Looking for Ideas to surprise kids with Disney trip

[SheilaHeartsDisney]

While looking at hotels for 2 nights down the shore we noticed that it was cheaper to go to Disney World for 5 nights this July. We go to Disney at least once a year and we currently have a trip planned for November that the kids already know about. But I have never been able to surprise them with a Disney Trip. They are 7 years old and keep asking if we can go back to Disney sooner. So what can I do to surprise them with going to Disney early. I'm looking for Ideas that we can do a day before. My daughter loves packing for trips so it would need to be at least a day before kind of thing. Thanks in advance.

 

[EilonwyWanderer]

We didn't tell them until morning of, but we had laid out Mickey ears and magic bands and they were SUPER shocked when they came down in the morning. You could do something similar but have the Mickey ears on an empty suitcase and let them know they need to fill it for Disney?

And make sure you record it! I watch the video of us telling the kids all the time

 

[kanerf]

Put a Mickey (or other character) plush on a Roomba and have it run into their room early in the morning you want to announce the trip.

 

[princess4life]

We surprised our kids with a trip to Universal a few years ago. I had a plastic mold for making chocolate frogs (that my older child had used for something Harry Potter themed). We had told them we were driving to Alabama to see their older daughter for fall break. They were all complaining about being in the car for 8 hours, etc. I woke them up and called them to come down for breakfast because I had a surprise sent Dad to get them Dunkin Donuts. When they opened the donuts box, there were donuts and chocolate frogs. They were like . . . uh what's up? I just let them think for a few minutes, and asked them what they associated with chocolate frogs. Well, duh, Harry Potter. My husband was like I wonder where we could see Harry Potter stuff?! They were so excited! We literally left 45 minutes later to catch a plane. The older kiddo flew there and met us. Hope you're surprise works out!

 

[AliceNDinah]

Hi there! Definitely following this one: I am doing this exact thing in August. We were at WDW last June about this time, and I was so sad on the last day, that I knew we had to come back soon I am attempting to surprise my 10 year old son AT THE AIRPORT that morning.....my sister is a flight attendant for Delta, so I'm going to try and make up some story that she needs a ride home from there, or something. My son keeps commenting that he wants to get back to Disney, so hopefully this will be a great surprise. I'm interested in stories about surprising kids with Disney, and hope mine works out.

 

[OkanaganAmanda]

I am following this thread for inspiration! Our kids are 6 and 8. We had booked a surprise trip to WDW 3 years ago and it got cancelled and rebooked 2x. Third time is the charm and we are going right after thanksgiving. The kids have NO idea. We did go to Disneyland at spring break and have planned to go for spring g break again so they are already looking forward to that. This is a big trip (we are from the west coast of Canada so WDW is a way bigger deal than Disneyland).

We fly out at 11pm on a Saturday, and the city where the airport is is about 1.5 hours from us. It is also where we go about once a month for Costco runs. We thought we might tell them we are going to Costco (nothing unusual) and when we get to the Costco parking lot, we could ask them to get something out of the trunk and they open it to find it full of suitcases? Trying to figure out best orchestrate this. We haven’t spilled the beans in almost 3 years so kind of want to not tell them until day of!

 

[nyy]

Surprises are great fun! I just wanted to share what we did for our kids surprise trip when they were 6 and 8. They went to summer (day) camp, and when they came home we had all suitcases packed and everything ready to go for our (very long) car trip to Disney. Everything was stacked up in the living room. My kids came in the door and we yelled "Surprise! We are going to Disney World today!"
Well, they loved it - our son yelled "Combos!" and our daughter yelled "mini waters!"

 

[Carol_]

How do you people parent without the constant threat of taking away their trip to Disney? I can’t surprise my kid. I need the leverage too much.

 

[2letterwords]

We're going this summer (our kids know) but are surprising them on Christmas morning with another trip for the break.

We are starting with Disney-themed backpacks filled with snacks, some pins, and a few other Disney goodies. The big surprise will come from a large wrapped box containing helium-filled balloons and an ornament of Mickey driving a car. I'll probably attach an envelope with a message about the trip.

