Keeping the trip a secret from kids?

[DisneyDog]

We have a 5 year old DS. We should find out this week if we will be able to go on a trip in May (as long as DH's vacation request goes through at work). DS hasn't been since he was 2 years old, and doesn't remember the trips at all. He asks to go back practically daily.

The trip will be a present from my mom and step-father. I want him to be really, really, super surprised. And, I don't want him to find out until we literally arrive. (He won't sleep for the next 4 months if he found out now -- guaranteed!). When we go to the airport, I plan to tell him that we are visiting my mom (in Palm Beach County), not completely untrue, since she will be there. Hopefully I can get him through the Orlando airport without him getting too suspicious of all the Mickey's in the store. Ha ha. Of course, I want to videotape his reaction when he finds out.

Anyone else ever pulled off such a stunt?

(On a side note -- when I was a kid, my parents took me to Great Adventure in NJ. They kept insisting that they were taking me to a boring old bread factory. I was REALLY surprised when we got to the amusement park!)

[BigRedDad]

Good luck on keeping it a secret. It is doubtful he will know when you go to the airport. I doubt you will be able to keep it much of a secret after that point. Other people will be talking about it, he may see another kid and talk about it. I think once you get to MCO, it will be hard for him not to know. He will be surprised no matter what.

We are taking or DD2 in 11 weeks. I doubt she will remember it much. I think they will remember once they are 4 or 5.

[vamaggie]

How often has he flown to FLA? If he seems suspicious about the Disney stuff you could tell him there are Mickey stores in all the airports in FLA if he hasn't been to others before that he would remember. Are you taking DME or renting a car? If you're taking DME that will definately let him know where you are going. If you are renting you could start out taking about going to see grandma and then say something like, "oh why don't we call grandma and ask if she would rather go to Disney World?" You could call her (arranged with her first of course) and have son ask her and get his reaction when she says she'll meet you there! Good luck keeping the secret--I could never do it!

[DisneyDog]

We flew down to Florida two months ago. My son is very intelligent, but his focus kind of bounces around from one thing to the next, so he can be easily distracted. I will remember the phone call suggestion. We may have to fall back on that! We are planning on taking the Mears shuttle from the airport, and we are staying at the Swan. He isn't familiar with any of the resort names.

[mickey&missy]

If he hasnt flown into MCO more then a few times and knows thats the airport for Disney World and you can keep him distracted a little in the airport you might be safe until then. Another concern maybe other families on the plane. The "are you going to Disney World?" question comes up a lot. My other concern would be him seeing any Disney icons while your on the shuttle, Spaceship Earth (I think you maybe able to see it from Swan and Dolphin), any of the billboards, the welcome sign, etc.

Can you keep it completely a secret and wake him the morning your leaving with "wakeup, we're going to Disney World!" ?

DH and I are suprising our kids and my sisters 3 kids (My sister and her DH know) with a trip next January. They've never been, I can't wait to see their reactions!

Good luck!!

[DisneyDog]

I think the only Disney "icon" he is familiar with is Mickey himself. I don't think he would recongnize Spaceship Earth necessarily. He has never flown into Orlando. We used to live in Florida and we would drive to WDW. But, he hasn't been since he was 2 years old.

I was thinking that, with the character toys at the airport, I could just tell him it's the Disney store, like at the mall.

We will be arriving at Orlando around 10am and going straight to meet my folks and then to a park, hopefully MK on the first day. I am hoping to keep it a mystery until we meet up with my folks (and hopefully, since we are staying at the Swan, it won't seem so "Disnified" that he would realize it before we meet up with them).

Honestly, though, it's already been difficult to keep it a secret. We have started having him earn an allowance, and we are encouraging him to save his money for something "special." Of course, he wants to know what the "special" thing is!

[mouse-logic]

Wow. Good luck keeping it a secret much passed MCO.

I've tried twice. Managed to keep it secret both times until the luggage was in the car.

Problem areas...

Flight attendants asking if he/she is excited to be visiting _______.

Pilot announcing "just off to the right you can see WDW" or "Welcome to Orlando, FL, home to Mickey Mouse."

Or the recording on the tram between terminal that says "whether your here on business or to visit one of our world famous theme parks."

Others at the baggage claim, with "ears" on.

Or the Mears shuttle driver and attendant annnouncing the "next resort."

Or the 500 WDW billboards between MCO and WDW.

Or the ear-splitting cheers for joy when your shuttle finally passes through the front gates at WDW.


