthday. I'm expecting a postcard to come from a fairygodmailer with an invitation from the fairy god-mother for lunch. Now I don't have to frantically check the mail because she knows about the trip and I can send her to the mailbox again.

Unfortunately when we did the reveal she was in perpetual motion (as she was all of that day!) and all of the pictures I took came out blurry.

 

[CJsMom]

Well, we've been back for a couple of weeks now, but with the holidays I haven't had much time to post! The reveal was great! They didn't quite get it at first, I think because they were so tired when we woke them up. I told my 7 yo to read my shirt and he said "I can't, I'm too tired". So we pretty much had to tell them. Then they didn't believe it until they saw the clock and my husband said "nobody's kidding around at 5:30 in the morning!" They were totally surprised and loved their shirts. They got lots of attention wearing those shirts on the first day, especially at Chef Mickey's that night. We had a fantastic trip and I can't wait to go back. As much as I loved surprising them I look forward to letting them help plan the next trip. And packing will be much easier when I'm not trying to hide suitcases! To all of you taking your trips soon - have a wonderful time!

 

[Laura.bora]

do we have no new KOTS members, or people who have had a surprise happen yet? It's been almost a month!

 

[LaraK]

Wow...I happend over here today and see this thread again.

Boy what memories! It's time for DH and I to book our next trip. We'll have to decide if we're going to tell the kids this time. I don't know if we can surpise them like last time.

 

[Ilovefozzie]

We are in the middle of a kind of a surprise. I don't know if this will count anymore or not...you'll have to let me know.

The DH and I had started planning a surprise trip. We booked everything, and hadn't told ANYONE anything. We are going from May 27th to June 4th, Pop, park hoppers, DDP. Our original plan was to get them up on the 24th of May and take them on a vacation to Colorado for 3 days (see the mountains) and then have an emergency at the DH's job and he would have to hurry back for a meeting with important clients. We would take him to the airport and then surprise the kids with a "haha we're going to Disney again."

Well..that's not going to work anymore. We sat down and looked at timing and finances. We can do one trip or the other, not both. Stupid reality. LOL

The kids knew all along about the Colorado trip, but we weren't talking about it because daddy was doing ALL the planning for it. Mommy was going in clueless on this one. (I'm one of those freakish planners that have everything planned out months in advance, and this way we didn't have to plan out a week's worth of activities in CO) So last weeked DH sat down with the kids and told them that he wasn't planning a trip to Colorado at all. He was surprising me with a trip to WDW and he needed their help planning it. Would they be ok if we didn't go to the mountains and just went to WDW instead???

The DS had to point out at that moment that there ARE mountains in WDW, so technically it wasn't a lie.

So now the DH and the DKids are in on a secret trip for mommy to the world. And the DH and I are planning it all behind their backs... This isn't a KOTS anymore...sigh

Oh well! Good luck everyone on your secret trips!!

 

[luvmykids]

I am KOTS. When we found out in November that DH had a conference in Orlando in February and we had SouthWest airline credit it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

We will leave on February 8th and are not telling the kids until we get to the airport. Our flight is 9 pm so we will take them out to dinner (it is a Friday night) and after dinner drive to the airport (it is about 20 minutes from home). We will tell them there that we are going to Disney.

We have been to Disney many times and have never surprised them before. I cannot believe I have not given away the secret yet. It feels like we are not going because we are not discussing the trip and counting down like we usually do.

I am a little nervous because my DH will be in meetings for 4 of the 7 days and it will be just me and my two boys ages 7 and 10 but I am sure it will be alright. I have made all our dinner reservations in the parks we will be in that day so I do not have to do a lot of traveling with them.

Anyway 2 1/2 more weeks to go. I can't wait to tell them. They are going to be soooo excited.

 

[Laura.bora]

Oh! I am so excited for you luvmykids! Only 2 1/2 more weeks! I've got about 8 more months before the kids know of the surprise! Let us know how the surprise goes!

 

[Laura.bora]

hey luvmykids - you should have gone and been back by now! How did it go? And I am officially booked! Let the surprises begin!

 

[chcmama]

luvmykids-I can't wait to here how it went, please come tell us.

