Family cruise as a gift..

We are taking MIL to Alaska for gear 70th birthday this year. Looking for ideas on how to present her this gift. Creative ideas welcome!

We are taking MIL to Alaska for gear 70th birthday this year. Looking for ideas on how to present her this gift. Creative ideas welcome!

How spectacular!!! I think maybe net time you get together, tell her you have an early b-day gift or her to open. The gift could be a nice pair of winter gloves w/69 fact sheet about Alaska, the 70th fact (in big BOLD letters)would be that you are taking her on an Alaskan cruise for her 70th birthday.

Really there are so many ways.... How exciting!:)

When I do this for my grown kids here's what I do: I put together a wrapped (like Christmas gift) box inside I have in order (my list might be out of order):

A picture of an airplane

A picture of the airplane seat

A picture of the arrival city

A picture of the ship

A picture of her cabin

A picture of airplane ticket

A picture of her cruise ticket

A picture of the buffet/restaurants, etc.

A picture from each port and what excursion we will be doing (if we've picked it out already.

I put one or several on each page. I figure this trip costs a lot of money. I want to make sure they appreciate all the different aspects :D plus it's fun with them really discovering what they are doing.

NOW, a few years ago we invited my mom (she was around 80 then) to go with us on a Med cruise. I called her up and said "how much would you be willing to pay for an airplane ticket if it was really far away?" She said no more then a $1000. Okay I said, well that's great, give me your credit card number and I'll talk to you later. Oh, and you should measure your carry on as where we're going they need to be smaller then in the US. I hung up. She called me at least 10 times that day packing and unpacking (the trip was 2 months away) and said "can you at least tell me where we are going so I know what to pack?". I said you'll need the smaller carryon for when we get to London Heathrow. LONDON! she says. I've always wanted to go to London. I said, don't get too excited we're just passing through. After around a couple of days I broke down and told her where we were going and what ports. She so very excited. We were then able to upgrade her using miles to business class, where DH and I were. She said for this trip she'd have sat in steerage or with the luggage.

How about having her over for Baked Alaska with sparklers in it and give her birthday present now. It will give he something to plan for and get excited about.