Yet another Disney thread/question

You have a point that six months is a long time, but my husband's idea was to tell him as we were arriving at the airport, or even not then but to show up and have him find out when we got there.

I think maybe a month or so would be good. I also don't want it to be a surprise because then if someone accidentally mentions it no one will get upset about ruining a surprise.

Oops, it is nine months, not six. I have a newborn so please forgive me for not being able to count right now.

ETA: My brain is such mush at this point that when booking the flight I had to stop and think of what their middle names were. Oddly enough, when the older two act up I have NO trouble at all remembering their full names.

:-D

Hang in there!

It will be SO MUCH FUN no matter how you do it The great thing is at 5 (and definitely 2) they have no idea what there is to do, so they don't know what they're missing if you don't hit everything.

We took our kids to Disneyland when they were 7 and 3 and decided not to tell them until we arrived. We got up early that morning in LA and simply said we are going on an all day adventure. As we were driving on the main road into the park, my oldest started seeing the flags of all the Disney characters and burst into tears of joy. It is a memory that none of us will ever forget! It of course depends on the kid but we knew she is a child who ADORES surprises.

I vote for a surprise. Always love that. Last year, for Feb break, the kids were told they were going to visit me. They had to stop and get me at the airport on the way to my house because I was coming hoping from a work trip. I was standing at the curb with a sign that said "Want to go to Disneyworld with Aunt Connie?" The 6 yr old read it slowly and then she started screaming in the car and got her brother all riled up. The jumped out and couldn't believe we were going right then! It was priceless.

Wait?!?! You have a newborn?!?! I admit to maybe missing the details on previous threads but I thought you were announcing you were pregnant a few weeks ago? Sorry. Congrats.

Thank you. He is actually six weeks old now, but still a handful. My husband initially wanted to go in May but I said flying with a three month old was insane so we settled on the fall instead. He'll still be a handful on the plane, but at least he won't be a tiny screaming baby.

My grandson does not enjoy surprises, so we've promised never to do that again. His reaction to "Do you want to go to Disney World right now?" was "NO". If you choose to tell the kids ahead of time, I'd follow Tarheels' advice and do it closer to the time of your trip

There are a few cute YouTube videos where the whole surprise thing did not go very well. One kid was very disappointed he wanted going to his aunt's house- I love that one!

My kids loved watching the dvd about the parks and got them very excited. But no way I could tell them until 1-2 months before or they would drive me crazy asking about it every day.

We told our 4 and 5 year old almost 9 months before. For a month they would ask about it alot and then it died down. Then we had to really pump them up when it got close to the time - it was like they kind of forgot about it.
Regardless we had an awesome time. We did 5 nights at the Wilderness.
My biggest piece of advice - stay onsite at one of the big 4s (Contemporary, Polynesian, Grand Floridian or Wilderness) and don't go in with a budget in mind, you'll only end up angry.

? If you pre-book a package with room, tickets and the dining package, you can have pretty much an exact budget in mind. Not much would be laid out beyond that other than alcoholic beverages and souvenirs. Incurb the souvenir thing by giving each kid a gift card to spend plus whatever they've saved of their own $- that's the only $ that can be spent on souvenirs.

While I adore Grand Floridian and the other monorail resorts, I don't think they are required to make a wonderful stay and they are usually 2-3x (or more!) the price of the value or moderate resorts. The monorail is fun but only goes directly to one park. Bus service at the monorail resorts stinks, IMO. But the bus service from other resorts is generally great and it will be almost as easy as the monorail. Stroller folding is the biggest downside to the bus.

We went to Magic Kingdom two or three times as well as Epcot almost every evening we were there. We stayed at the Contemporary Resort and really loved having the monorail (as well as being walking distance from the Magic Kingdom) which gave us easy access to both of those parks. I think we went to the others once each and had to take the buses and didn't like that nearly as much. (I never understood why they didn't put in more monorails to connect everything.)

I think Disney is a place where you have your own priorities about where to splurge and where to save. Of course it's expensive, but you can keep it under control too. Places we decided to save were - we didn't get park hopper tickets, bringing our own stroller rather than renting, staying at a Moderate rather than a Deluxe (which we loved!!!). We did one sit-down meal a day and otherwise did quick service and went to Wal-Mart for snacks and breakfast foods. We also bought a handful of souvenirs in advance that we gave as Tinker Bell presents, and limited park items to about $25 we brought from my son's piggy bank.

Things we splurged on were renting a car for a few specific reasons, staying at a Moderate rather than a Value, buying the Memory Maker photo thingy, having 2 character meals... probably a few more things I can't think of right now.

Point is, it's all a give-and-take but unless you approach this as the only trip you'll have in your lifetime to Disney, there are ways to save if you can let go of some things.