Our Surprise trip

[Alison1975]

We booked a 10 night trip for 8/19/11... My 3 youngest kids(9,7,5) have NO idea and if we can keep it that way it's going to be a huge surprise. We've told them it will be years before we can afford to go. We typically drive to GA ( 997 miles from here) in April. This year we aren't going. Last minute in Aug we will tell them we decided to go for a few days. Then when they are sleeping we will blow by Savannah and when they wake we will be at POP!

So I have plans to horde some Disney clothing and have that be stuff they pack for the trip, then all the movies we will watch the weeks before and on the ride down will be Disney. I will burn some Disney Cd's for listening too etc. I want to print them each up a journal ( to be bound at Staples).. then when we get to POP if they haven't figured it out I can hand them their journals.

Anyone else have any ways I can subtly hint in the drive? Also my now 16 year old will celebrate his 17th b-day while there ( and me my 36th)..anything special Disney will do?

No one has any input??

 

[disneychic71]

Great idea! We had a surprise trip to WDW about 5 years ago. Because we fly, we had to confess sooner, so my husband made up a power point presentation. We woke the kids up at about 5 am and told them we had a big surprise for them, then showed them the powerpoint. They were stunned! I had bought us all Mickey Mouse Club t-shirts to wear down, which added to the fun. They were simply beside themselves. I think the high of the surprise lasted the whole trip.

We have celebrated birthdays at WDW before; if you tell them there's a birthday in your group when you make a dining reservation, you'll usually get a special treat (at least some confetti on the table!). Don't forget to get a "birthday" button at the park entrance (Town Hall in Magic Kingdom) to wear throughout your trip; everyone wishes you "happy birthday" which is wonderful! Enjoy!

 

[4everDory]

What fun! Are you going to do a pre-trip report?

 

[Alison1975]

Oh yeah!! I am a HUGE planner and there will be lots of pre-trip stuff..LOL... 2-20-11 can't come fast enough for my ADR's!

 

[kangaand2roos]

We are hoping to pull off a surprise with our kids too. They have been 3 times before but this time we are hoping to pull off a surprise. My dad is turning 70 and taking everyone in the family to Disney so I'm hoping to keep my mouth shut and just wake them up 9/24/11 and say hey lets go to Disney World today. The trick will be keeping my mouth shut
Make sure you let your servers know it's your birthday usually a special dessert will show up and when we booked the trip we had let them know it was my son's b'day and they Mickey and the gang sent him a birthday card.

 

[Alison1975]

I am so worried about blowing the whole surprise...lol.. I can't get my head outta Disney.. been having them watch lots of Disney movies and they see me watching Disney youtube video's etc...it's going to be a LONG 8 months 10 days..LOL

 

[ZipADeeSarah]

I am so worried about blowing the whole surprise...lol.. I can't get my head outta Disney.. been having them watch lots of Disney movies and they see me watching Disney youtube video's etc...it's going to be a LONG 8 months 10 days..LOL

It's hard, but it's doable. The key is to not tell anyone else who might forget that the trip is a surprise and who might accidentally ask the kids about it. We kept our 12/25 trip a secret from January until last week. We meant to keep it a surprise until the day we left, but we started getting nervous that a well-meaning but forgetful grandmother was going to ruin the surprise. So we created a whole treasure hunt and they dug up a treasure chest containing the luggage tags. Not as exciting as telling them on Christmas morning, but I'll take that over Granny letting the cat out of the bag. (I'll get around to creating my trip report eventually.)

I, for one, am rooting for you to keep the secret going until you get there. Your plan sounds solid. How exciting!