Originally posted by AdventurerKat
How have those of you who have done this for your children
"sprung" it on them.
We had just completed another move (military) right before ds' 7th b-day, and he didn't know enough kids for us to feel comfortable having a birthday party for him. Since we were within driving distance, we decided that we'd surprise him with a birthday trip to WDW instead.
DS has a medical condition which requires him to see a doctor who is out of state. About 2 weeks before our trip, we had to go to a doctor's appointment - this provided the perfect alibi! We told our kids that the doctor had called, and we had to go to another hospital in FL to have some more tests run.
It must have been convincing, because dd, who was 16 at the time, kept complaining and pouting that she had to come along to a doctor's appointment. She thought she should be allowed to stay home alone for the 2 days she thought we'd be gone (Note to those with teens: Almost complaining their way out of a trip to WDW really helps to get rid of the whiny, bratty stage
)
Anyway, we hopped into the car after dh got out of work. The kids fell asleep about halfway through the trip. As we entered the gates of WDW, dd woke up, and her eyes were huge... she even made a squeaking sound! We put our fingers to our lips, and ds slept on. We pulled up to the AS Movies, and the lobby was completely empty (NOTE: If you want to check in at the All Stars when there's no line, try 2:00 AM
).
We woke up ds and checked into our room. He was still half asleep, and didn't figure out where we were. Finally, as we were finishing our check-in, the CM told ds to do her a favor and to "tell Mickey I said hi" the next morning. DS started looking around and finally figured out where he was. It's amazing that we got any sleep at all that night!
The downside of this is that we needed to remember the next few times to tell him that he was REALLY going to the doctor's, and not to WDW!