Any unusual trip reveals you have been a part of?

We told our kids we were going to Houston to visit a friend who just had a baby. We drove to WDW instead to surprise them which thrilled our 9 year old son (at the time) but disappointed our 4 year old daughter who kept saying, Oh man, I wanted to go to Houston!" We drove up to the Contemporary and the poor bell man opened the sliding van door for her. She screamed, "Shut the door-I'm getting out of here and going to Houston!" I'll never forget the look on his face, poor guy. We carried her kicking and screaming through the lobby, up the elevator to the room. Thankfully Wishes was just starting, and we had a great view. That perked her up and saved our weekend getaway. We've never surprised her with anything again, and she's now 17.
 
jeremy1002 said:
When I was a kid, my parents surprised us with a WDW trip by telling us that grandma in Tampa had died & we were flying in thru Orlando for the funeral. We were so excited when we drove to WDW from MCO instead! And MeeMaw (alive) even joined us there!
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The trauma!!!! You probably needed therapy for years!!!!
 
We invited friends with 3 kids to Disney. We invited them over and had Chinese dinner and their mom had gotten large fortune cookies that you can add a custom message into. They didn't believe it when they read they were going to WDW. It took a lot of confirmation from the adults till they believed it, then they were excited.
 


My husband and I surprised our kids one time. We had to go away to a wedding for the couple of days before we were leaving and their grandmother was coming to stay with them. We had told them that the day we come back we would do some thing really fun as a family like go to a water park or something and that we had to drop a friend at the airport on our way home to they were going to meet us there. They were 2 and 7 at the time. When we met in the parking lot, we asked them what they wanted to do that day and if they would like to go to Disney. They liked it so much they want us to surprise them for their next trip which I am not sure what to do yet.
 
Ours was pretty simple, my girlfriend and I took my son out for pizza and let him open the Magic Band box that came in the mail. It took him a few seconds to start to "get it". He was pretty darn happy!!
 
I set up a scavenger hunt for my seven-year-old. He was desperate to go to Toy Story Land. So, we had clues leading to more clues (and each clue had a little gift). He ended up with a box of Magic Bands, a vacation itinerary and a Toy Story Land t-shirt. It actually still took him a minute to figure it all out. And it was an extra special trip because he was the only child (of ours) who got to go. He's the youngest, so he was excited to have a trip focused on him and what he wanted to do!
 
jeremy1002 said:
When I was a kid, my parents surprised us with a WDW trip by telling us that grandma in Tampa had died & we were flying in thru Orlando for the funeral. We were so excited when we drove to WDW from MCO instead! And MeeMaw (alive) even joined us there!
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I’m not a prank or surprise fan anyway, but that is just evil!
 
Huh? I can't imagine ever using death as a way to surprise someone. Seems a bit extreme.

We don't do surprises in our family. My oldest in particular does not like surprises, he's a planner and likes to know what's coming next. So we save ourselves all the trouble and the kids are always in on the plans early on.

I envy those that can pull off amazing surprises. But I also cringe when I see them go the other way. Just google "Disney surprises gone wrong." When I think about it, I wouldn't want to be surprised with a vacation either. Surprise! You're going away for a week, you had no idea, no time to plan and we're leaving now! So I can't say I blame some of the kids that get upset in those videos.
 
sullyfam said:
Huh? I can't imagine ever using death as a way to surprise someone. Seems a bit extreme.

We don't do surprises in our family. My oldest in particular does not like surprises, he's a planner and likes to know what's coming next. So we save ourselves all the trouble and the kids are always in on the plans early on.

I envy those that can pull off amazing surprises. But I also cringe when I see them go the other way. Just google "Disney surprises gone wrong." When I think about it, I wouldn't want to be surprised with a vacation either. Surprise! You're going away for a week, you had no idea, no time to plan and we're leaving now! So I can't say I blame some of the kids that get upset in those videos.
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I will add that when we surprised our youngest, we did it with enough time to alter our plans. We'd been chatting with him to see what he would choose IF he were able to go, but we still wanted to make sure we had time to make changes. He ended up sticking with what he'd said for a "hypothetical" trip. But we still gave him plenty of time to change his mind!
 
Two years ago, we did a treasure hunt. After the last day of school, we told our DGSs we’d go out to dinner to celebrate. When they arrived to pick us up, we asked if they’d like to do a treasure hunt first. We had Disney-themed hints, (“This is where Lighting McQueen would sleep if he came to visit” - garage) and prizes like Disney bathing suits, photo/autograph books, at each location. The last stop had an invitation to visit Mickey in DW. Cheers and jumping up and down ensued—and then I heard the 4-YO ask his 7-YO brother, “What’s Disney World?” They still has two months to look forward to the trip.

This year at their shared birthday party there was a box with a Mickey balloon with magic bands on the string and photo/autograph books and a Disney tour book inside. DD tells me DGS9 pours over the book, and every time we see them, they discuss and vote on which ride in each park we should ride first.
 
lady9 said:
We told our kids we were going to Houston to visit a friend who just had a baby. We drove to WDW instead to surprise them which thrilled our 9 year old son (at the time) but disappointed our 4 year old daughter who kept saying, Oh man, I wanted to go to Houston!" We drove up to the Contemporary and the poor bell man opened the sliding van door for her. She screamed, "Shut the door-I'm getting out of here and going to Houston!" I'll never forget the look on his face, poor guy. We carried her kicking and screaming through the lobby, up the elevator to the room. Thankfully Wishes was just starting, and we had a great view. That perked her up and saved our weekend getaway. We've never surprised her with anything again, and she's now 17.
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I am sure this was not funny at the time, but I had to laugh... this is so typical at our house... plan what we think is a great surprise and then half the time reaction is so unexpected! Kids!
 
The first time we took my step son, then 9 years old, to WDW the surprise didn't go entirely to plan. It was Christmas Day and we'd already told him that we would open a few presents on Christmas morning- those in his Christmas stocking - but then the others would have to wait until later. This was because we 'had to drive to the airport to meet my mum and dad to give them their presents' (they live in Cyprus, we're in the UK and told him they were flying back to Cyprus that morning).

Anyway, we get to the airport with suitcases (aka the 'presents'), meet up with my parents and spring the reveal:

"Surprise! We're all going to Disney World!!" :banana:

...and, he burst in to tears! :sad:

In retrospect, we see where we went wrong; he was just too overwhelmed and obviously not expecting it. We felt really bad about it, but it all turned out okay. Once he was over the shock we all had the most amazing time and he still loves WDW today - he's 20 this year.
 
OP: I’m kinda scratching my head about your story. Familial dark sense of humour?

My greatest “reveal experience” was the first time I went as a kid. My parents said they had no plan, and that we were just going to drive until we found somewhere we wanted to spend our vacation. After 4 days on the road, each ending at a motel where my dad said “want to stay or keep driving?” I finally saw signs for Disney. Of course, that was my parents plan, but they didn’t let on until we saw the castle spires.
 
I'm in the middle of planning a surprise reveal for our 7 yr old granddaughter (trip is in November). This will be her second trip (she was 3 last time and it was a big family trip) but first going alone just with grandparents. She loves puzzles so I am having one made through Shutterfly for our surprise reveal. I took one of my many pictures of the castle and edited words onto it ("Surprise, you're going to DisneyWorld with Mimi and Papa Nov 2019) I can't wait to see her face. She asks me all the time when we are taking her back again. I'm hoping I can wait until at least the end of August before we surprise her..it's getting hard to keep such a fun secret!
 
As far as timing, we did a reveal 6 months prior to the trip. Probably too early. I think 2-3 months is the sweet spot for young kids.
 
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