Surprising Kids

[CanadianTwosome]

We actually couldn't take it any longer, broke down and told the kids. We were all dressed up to go out to a nice restaurant and while waiting for the table we had to tell them.

 

They were super excited to hear about it, and loved hearing about our plan to surprise them.

 

I guess I just have no willpower.

 

Hey, a surprize is a surprize!! I'll bet it was a fantastic dinner!! You know what happened? You were fine with it until you started thinking about it (when you started the thread)... then I'll bet you couldn't stop thinking about it, right? :p I know that's what happens to me!

[KevinsCruising]

Hmmmmm, I would surprise them myself also before the cruise. My son has been on 7 cruises now. He is 16 yrs old now but he loves helping plan the cruise. What to bring, what to pack, He gets so excited and puts a count down screen saver on our computer.

 

When you pull into the pier and you first see that ship.....it is worth the money to see it in their eyes.

 

You can surprise them with a video of the ship... there are plenty of them on Youtube. You can have a card with the web address in it and let them pull it up and look at it. Or you can decorate a room in your house to look like a cabin. There is a lot you can do.....but i have to agree with other posts........getting ready for the trip is half the fun !!

[sparks1093]

We actually couldn't take it any longer, broke down and told the kids. We were all dressed up to go out to a nice restaurant and while waiting for the table we had to tell them.

 

They were super excited to hear about it, and loved hearing about our plan to surprise them.

 

I guess I just have no willpower.

 

Yep, know what you mean. I can't buy a big gift for DW too early or I'll end up giving her the present before the event. Have a great cruise!

[mactrio]

Last Christmas Santa brought a cruise for our 9 year old, he opened a gift and it contained a piece of paper with instructions to look at a picture in the box, the picture was of a floral arrangement in the dining room, he then had to find the floral arrangement and there was a 2nd clue....at each clue as a small gift to open, he got a bottle of blue tinted water, a box a sea salt, a zip lock bag of sand, a musical light-up palm tree w/ Santa dressed in tropical clothing and finally at the last clue he got a mini replica of the ship we were gonna be on and a printed paper saying that we were going on a 7 night Caribbean Cruise. He loves to play scavenger hunt every Christmas. You could do something very similar and lead your children to the port.

Good luck and have a fun cruise.

 

 

 

 

We decided when we first booked our cruise that we would like to surprise the kids with the cruise. We are now just a couple weeks away.

 

I still want to surprise them, but when should we tell them?

 

My thought was that it would be fun to see if we could get them all the way on the ship before they figured it out. They are 9.5 and 11, and supposedly still believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy. (Maybe I do too?).

 

Any way, here's my plan to get them on the ship. I wrote a letter, with made up NCL letterhead, stating that based on our responses to their online survey we have won free lunch onboard. We should show up for lunch, but bringing government issued identification to get onboard. We already have a hotel booked for the night before where we can park there, I was going to go out and bring the luggage to the porters that morning. I would do that regardless of any surprise.

 

Then close to lunch time we would go on and have lunch (in the MDR, not a big buffet fan). We'll explore the ship for a while, and unfortunately get stuck on the ship during sailaway.

 

I've tried to think of everything, but since we haven't sailed before please help me with any missing pieces of information or faulty logic. It's not a huge deal - except my wife said it couldn't be done.

 

Thanks in advance for any help. I also posted this in the Family Cruising board, sorry for cross posting if you are reading this twice. I don't see a way for it to show up in both places at once.

 

We'll be sailing the Norwegian Star out of LA in a couple weeks.

[ruffs]

They had opened the letter earlier in the day, we talked about it and how cool it was. They totally bought into the lunch thing. That night we were going out for a nice dinner, kind of a dry run for the cruise, and were decked out in new dresses, dress pants, a few of the nice things we bought them for the cruise. We were waiting for our table at a Teppanyaki style restaurant and decided to tell them.

 

We told them that it wasn't just a lunch, that we had been planning it for several months.

 

The hardest part was not talking about it when they were around. We had told all our friends, at soccer, etc., but couldn't talk about it in front of them.

 

I just thought we had done enough, that the plan would have 'worked' but that going any further with it would have marginal returns.

 

This way they can help plan the excursions too.

 

btw - the funny thing for me was that the letter was signed by 'James Buffett'. I thought 'Jimmy Buffet' would have given it away.