Anyway, make sure you have a change of clothes, because whenever he finally realizes where he is going, he gonna wet his pants.:mop:

Hope you have a great time.

[Bri]

i think you can easily tell a few white lies. first, by flying into orlando, he's not gonna know that airport isn't the one to go through to get to your parents. you can tell him since you are in florida, there is always a lot of disney stuff at the airports. yes, the pilot or flight attendent might say something about disney but you can just say "oh we are visiting my parents, maybe we will get to disney next year". you probably won't be able to keep it much of a secret once you arrive at the resort though, mostly everyone there will be on a disney vacation.

i like the one posters idea of waking him up that morning by saying "wake up, we're going to disney world". he would freak out and you can video tape the whole thing! good luck!

[DisneyDog]

As I said in a separate thread -- we just found out DH's vacation was approved!! We are going!! We are going!! So, now I can really begin planning the surprise!!!!:mickey::mickey::cloud9::party:

[browneyedgirl12]

My parents are pretty good at this. A couple of years ago my mom and dad suprised us with a trip to WDW. Well first they put the suitcases in the back of the truck and covered it with a tarp. I asked what the tarp was and they said it was my dads luggage and that he was going on a buisness trip and that he had to fly out of the Orlando airport (we only live about 2 and a half hours away from the Magic). Well we left for WDW or to the "airport" at 7:30 so about half way through all of the kids started to doze off. When we finally got there me and my sister were ecstatic but my brother was asleep. We woke him up and told him we were at WDW but his eyes were still closed and these are his exact words, "Yeah Right" he opened up his eyes and the look on his face was priceless. Too bad we didn't get it on tape though I will never forget that look.

Well thats my story I like the idea the other poster said about the phone call. Good Luck :thumbsup:

[bshaw96]

We did the same thing with our last trip. Didn't tell them until we got to the airport. When we were packing and all, told them we were packing for a beach trip. All the way to the airport, told them we were going to the beach. Finally had to tell 'em when we were in the baggage check line. They were 8 and 5. So they were asking lots of questions and wondering how we got lost at the airport going to the beach :mickey:

[teambricker04]

As I said in a separate thread -- we just found out DH's vacation was approved!! We are going!! We are going!! So, now I can really begin planning the surprise!!!!:mickey::mickey::cloud9::party:

Hooorayyyy!!!! That is great!

I don't know how you can keep it a secret! I always get too excited to keep my big mouth shut. It is probably why my 3 yearold always asks, "Can we go on a plane to Dinzey World today?" I can't wait until the day he asks and I say, "Okay" :mickey:

If you are flying out early, maybe he'll still be a little sleepy to realize what is going on. I think this would be a hard one to do all the way to the park, but worth a shot!

[Tink&Goofy]

We surprised our kids about a year and a half ago. They were 14, 11 and 4 at the time. We had told them we were going to Boston for an "educational" vacation. They were thrilled...:secret:.
We didn't tell them until we had to change planes in Dallas. We gave the older two each their own WDW guidebook to scour on the next flight. Not sure the youngest really understood at first. The only bad part was the 3 plus hour flight from Dallas when they were :joy:::blah::joy::blah:

[rubato]

We surprised our son for his 5th birthday. But, we were driving. We told him we were going to Florida for vacation. Beach, sun, sand. When we pulled up to Disney, he freaked out. He got to eat dinner with Pooh for his birthday! I love the fact that he didn't know. We're leaving in 2 weeks to go back. This time he knows. He's so excited he can't sleep at night. I wish we hadn't told him. But, I'm so bad at keeping secrets, I couldn't possibly have done it again! :)

[DisneyDog]

Great news, folks! We are going to fly out on an evening flight so that we can wake up at Disney! We will be taking a 9:15 flight out of Philly, landing at midnight. My folks will also be arriving that same day, earlier, and will have already checked in. In fact, they are going to pick us up at the airport so we don't have to worry about a transfer. So, when DS sees Mommom and Poppop at the airport, we can tell him then! I don't think this will be a difficult secret to keep after all!

(Although, DS had to get his kindergarten shots at his physical this morning. He had to get 4 shots!! He was so scared and was crying. I was sooo almost tempted to tell him then, just to cheer him up!! But, I was strong and he was fine after a few minutes.)

[Bohms4]

We're going to be surprising our kids also (6 & 4) when we go in April. We have an early flight so we're going to wake them up and tell them the morning we leave. Not sure how we'll pull it off though....hiding the luggage, etc.

