The Best Surprise You Have Pulled Off

[Iteachwood]

About 5 years ago my wife decided she wanted to take our daughter to disney for her 18th birthday ( halloween baby) so they went down for halloween. ( girl's club)....Little did they know that my youngest daughter (15) and I planned it out to surprise them the next day after they arrived ( halloween)...They were staying at Pop Century. We booked same hotel and got there around 11am. I called my daughter, asked how they were doing, etc and where they were at now. They were at the pool! PERFECT. We snuck down crossing our fingers we would not bump into them..scoped the pool and saw them. They were sitting at the edge of the pool. We quickly found their spot ( recognized our special towels) and sat in the chairs with sunglasses and hats. I noticed my daughter had her cell with her and called her from the chairs. Blah blah blah and then said " Sarah do me a favor and turn around ( we started to slowly walk toward them) she said "what?" "I said just turn around for a sec...she did and my wife..the look on their faces when they saw us was PRICELESS!! It was like they were looking at us but couldn't believe it was really us. Anyway..we enjoyed Halloween together at MK...and left next day! yuo we were there one day.

 

[cowanfamily]

Nice suprise! We suprised my boys in a similar fashion last year. We took them down for Thanksgiving. They had no idea my sister and her family were meeting us there. We got there about 10pm and they were sitting by the pool. They were blown away when they saw them sitting there.

 

[coltow]

When my sisters were little they had a paper route. They were going to wdw with my parents and so taught my cousin (he lived down the street) how to do the paper route. So the day after my family went down, my cousin and aunt flew down (leaving paper route for neighbor). He knocked on their door and when my sister opened it he said he had a question about the papers. My mom said it took them a few seconds to realize what exactly was happening.

 

[PeoplemoverTTA]

Mine isn't too impressive, but it was pretty cool. Back in 2005, I invited my mom on a last-minute October trip to see MNSSHP. I was an AP then, and I told her I booked POP for $49. Actually, I had gotten the Yacht Club at a bargain basement price of $149 (sigh, if the days of 50% AP discounts returned...now they're usually stuck at 30%).

When we arrived at the AP, I checked us in at the magical express counter, and asked the CM discreetly if he wouldn't announce where we were staying. He gracefully obliged.

We lucked out, and were actually on the same bus as POP, so when we pulled in there first and my mom started to get off, I asked, "Where are you going?"

She looked at me like I was nuts :lol: At the next stop, when we got off, she was pretty excited (we had never stayed at YC before - I loved it!). Such an awesome trip, and it got off to a kind of cool start.

My cousin and her boyfriend surprised their son at the airport one year. He had no clue at all he was going to WDW, and they got the reveal on tape...he started bawling - tears of joy, of course. Very sweet.

 

[ob1thx1138]

We live in Ky. We have two boys who were 16 and 8 at the time (last summer). This was our first real vacation and the 8 year olds first trip to WDW. Well every summer my oldest spends a week with his grandmother in Fl (my ex wife’s mom so the boys are actually only half brothers). So last summer we made plans to pick him up at St. Augustine to “save money on a plane ticket” So my wife and I drive down with the 8 year old with him thinking we are going to spend a couple days in St. Augustine and then one day in Kissimmee including a trip to the beach, the fort at St. Augustine, Medieval Times, and a few other random places. Well on the day we are supposed to go home, we wake up the youngest one telling him that there is a mysterious cup with his name on it. We had written “Drink Me” on the side of the cup with his name and put a little bit of coke in it. He drinks the coke and sees “Go Eat Breakfast” written on the bottom of the cup. So we pack up and head to the local fast food restaurant. My wife and I go in telling the boys that the drive through was closed because it was so early (6:00am). Well we get in, order some biscuits, and after we get the food we take out one of the biscuits and write “Go to Riverside on Dads GPS” on the inside of the wrapper and then wrap the biscuit back up. We then went back to the car and hand out the food making sure the youngest got the special biscuit. He opened it up and read it to us, but we all acted like we could not see the writing and implied that maybe there was something special in the drink he had that let him see the writing. By now he was really confused and not sure what to think. Well I take down the GPS and say, “Hey look there is a favorite on here called Riverside” at which point my wife and I play it up how neither of us know who put it in there and then we decide we better check it out. We follow the directions which lead us under the large Disney World sign and up to the gat at Port Orleans Riverside. Well we finally let him know that today was not the last day of vacation and that we were going to spend 8 days (turned into 9 due to an unscheduled day of rest lol) at Disney World with Deluxe Dinning. The funny thing is we had planned this trip for months and had told the 16 year old so he could help us pick out our restaurants and activities, and the 8 year old never had a clue. He was in total shock all day. We got there early enough to check in and have front row standing for the rope drop ceremony at the Magic Kingdom. Which I have to admit brought a tear to my eye. I guess from all the build up and finally being able to share the experience with my family. I know that is something I will never forget and hopefully it created a fun memory for him. Now I can’t’ wait to start planning the next trip and be able to include him in the decision making and maybe throw in another surprise here or there.

