Whats a great way to surprise the kids?

[ssatterly]

I am taking my kids on a cruise in Oct. on the EOS and they "think" they are going on a cruise in Dec. So how do i surprise them early? Also while we are on the cruise my little gril will turn 6 (in the last day) What can I do for her b-day? The cruise will be Oct 9th -16th 2005..Please help!

[serene56]

Are you sailing on the Radience? If so I would wait til you are onboard before you book as you can get a shipboard credit by doing this.

for 32.00 you can get the bcabin decorated where it can stay decorated all week or you can get it decorated the day of her birthday- For 32 bucks I would want it there all week.

[ssatterly]

Yes I am this Dec on the radiance.. But with the group rate i am getting here on CC I am getting 2 cabins instead of one for basicly the same price. and only a $25 deposit for each person! I think thats a great deal!

[serene56]

Thats so true-- looks like a great deal to me. Are you giving the kids a cruise gift for this christmas.. a calender with the days marked off. a suitcase filled with cruise goodies?

[ssatterly]

Well at 1st it was going to be a gift for next Christmas and we were going to cruise in Dec. But this deal came along and i could not pass it up. So now i am trying to Decided to just give it to them as a lated b-day gift for my son. He truns 9 in Aug and a b-day gift for my daughter who truns 6 on the cruise or give it to them for an early Christmas gift!!. Not sure what to do. The know about the cruise in Dec..... ( they don't know that we will be going in OCT now!) that is the surprise .. I just don't know what to do.. Please Help!

[super_grover]

I suppose you could just wait...do a count down ...and then the day before say "wouldn't it be neat if we could go tomorrow......" Or you could, as suggested above, do a suitcase of gifites and maybe have something in there to indicate the change of date....

[mamakinrocks]

We made a deal with the kids (ages 8 and 9 1/2). In exchange for only a few gifts vs. alot, we will take them on a trip. They did their first cruise this past Jan. and loved it. They went for the deal (yeah!). They want to do another cruise, but we have not promised them this. In fact, we are taking them on a cruise to Hawaii. I am going to do a scavenger hunt on Christmas morning...wrap lots of little clues at each spot until they figure out what the trip is going to be. I will also wrap some travel activity books, etc. I think that they will really have fun with this idea!

[karlanee]

We decided to let our daughters (9 and 11) know in advance of our cruise. We did it by asking them to do a research project online for us (they really enjoy researching things on the internet). After we'd booked the cruise, we went online and printed out the document from Carnival's website that shows when we're booked and where we're going.

At supper that night, Brad said he had something he wanted them to research for them. He handed them each the piece of paper without saying anything. It took a few seconds for it to register (the page had all the people traveling as well, so their names were on it). A few seconds after looking confused the oldest started squealing! The youngest still didn't have a clue - but finally her sister screamed out loud - oh my gosh we're going on a cruise! They've been wanting to go since we went alone last year on an anniversary cruise.

They new about 4 months (almost) ahead of time. We sail on January 15th. It has been fun to see their excitement building. They made a paper chain that hangs the length of the hallway and each day they tear a piece off. One night we also printed out all the sample kids activities listed on carnival.com and let them circle the things they might be interested in doing. Another time we all looked at the excursion list together. We've been shopping for a few things. Last weekend we went to a store to buy our jewelry for formal night. (costume jewelry).

They've enjoyed it immensely the whole process of working up to the cruise. It was not an option for us to totally surprise them. They are missing a week of school - so we had to talk to teachers and stuff about it too.

We surprised them once totally out of the blue with a plane trip to Houston to see their cousins. We picked them up at school and already had their bags in the car. We asked what they wanted to do and we just started driving. The youngest said, let's go to the airport and watch planes! Well, what a surprise that was - kind of freaky actually. So we headed to the airport. We get out to go in and my dh goes to the back of the van. The girls see the suitcases they started crying. They were shocked. It was actually strange - the oldest was really uncomfortable at being surprised like that.

[ssatterly]

I just hope i can come up with a way to surprise them. Like i said they do know they are going but they think they are going in Dec 2005 but I found a deal I could not pass up in Oct 2005..... So they get to go 2 months sooner!