Looking for the perfect way to surprise my two girls (age 13 and 9) with a cruise for

We are racking our brains with the perfect way to surprise our children with a cruise. Please someone suggest something .

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We are racking our brains with the perfect way to surprise our children with a cruise. Please someone suggest something .

 

 

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I can only tell you what I did for my children (when they were young). I bought them each a suitcase for Christmas (on sale and very cheap via Kohls sale and coupons) ..and enclosed the brochure in them. OMG....I wish I had video taped their responses. PRICELESS

Once I gave my boys a wrapped calendar and inside I marked up the month/days with the cruise info. Made it cute and fun from scrapbooking type supplies.

Another time I wrapped matching shirts for Disney with a letter explaining the fun I had planned for them.

Patty

I surprised my girls (then 8 & 9) with a trip to NYC for one Christmas. I had a jigsaw o

Puzzle made with iconic NYC images....the look on their faces as they completed the puzzle & figured out where they were going - priceless!!

We are racking our brains with the perfect way to surprise our children with a cruise. Please someone suggest something .

 

 

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It depends on when you are trying to tell them. If you are telling them Christmas morning, you could wrap new flip flops, sun glasses, sun screen, etc and lead up to a big reveal.

If you are telling them some morning and you are leaving in the future, there could be flip flops walking down the stairs or hallway, leading to sea shells, toy boat, etc.

I always like to make a “to do” around vacation reveals. For a past trip, I did a little scavenger hunt for my boys (now 12 and 14). They had fun following all the the clues and at the end, they found little replica tickets that I had made. Another time, we had planned a repeat trip to Disney. I made a short scrapbook of past trips there, and at the very end, I had written that we had so much fun, we should go again. Then I had the date of our future trip. It was fun to watch the light go on in their heads when they realized what I meant. I find the reveal to be so fun to plan. I may have to borrow the jigsaw puzzle idea - that is brilliant! Good luck!

We gave our DD, SIL and 4 grandkids a cruise as a Xmas gift. The cruise was in July. We arrived with 1very large gift wrapped box & the kids drew straws to see who got to open it. That box contained another gift wrapped box, then another gift wrapped box. So when the 4th kid was opening the 4th box the whole family thought they were going to see what they received; no that box contained a gift bag for Mom & Dad to open. The gift bag contained a puzzle which they had to put together.

I will never forget watching the 6 of them sit around the kitchen table working on the puzzle. It was a 3D puzzle of a cruise ship that to this day is on display on a shelf in their house.

It was the first time any of them had been on a cruise & the excitement of the months of planning, looking at the ship on-line, saving their money for the Build a Bear workshop and picking out a shore excursion made it a fun 6 months pre-cruise.

We once told the kids when we were at the port.

I once took the gf and dd on a cruise and bemoaned the inside cabin as the only way to do it, booked an inside, showed them the rez etc,... and then upgraded to an aft balcony, and managed to hold the secret until the cabin door opened...I pawned off our special suite access as my C&A status perk and was then able to get the check in agent to play along with the whole surprise thing...

Are you sailing from a local port or flying to the port?.. Driving to port, just tell them you are vacationing in the port city and don't mention the cruise at all... check into pre-cruise hotel... next morning make a fuss about finding a new hotel and pretend to drive around the city, see the ship and make a big deal about "just deciding" to go on a cruise.. .what the hey...

Flying to port... hmmmmm .. again pick a really boring tourist destination near the port, pull the same trick... although if passports are involved, it gets a bit trickier, but could be managed... like tell them you at flying to Newfoundland (unless they would find that fun).. anywho... the bigger the impact the bigger the surprise... have fun!!

When we were taking the kids on another Disney trip and Cruise, I bought a Mickey Mouse countdown to Christmas ornament. But instead of it counting down to Christmas it was the date of the trip. One of the twins said, I was wondering why it was wrong, LOL

Then in a separate box for each of them I had shirts and pictures of the ship. That was 6 years ago when they were 8,8 and 7.

Have fun!

My DH surprised me with a cruise at Xmas for a January cruise(our first), he did a scavenger hunt around the house LOL. the last box had the brochure and luggage tags in it. You could do that with as above mentioned, sunglasses in one and a clue to the next, sunscreen next , etc... I was blown away and it was great fun!! be sure to have your camera(phone) ready!!! :)

When we took our then 6 year old to Disney, we told her at the airport, picked her up from school with her suitcase in the trunk, she didn’t even notice we were driving all the way to the airport instead of just straight home!

I wondered if you missed ‘Christmas’ off the end of your title. If the cruise is the gift but you’re not leaving that day, I would do things like new swimsuits and flip flops etc. Depending on where you live, it will probably seem like a strange Christmas gift! If you’re actually going to be away on the cruise for Christmas, I would maybe do something in the stocking, and say you’re starting a new family tradition of opening a stocking gift x days before Christmas (ie the day when you’re ready to tell them).

My kids don’t do super well with last minute surprises. I have a video of them at the airport getting a last minute trip to Disney that is so awkward....

We do much better telling a while ahead so they can plan and get excited.

We like to set up the trips for Christmas or whatever and then let them get excited about planning after that first lesson :)

We have picked them up from school and gone directly to the airport. We have also made a banner that says "we're going on a cruise" and rolled it up and wrapped it in a shipping tube. They had to roll open the whole thing before they could read it. It was about 15 feet long.

I saw a youtube video of parents who had their kids believing they were being picked up from school for a scheduled dentist appointment. They told them in the car that they were on their way to the airport to go to Disney World instead. It's probably my favorite surprise trip reveal I've ever seen.