 

[Crockett]

We had a one-armed friend of ours take a car trip with us & the children. (Mind you, the kids were completely unaware our friend's arm was prosthetic). The one-armed friend sat in front, passenger seat, while the kids were piled into the back seat. We were driving down a country road, and just as we were about to pass a road sign, our friend stuck his prosthetic arm out the window to hit the sign, ripping the arm completely off. As the kids were screaming and yelling in terror, our friend turned around to the back seat and said: "That's why you should keep your hands and arms inside the ride vehicle at all times when you're at Disney World!"

 

[Rook26]

Last September on our babymoon I had a few surprises for my wife. As far as she knew we were going for 10 days, staying at CSR with no real frills. (Not that CSR isn't great). Well, we drove right past CSR and she was looking at me like I was crazy, I told her somehow I missed the exit and I would ask for directions up ahead (at AKL). Then I told the gatekeeper that we were checking in and boy was she surprised. Then after we checked in I surprised her with the Safari & Special Dinner @ Jiko. When the 10 days were up I told her that she shouldn't pack anything because we had 7 more days of vacation. I surprised her with tickets to La Nuba, a visit to Kennedy Space Center and Universal. It was a pretty special trip.

Now that our little guy is here, I'm planning a vacation for us and Nana and Papa for October of 2012.

 

[Rook26]

We had a one-armed friend of ours take a car trip with us & the children. (Mind you, the kids were completely unaware our friend's arm was prosthetic). The one-armed friend sat in front, passenger seat, while the kids were piled into the back seat. We were driving down a country road, and just as we were about to pass a road sign, our friend stuck his prosthetic arm out the window to hit the sign, ripping the arm completely off. As the kids were screaming and yelling in terror, our friend turned around to the back seat and said: "That's why you should keep your hands and arms inside the ride vehicle at all times when you're at Disney World!"

At first I was like, ok how is this Disney related... Then I was like, nm the op never said "Disney" surprise... Finally my thought was, ok there it is. Very funny.

 

[biggiedisney123]

My wife has managed to pull off 2 huge surprises, one on me, and one on our son.

My surprise lasted until we hit the rental car desk in Orlando, she had changed our vacay from 7 to 10 ten days at the world, she even went as far as to call my coworkers and boss and got me the extra time off, and swore them all to secrecy...seriously cool having your vacay extended without your knowledge...she rocked that one.

The second was bringing my sons "favorite aunt" (her only sister,) haha. My son thought it was just the three of us until his aunt met us at the airport (Orlando again) and he about hit the floor when he saw her come running up with bags to go on vacay with us.

My wife rocks at this game. lol

btw...our vacays are entirely at disney...we barely leave property...so thats how mine is disney related.

 

[Prince-1]

A few years ago when my children were younger, my wife and I told them we were visiting their Aunt in West Palm Beach. It was an hour trip from where we lived. Little did they know that we packed the car the night before and that we were actually driving to Disney. Luckily they both fell asleep and when they woke up we had just arrived. They were totally surprised. It was one of those reactions that you never forget as parents.

 

[MassScott84]

We had a one-armed friend of ours take a car trip with us & the children. (Mind you, the kids were completely unaware our friend's arm was prosthetic). The one-armed friend sat in front, passenger seat, while the kids were piled into the back seat. We were driving down a country road, and just as we were about to pass a road sign, our friend stuck his prosthetic arm out the window to hit the sign, ripping the arm completely off. As the kids were screaming and yelling in terror, our friend turned around to the back seat and said: "That's why you should keep your hands and arms inside the ride vehicle at all times when you're at Disney World!"

Are you sure your last name isn't Bluth?

 

[Crockett]

At first I was like, ok how is this Disney related... Then I was like, nm the op never said "Disney" surprise... Finally my thought was, ok there it is. Very funny.

