Surprise the kids

So we are planning on surprising the Kids (7 and 3) for our trip coming up in December!! (They think we have to wait until next Nov 16 to go again) Thinking of surprising them right before we head to the airport or in the car on the way after they wake up a bit. Need to leave the house rather early for our 7am flight. Just looking for some ideas to reveal the trip to them? We will have no issue hiding it until the day of :slight_smile: Just really want to surprize them!!! all of the other trip we have wanted to do somethuign like this but always tell them eirly (we are going to hold out this time :smiley:) Thanks for any or all of your ideas!!!

There are quite a few videos on YouTube of parents surprising their kids the day of, or a few days before. You might get some ideas there.

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I love watching the Disney surprise fail videos.

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Our last trip was a surprise. We did a short scavenger hunt. One clue lead to the next one for about 4 or 5 stops until the last one with a big disney sign. At each clue there was also a small disney related gift for the trip like stickers, coloring books, etc… The boys were slightly disPpointed that they knew about this trip because it meant no surprise scavenger hunt :slight_smile:

And a lot of them are surprise fails. “You said we were going to Grandma’s! I want to go to Grandma’s! Waah!”

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My favorite is the one where the girl doesn’t want to go because she doesn’t want to miss school! I loved missing school for Disney when I was a kid.

I will share our “surprise reveal” story. DMiL was in Stage 4 cancer and wanted to take DD to WDW - she was visiting friends in FL at the time, so we agreed to fly down and meet her at WDW. We told DD that we were going to FL to be with Grandma, but Grandma was going to be visiting “old friends” so it might not be much fun for her.

We arrived at MCO, and figured there would be complaints about “why can’t we go to WDW” when she saw the signs in the airport, but not a word.

Drove past all the exit signs on the highway - still no word.

Drove under “The Sign” - no reaction whatsoever.

We finally could not contain ourselves and told her that we were meeting Grandma at WDW, and her “old friends” were Mickey and Minnie - her reaction was a muted “ok” and then she fell asleep in the car seat.

So much for the excited reactions that you see in the commercials. :frowning:

ETA: In retrospect, we got off pretty luckily. DD has never dealt with surprises or changes in plans very well, even good ones, so a blase reaction was a pretty good result. The moral of the story is know your kids and plan accordingly.

We planned a fake trip to the beach when our girls were in college. My oldest daughter and boyfriends which are now son in laws helped plan a Disney trip instead and we waited until we were going to eat breakfast to surprise her. They had made a CD with Disney music which we began playing when we pulled into Cracker Barrel. To the tune of Bare Necessities they handed her the keys to the kingdom. Needless to say she cried. Her sister had secretly packed her a Disney suitcase so she would have comfortable clothes and shoes instead of beach wear. I guess if we ever try a beach trip again she may be expecting another Disney surprise trip.

Thank you guys these are great!!

Our surprise was a dud, too. DS didn’t get upset, he just didn’t get excited. Then we got hung up on our disappointment in his reaction, rather than our enjoyment of our vacation. I’m not sure that a surprise is worth the emotional investment, IMO.

Ha! We just surprised our kids as part of a joint birthday party. I dressed up as Snow White (found a costume cheap on Amazon) came downstairs, and gave them each a wrapped present. On top was a fake airplane ticket with each child’s name, the dates of our travel and of course the destination. The wrapped gift was the 2015 Birnbaum’s Guide to Disney.

Unfortunately, that book was a fail for my kids ages 9 and 5. I was excited to read to them at night, and the book totally steals/ reveals all the Disney magic. Back to Amazon it went.

But we also found neat little Disney lanyards with attached zipped pouches. The girls loved those, and after watching a few Disney videos on You Tube, they are excited and ready to go in November.

Neither of my kids does really well with surprises of this magnitude, so I wanted to give them time to get excited, see videos, see what the parks look like and honestly, help me plan with the rides and shows they wanted to see.

Good luck! And have fun with the suprise.

When we announced our pending Disney trip to our 8 and 5 year old, we were ourselves surprised by the negative reaction from our 5 year old. He just didn’t want to go. Our 8 year old was super excited. Came to learn that he didn’t understand what exactly Disney World was and said he was scared. Didn’t expect that.

So - unless your 3 year old really understands what the place is already, do some proactive You Tube video watching or something so he/she has a good understanding of where you’ll be going when you make the announcement.

Never can tell with kids!

Thanks :smile:
this is 3 year olds 3rd trip.
They both ask at least once a week when we can go again so not worried about them being disappointed. We just want to surprise them the morning of when we are on our way to the airport as the 7 year old will figure it out on her own when we get to the airport. Thank you guys for all your ideas.