I will be revealing our trip to the kids on the day before Easter and that will give them a month to plan for it. I can't believe we have kept the secret this long. I think we started planning this last May or June.

 

[skw444]

I'm a new KOTS member! We have a trip planned Aug 30-Sept 6 and we're going to surprise my dd with it on her 6th birthday on Aug 29. Not sure yet how I'm going to do it. I just made our ADR's last week for dining at CRT and BBB and I'm having a hard time keeping a secret but I know she'll love it when we tell her!

 

[raider97]

I am hoping to our Dec. '09 trip will be a surprise one. I know a long time to go I will be reading up on this thread to get all your ideas on surprising my three little ones.

Stephanie

 

[Laura.bora]

Oh birthday surprises!! That's what we're doing!! We're telling them the morning before we leave for Disney. I cannot wait!

 

[DisneyTigers]

We are taking our 4 kids to WDW next January. I can't wait!!!!! We have room only ressies at POR, and are waiting (not so patiently) for package rates.

Our kids know we are going "sometime," but that it costs a LOT of money, so we will have to save for a long time. They LOVE watching the planning DVD, so what a jolt when they find out we're really going!!

My dilemma is should we tell them for Christmas or right when we go in late Jan? any opinions?? And, if we do it for Christmas, any ideas how???

Thanks!!

 

[pajules]

I'm two weeks into being KOTS and boy is it hard! I have 6 more weeks to go until the big surprise for DS. I have ordered shirts, made luggage tags with HD MH's, ordered customized maps and gotten a few pins.

My plan is to put some of this into a wrapped present. We are leaving on a Friday after school. When he gets home, I'll give him the present and then hopefully he'll figure it out on his own, but if not, I'll yell "We're Going to Disney World....RIGHT NOW!"

We have to leave for the airport right away to catch our flight.....I'm pretty sure he's going to be in shock.

Is there anyway to make the days go faster?

 

[o2bacelt]

Add me to the list of new KOTS.

We're taking DD as a surprise for her 4th birthday. She has NO idea what's coming. We were down in Dec. and I was calling 180 out for this birthday trip. She'll figure it out when we get to the airport since there are only two places we fly, Disney and London, and she'll figure out pretty quickly that we aren't going to England to see Nanna and Grandpa.

She's going to have an amazing time, I've got us ADR's for Crystal Palace for breakfast on the day of her birthday, followed by a trip to the BBB, and dinner at 1900 Park Fare and my uncle, who works at AK, will be joining us for dinner. The next day we're going to Akerhaus for breakfast, and the last P&PP and I got us in CRT for dinner that night, we've never eaten there and I wasn't planning on it until I found out about the party and that we could still get a table there for dinner.

I don't think we're going to tell her anything, we'll just let her figure it out when we get to the JetBlue counter and drop off our bags. She's sure to flip out.

Should be a lot of fun! Now if I could just finish sewing all her customs for the trip without her figuring out what I'm doing I'll be in business.

 

[JoanieS]

I couldn't find this thread, so I started one the other day! Glad it got bumped up

We are KOTS. I'll copy and paste from the other thread to save typing!

We are going to WDW in October, it will be the boys first trip and it's a surprise!

They know we are going when they are in 3rd and 1st grade, but for some reason, they have in their heads that we are going in March '09. I'll let them think it!

We were originally going to wake them at 3am and say "come on, we are going to the airport" - but I'm afraid they won't quite "get it" being woken up.

So, we are going to tell them the night before we leave with a little "treasure hunt". I will make up some rhyming clues (if anyone has any, please share - mine are sooooo cheesey!) and the end result will be a wrapped box with a note inside (thanks to rumblytumbly) that says "Surprise! We are going to Disney World...and we are leaving tomorrow!" along with various Mickey shirts, glow necklaces, giftcards, etc.

I'm sure they will have trouble sleeping, but they do have to be up at 3 am to leave for the airport, so maybe, just maybe they will catch some zzzzz's on the flight (yeah, right, who am I kidding!)

So, anyone else Keeping the Secret right now? How/when are you going to tell???

Joanie