 

[MLeota11]

For our first trip we found a Dis-themed scavenger hunt online. The final clue led them to Disney backpacks with magic bands, t-shirts, coloring for the flight, etc. That was a HUGE hit at 3 and 6. Our now 10 yr old still thinks it was amazing.

Second trip, we did a ring and run, and had a huge box addressed to the kids filled with balloons inside. I think they had to pop the balloons to find messages that lead them up to their rooms. There were Mickey gift bags waiting for them there with various things inside. It was fun, but not as good as the scavenger hunt.

 

[sk!mom]

Don't. Part of a vacation is the anticipation. When you surprise {which I did once}, you steal the anticipation and chance to prepare for a trip. Surprise them, at minimum, a couple of weeks in advance so that they can mentally prepare,

 

[DisneyMama811]

Don't. Part of a vacation is the anticipation. When you surprise {which I did once}, you steal the anticipation and chance to prepare for a trip. Surprise them, at minimum, a couple of weeks in advance so that they can mentally prepare,

I'm kiiiind of this mindset too... we are going 2 weeks after Christmas, we just booked last week and DH wants to wait til Christmas to tell them.... for #1 there's NO WAY I can wait that long, #2 They know we are going to Disney but not when or that it's booked, they know we've been saving for a long time and have been waiting for the pandemic to "go away" since we live in another country, after 2 years of stress I want them to have something to look forward to!!! #3 because they know we are going eventually, we've talked about different things you can do there and watched a few ride videos, letting them help plan is so cute and fun!!
however I am working on a plan to surprise them that we've booked the trip.... we are 211 days out... I'm waiting til an even 200. still working on the plan

 

[pixiemama91]

We are surprising our kids for this trip. We have been multiple times so its not so much about going to Disney as we weren’t planning on going this year but decided fairly last minute that we would do another trip this year. I had originally planned on telling them the day before we left for Disney but now I am thinking that I might tell them a few days before so they can have a couple of days of anticipation and I can finish packing out in the open.

I don’t have anything too elaborate planned. We had done a surprise at the airport when the kids were 7 and 2 a few years ago which obviously the 2 year old did not really understand but that was really fun. This time they are 12 and 7 so I would say the surprise is really more for my younger one. I bought them each a few new shirts for the trip and will wrap them in a box for each of them. We are going to tell them that we got them an end of summer/ back to school present since our trip is right before school goes back and when they open it it will have their magicband, shirts and some pins in it and tell them that we are leaving in a few days.

Of course now that we are about at the 60 day mark before we leave I am really wanting to tell them so I don’t have to keep it secret anymore so my plan may change at some point and we will tell them sooner. But we will see

 

[AliceNDinah]

Don't. Part of a vacation is the anticipation. When you surprise {which I did once}, you steal the anticipation and chance to prepare for a trip. Surprise them, at minimum, a couple of weeks in advance so that they can mentally prepare,

Oh, did your surprise not go well, or something? We took our little boy (9 at the time, last year), and he knew well in advance. This time, it's me and him and I've been planning this trip since last September-ish. We are going August 14th and I literally want to surprise him at the airport. I like this thread, because I'm still working out the surprise portion here, ha ha.

 

[glocon]

I think surprising your child would be a great memory they’d have forever and remember fondly.

Maybe you’d steal away the anticipation but instead you’d give them the memory of The Most Awesome Surprise forevermore!

 

[sk!mom]

Oh, did your surprise not go well, or something? We took our little boy (9 at the time, last year), and he knew well in advance. This time, it's me and him and I've been planning this trip since last September-ish. We are going August 14th and I literally want to surprise him at the airport. I like this thread, because I'm still working out the surprise portion here, ha ha.

It did not. My DD was 8 almost 9 and had been to WDW twice before most recently just the previous summer. DH had a conference come up at the Contemporary resort and we thought it would be great to pull DD from school for a surprise long weekend trip.