Are you sure your last name isn't Bluth?

Yep. The show Arrested Development gets credit for that one. This thread brought that to mind for some reason.

 

[Edeyore]

My wife and I actually pulled off the surprise trip once. In 1998, by sons were 10 & 4. We planned the trip and did not tell the boys until a limo picked us up to drive us to the airport in Boston, at 5:00am the day of the trip. Though they were blurry-eyed, they were very excited. It really was great.

 

[angela02]

We currently have a surprise trip planned soon for our two boys (6&2). It is our intention to wake them up and take them to the airport in their pj's and not tell them where we are going. We are going to do our best to the keep it from them as long as we can until they see the Magical Express busses when they will know exactly where we are and where we are going.

 

[Bri1121]

Two years ago for Christmas I surprised my kids and hubby with a Disney trip. In the beginning of August I had a few friends over and we got to talking about Disney and two of them were planning on going right after Christmas. They were talking about great deals they were getting. I was like why aren't we getting in on these deals. So I immediately stopped shopping for Christmas and started planning. The only person I that knew was my mom. For the last present on Christmas I wrapped up a Disney scrap booking album and the first page was all decorated for Christmas with Disney stuff and it said - Guess who is going to Disney in 5 sleeps( thats how we count how long away something is for the kids!)

I think my husband was the most excited! It took the kids a little while to fully get it! It was definitely the best Christmas yet! I was so proud of myself planning a Disney vacation in 3 weeks and all by myself!!

We are surprising the kids again this summer!!! Hubs in on it though!

 

[PhilharMagician]

A few years ago for our 15th anniversary I booked a surprise 4 night trip to WDW. Unfortunately I had to tell her about 2 weeks prior about the trip because she needed to get time off of work but gave her none of the details. I got great rates for AKL $159.00 per night which was a nice treat for us and airfare from upsate NY @ $49 each way. I booked dinners at California Grill, Bistro de Paris, Le Cellier and San Angel Inn which were all superb. The Bistro was the best. We had a window seat and watched all of the people walking by and the service was spectacular. Then I also booked a carraige ride at Ft Wilderness after dinner one of the evenings. She was blown away by all of the wonderfull things that I had planned.

 

[Kev1417]

3 years ago after my wife and i got done watching wished we hung out around the park for awhile since it was EMH. around 11pm we wanted to get a picture at the rose garden. I thought it would be a good idea to have the photopass person take some pictures with our personal camera. As i was "showing the photopass lady how to work our camera" i informed her that i was actually going to propose and to take as many shots as possible. Got some great shots from photopass and personal camera and wife was completely shocked! :: air high five'ing myself right now :::wave:

 

[Bulldog1653]

I was in 2nd grade at the time and I can remember my parents telling my brother, sister, and me that they had a "special weekend" planned for us. Being 8 years old at the time, I had no clue until the day we were driving to the airport. My parents decided to play a guessing game with us and the first one to get it right got $5. For a kid that age, it was a big deal.
Finally after a few off the wall guess, I got it right. Not only was it a weekend, it was an entire week.
My dad had a business trip in Anaheim, CA and decided to take us all along for it and it was a trip I'll never forget.

 

[Le Twins Day]

It was September 2000 and we were on our honeymoon (worked in the travel industry at the time so we never booked and just took what we could find on arrival) picked up the hire car and off we went. Found an offsite hotel that could only accommodate us for the 1st 10 days (or so I told DW) and that we would need to find another hotel for last 4 nights. 10 days later we check out and I start driving looking for another hotel, I took a wrong turn into Port Orleans Riverside and DW started to panic that we would be thrown out by security for trespassing etc., we arrived at security barrier and I explained we were lost and would it be OK to turn around, so we get through and I pull up outside check in and that's when I tell her we are spending rest of our vacation here....the tears of happiness started and it took 30 minutes before we got out of car to check in...

 

[zurgandfriend]

My dear wife and I took our son to see "Santa" at our local mall. f#*&@ Santa asked me how old my grandson was, but I digress.

Anyway, as my wife took our son away I stopped and talked to Santa for a minute, my son saw this and asked me "What were you telling Santa?" I told him I asked for something for the whole family, a trip to Disney. My son looked at me and asked "Can Santa do that?" I said "We'll find you."

Christmas morning after all the presents were opened I told my son "Wait there is one more! What's that envelop high up in the tree?" it was of course all the documentation for our trip.