3 Pirates and a princess. September surprise 2011 The reveal

[Guest]

Saturday 17th September 2011

The Cast



Me - Mother,planner,chauffeur and chef for the trip. I am disney mad and love everything about a trip to Florida.
DH - His heart belongs to the dark side and he prefers Universal studios to disney but is slowly becoming converted.


DS1 - Ben - He is now 13 and really the best way to describe is loveable one second and seriously stroppy the next. He doesnt do the rides and this trip spent a lot of time holding bags!
He is fiercly competitive and loves any shooting rides!


DS2- Cameron- Cam is 10 and loves everything, his favourite ride is duelling dragons or rip ride rock it and he is completly fearless on any ride! Cam has aspergers which challenged us a lot this trip!


DS3 - Daniel - Dan is my comedian and gives the rides a go but does suffer terribly with motion sickness! He loves food and will eat anything!


DD - Keira - Keira is 5 and is in love with Buzz Lightyear! She is coeliac which means we see a different side to dining than most guests. Keira surprised us this trip with her love of everything girly.

The Weekend before the trip

So normally trip reports start with a travel day but our story starts 2 days before the flight when we reveal to the kids that the next day we are off to Gatwick!

So early Saturday morning we were woken by 4 very excited children wanting to know when our pirate party was starting and if the treasure hunt could be the first game! I was struggling to compose my nerves at how the surprise would actually pan out so we got up & between the 2 of us managed to place clues without the kids realising what we were actually doing!
Then we sat them down and told them they could do the treasure hunt first. They were presented with the first clue which took them upstairs to get changed into their pirate costumes.



Clue number 2 took them to the trampoline and there was a near stampede when they found the clue to come back to us!


Clue 4 directed them to the mess hall (Kitchen) to which Cameron shouts OUR bedroom thats always a Mess!
We gently swayed them to try the kitchen instead lol
And on it went clue after clue ...







The last clue was hidden inside a balloon which they were instructed to pop - we had however told them that some balloons contained gunge so they had to stand directly under each balloon to pop them! When the last one was popped Dan actually screamed as he thought it had to contain gunge as noone else had been caught out! So funny!



It took ages for them to work out what the clue actually meant and they looked in lots of wrong places and at one point even threatened to destroy my cake as the treasure could be hidden inside it!
Eventually Daniel found the treasure chest and we instruct them all to sit on the sofa so the contents can be revealed!




The sweets were a massive hit with all the kids and then Dan shouts there are cards in here too and doles out the cards we told them all to wait so they can open them at the same time!

Cam and Ben were first to read to the bottom of the cards and just sat there just saying you are joking? Dan had stopped reading at going to Walt disney world and joined in with the Really? Then went back to the card and shouted out "IN 2 DAYS TIME? "

Keira seemed shocked and just sat there looking at us. Then Dan jumped up and hugged everyone which prompted Cam and Keira to do the same.
They then all said "Prove it! "
They just could not believe it was true so we gave them the tickets which they read in great detail just looking at us saying " Its not a joke is it? "

I dont think it sank in at all on that day they were all so quiet and just kept asking questions about How? As the day went on they started to piece together conversations we had had leading upto the trip which now made perfect sense!
They all went to bed at a reasonable time and really easily - I suppose they were just so shocked!

Sunday 18th September 2011

In contrast to yesterday we awoke to the sound of the kids running up and down the hall and keira singing "Im so excited and I just cant hide it! " at the top of her voice.

After a quick breakfast and tidy up we decided to leave for the hotel at around 11am and then we could just make the day go as fast as possible!
We took a really boring uneventful trip to the Holiday Inn Crawley and checked in just after 2.30pm which I felt was quite good time!

Everyone was hungry so we dumped our stuff and went straight to The Harvester across the car park!

The meal was nice and we filled ourselves to bursting before heading back to the hotel! As wew were leaving the Harvester our Florida song Ive got a feeling by the black eyed peas was playing and we all agreed it was an omen that this was going to be an amazing trip!
This is where we all got a bit silly and we were jumping from bed to bed for around 10 minutes before collapsing with laughter on the floor! At around 7 ish I got the kids to take a shower and change into Pjs so we could all settle down on the master bed to watch X factor! I was sos urprised that during this 2 of teh kids went to sleep and the other 2 were not far behind them once the programme had finished!
Me and Wayne spent the whole night pretendng to sleep so as to not disturb the other one! The bed was so uncomfortable though and my excitement was at bursting point!

Next up ... Travel Day!HERE

[sarahewoods]

Brilliant reveal, glad it went just as you planned it. From reading your pre trip, you worried about it for so long, so to see that it turned wonderful makes me smile.

Looking forward to more xx

[brother bean]

Great reveal

[chaffey]

So glad that the big reveal went well and they were all very excited. Off to read the next one

[00swan]

What a lovely reveal !

[Cinderella]

Great start

[pudge]

Wow what a way to reveal a surprise..

[Guest]

Wow - I would have been excited with that reveal

Looking forward to reading more

[Clare]

What a fantastic reveal! Wish I was a kid again lol

[ginger ninja]

love the reveal got me excited