We surprised her with her travel backpack ready and filled with her autograph book and pin lanyard. Her immediate reaction was to be overwhelmed and in tears, “what about school?” “What about my piano competition rehearsal?” “What about dance?” Of course, she was excited once we assured her that it was all arranged. I realized though that she needed time to get into vacation mode. I also realized that I robbed her of the anticipation. That feeling of “next Friday, I’m heading to Disney.” “I’ll be on RnR next Monday at this time.” Not to mention the decisions like,”Which character meals should we try this trip?”

We’ve had many more vacations to Disney and other locations in the intervening years but If it was a surprise it was things like, concert tickets given as a Christmas gift for a concert happening a few months later so that she had the planning time, chance to invite her guest, and get excited.

 

[disney castle days]

My cousins were always surprised the day before. Usually, they would be picked up from whatever sports practice they were at and their parents would give them an envelope that "came in the mail for them". It varied from year to year what was in the envelope. One year it was clues to a scavenger hunt, one year was a note to check the mom's voicemail (which had a voicemail from mickey). My favorite thing they did was a Target gift card, and then they went to Target and their parents made the rule that they could only get Disney items, I think the oldest was 12 and the youngest was 8 so the oldest understood pretty quickly.

The only thing I will say is as a kid (I'm 19 so not too long ago), planning was my absolute favorite part of the trip. I was not a ride-kid but I did have a binder for every trip with an hour-by-hour spreadsheet of what we were doing every trip from the time I was 10. If you know your child likes planning, I would suggest maybe giving them a week's notice instead of a day so they have some time to pick out activities. Or when booking ADRs you can maybe tell your child that someone you know (a friend/coworker) is going to Disney and needs help picking out restaurants, so that way they are helping plan but are still surprised.

 

[danceintherain]

I'm not sure. We have a cruise planned next month that we just recently decided to bring the kids on. I'm having a hard time deciding whether or not to surprise them. It would be at least a couple days in advance because we all have to do COVID tests and that would be hard to explain away.
I actually hate surprises. I never react the way people expect me to....because I'm a planner....or they get ruined.
My main concern with the kids though is that DD is a worrier. I'm not sure what would be harder on her, knowing she's going, or finding out at the last minute. If I tell her, she will ask every day, probably multiple times a day when we're leaving. If I don't tell her, then she'll keep telling me she wants to go to Disney World now, instead of waiting until next spring. Although she'll probably do the latter regardless. ODS has probably already figured it out, because he listens. MDS and the baby are oblivious to just about everything. DD is my only real concern.
Also, my whole extended family is coming, so conversation happens. Too many people that have to remember the surprise and not ruin it.
If I was going to surprise my kids, I'd probably get them each a stuffed husky, because the excursion I have planned is dog sledding.

 

[dreamin'boutdis]

For our kids first trip (ages 6 & 3), we surprised them at the Orlando Airport. We had told them that we were flying to Florida to visit an old family friend. When we got to Orlando, I took my 3 year old daughter to the bathroom, while DH and son waited. While in the bathroom, I changed myself and my daughter into shirts I had made that said, "I can't keep calm, I'm going to Disney World!". When we came out of the bathroom, my son immediately noticed that we were wearing new shirts. It took about a minute for him to read the shirts and figure it out, but he was positively shaking with excitement when he did! DH and DS went to change into their matching shirts, and off we went to the Magical Express on our way to visit our "old friend" Mickey Mouse!

About a year ago, I asked them if they liked being surprised or if they would like to help plan next time. Now ages 9 & 6, they both said they preferred to be surprised. We are going again in a few weeks, and I'm thinking about doing a scavenger hunt around the house about a week before we leave - they're much more observant now and I don't think I could hide packing from them

 

[nursejackie]

Waaaay back in the mid 80's our parents told us we were going to Spain (from UK) but they had really booked a Disneyworld trip. They later told us the plan was to arrive at the airport and then we would realise when checking in for the flight. However I was a teenager by then and when shopping for holiday clothes I wanted outfits for all the discos, so they came clean about a month before we flew. Needless to say we preferred Florida