[fstyne]

My DH and I are driving down in August 2008 with my stepson, our daughter and son. If all goes as planned, we'll be leaving on my stepson's 13th birthday. My DH will pick him up the morning we leave. Our plan is to give him a fanny pack (with Disney Dollars stashed inside) for his birthday. He'll open it just before we leave and it should be an awesome surprise.

Our 1 yr old son turns two while we're gone so the trip will be special for him also. So that our 4 yr old daughter isn't left out, we've given her a piggy bank for her birthday (today). Just before we leave, we'll trade in her change for Disney Dollars for her Cinderella wallet.

I can't wait!

[Hull-onian]

I couldn't keep it a :secret: from the kids. I :blah: :blah: :blah: to them and they are excited to go.:plane:

[scootch713]

My friend did not tell her son till they arrived at the airport. He was dressed in uniform for school, she told him they were just dropping daddy off at the airport. Only problem... she regretted a bit as the trip seemed to go so fast. And afterwards thought maybe it would have been better to tell him, so he could have enjoyed the anticipation a bit more.

The anticipation(IMO) is half the fun. We do all sorts of fun stuff waiting for the day(paperlink chains, daily countdown, ect...)

[DisneyDog]

I agree the anticipation is a lot of fun. But my DS has the type of personality that, if I told him now, he wouldn't sleep for the next 3 months. And, he's like that little girl in the Volvo add -- he talks constantly, non-stop, from the moment he wakes up until the moment he falls asleep. It's quite unreal. I honestly think the anticipation would be more than any of us could handle if he were to know :blush:. Plus, I know that I'll only be able to get away with this once, and we'll hopefully have his reaction on videotape for posterity to view over and over and over again over the years:):thumbsup:

[tink247]

I was able to pull off the biggest surprise for DS 4th b-day. We had never been to DW- or Flordia for that matter. All he knew was that we were going on vacation. He got 'clues' thru out the day as to where we were going, and I asked our driver to let me know 5 minutes before we drove thru the DW gate. At that time we gave him his last clue & got his expression on video as we saw the Disney World sign come into view. It was priceless! I say go for it! It will be a treasured memory! Good luck & let us know how it goes!

[Hair_Razor]

Wow how fun!! You might not even have to tell him until morning when you head to the park since you are getting in so late. I can't wait to hear about it, hope you do a report, maybe with a video!!:thumbsup:

[junedis]

My friend was able to keep the secret up to the point her kids were in the hotel lobby. They just couldn't believe they were there. So good luck. It's so exciting! Our family is going for the first time in June and I am so excited. We are sure when we are going to teel our son 9 and daughter 6. What's weird is so many of their friends are going this year, and they keep asking me when they can go. They have no idea!!! I know they will go nuts. Enjoy-----Have fun!

[IC10]

We kept it from our kids years ago my son was 5 and DD was 2. As we pulled in we told them we were going to WDW!!! My son looked at us and said ok. Hmmmmm not what I was hoping for but then again he had never been to the parks so he had really no idea. Have fun!!!

[robyn221]

We surprised our kids with a trip to WDW for our DD's 9th birthday this past September. She had often seen me reading the Intercot forums, so she wasn't terribly suspicious. She even helped me plan the ADRs. I told her I was helping a friend plan a trip for his sister and himself and needed her help picking restaurants he would like. We finally told the kids when we checked them out of school to go to the airport (we figured we wouldn't be able to keep it a secret much past that). Neither DD nor DS believed we were actually going until they saw the luggage in the back of the truck.

We had a great time, but for my DH & I, planning the trip right under the kids' noses was one of our most favorite memories!

Have a great trip!

p.s. Don't forget to mention that you will be celebrating your son's b-day when you make your reservations. The staff at FW really went out of their way to make sure DD's birthday was, in her words, "the best one . . . so far!"

Robyn:mickey:

[crazypoohbear]

In 2006 I surprised my son's with a trip. they thought they were dropping off my sister and I to go to Disney alone. They thought they were going to Hampton beach with their father.
In reality my sister was dropping us all off at the airport. THey were VERY surprised. They were even more surprised that we were going to Disney without their aunt!
I hope you can keep it from them until you get to the park. You can always have your mom say that you are staying overnight at a hotel because they are having car problems and don't want to risk breaking down on the way home.
The swan/dolphin isn't disneyfied so he won't know that you are in Disney.
If he sees the other sights you can bemoan the fact that you are "so close, yet so far!"
Have a great time. I know I did!