Haven't told kids yet for our trip next week...

[LCoulter]

The first time we surprised DD was the morning of our flight. She isn’t a morning person so I was worried about that. We woke around 5am and told her she needed to get up because we were flying to Disney. She didn’t believe us at first but once she realized we were serious, she was up and dressed faster than she has ever done before.

Another time when she got home from school on a Thursday afternoon, we told her to get in the car because we were driving to Disney. She jumped up and down screaming with excitement. Then as DH went out to the mailbox, her mood turned and she starting crying. He was quite surprised by the mood change. It was because it was her class Valentines Party the next day. I really felt bad about that one….I hadn’t given that a thought until a few weeks before the trip. She finally decided that she would rather go to Disney then the Valentines Party so cheered up pretty fast.

 

[ToyStory#1fan'sMom]

Surprising DD9 with a trip in 61 days!

She will miss a full two weeks of school so I carefully planned out the dates so as not to miss any holiday festivities at school...I know she'd be devastated to miss! So the day before she's supposed to go back after Thanksgiving break, our Elf on the Shelf will arrive with a special package. It will be a large box telling her not to open until 8:45 am. She's an EARLY riser and will love the anticipation...and we will be leaving about 10am...just enough time for her to scramble to grab anything she think she needs to bring that I haven't packed. When she opens it, out will fly balloons, one with a note from her elf telling her we're headed to the American Girl doll store (three hours away and where our plane is leaving from)...she's been saving for another AG doll for a long time. Then, and I hope she sees this part, it will tell her that we're spending the night in a hotel and the next day we're going to Disney for two weeks! Hoping for all the squeals of laughter!

 

[jpeterson]

We surprised our kids (then 3 & 5) with their first trip, didn't tell them until we arrived at Disney. They didn't really react because they had no idea what Disney was like. Now we tell them ahead of time and they are much more excited.

 

[Jessirip]

Our 6 year old DD watches Disney Junior all the time, and there is a commercial saying something like "Ask your parents to find out if Disney.com is coming to your area!". She asks almost every other day if Disney.com is "coming to our future" yet. Our plan is to tell her we are sorry, but we heard that Disney is just not going to come to us... so instead we will go to them! She will flip. Her little brother will be 3 at the time so we will try to include him, but he won't quite get it yet. (But once we tell him we are on the way to see Elsa he will also flip, he is in love with her).

Right now I am thinking of telling her the day before we leave, because she loves to pack a suitcase and she'll want to be involved. IF I can wait that long as it is 6 months away still.

 

[nmrgrl55]

My husband told the kids that we are going to Pennsylvania and are building a barn with the Amish. The 14yo wants nothing to do with it lol. My husband brought home hats to get them "excited." Don't they look stoked?

He wanted to tell them in the morning we leave, but we need to leave at 2am and I don't want to deal with that in the morning I don't know what we are going to do yet, but we will tell them the day before.

 

[yankees23]

We are going at the end of January so i figure i will surprise them at christmas - just haven't figured out how.

 

[kcount]

We are driving down from NY in a couple of weeks. Our children are 6, 5, 3, 2, and a newborn. We are trying to figure out just how to surprise them. She is thinking of making little activity packs for the ride down and have it be Disney themed.

 

[rlessig]

We are 43 days out from our trip. Our 6 year old daughter has no clue. We have been discussing trying to save money to go to Disney with her but have had the trip booked since January. This will be her 2nd trip but she does not recall much from her 1st (she was 2 1/2). We keep going back and forth whether we should surprise her with a countdown chain ahead of time to build up excitement, to surprise her the night before or to just let her try to figure it out as we board a plane to Florida....lol.

 

[i luv the duck]

Our son was 4 years old the first time we took him. We only told him we were going on a trip but didn't tell him where. We left the house at 2 a.m. for the 10-11 hour drive, so he slept a good part of the way (didn't have to deal with, are we there yet!). When we pulled up to AKL, and told him where we were (I was recording) all I got was Mickey (no exclamation point here). He's not that child that shows a lot of emotion so I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I was a little disappointed he wasn't jumping up and down in his seat (like I wanted to) but we still had a great vacation.

Tried again 2 years ago for a MNSSHP, this time we flew into Tampa. We stayed off property so he had no clue. I had all our Pirates costumes packed. We told him we were going Trick or Treating in Florida since we were in town. He didn't figure it out until we started passing the Disney signs along the highway. He was 10 times more excited than he was the first time.

So you never know what to expect but either way the kids will be happy to be at "The Happiest Place on Earth".