Ideas on Surprises?

[ancldaca]

My first cruise was a surprise for my mom's birthday. She was under the impression that it was just her and Dad going on the cruise. My father, my brother and I had kept everything hush-hush for many months. My father finally told my mother on the flight to SJU (shortly before arriving) and the four of us met up at the airport to take the flight to Antigua. She was sooo excited, it was great! Best cruise ever!!!

[boodoll33]

I am surprising my best friend with a cruise for her birthday this June! I told her we are going to San Diego for the week and booked a cruise to Mexico. I booked a couple of excursions and will be making "goodie bags" to go along with each one. She has no idea and it's been so hard to keep it secret since I booked the cruise 6 months ago! I can't wait to see the look on her face.

[sea_u_onboard]

I am surprising my best friend with a cruise for her birthday this June! I told her we are going to San Diego for the week and booked a cruise to Mexico. I booked a couple of excursions and will be making "goodie bags" to go along with each one. She has no idea and it's been so hard to keep it secret since I booked the cruise 6 months ago! I can't wait to see the look on her face.

How are you going to make sure she takes a birth certificate / passport?

[yankeegirl55]

My last child graduates from high school June 8th.I ma surprising her with our first cruise.I bought luggage and will hide the tickets in the last piece.I am also going to put the airline tickets in a photo collage.her party is June 30th s oI have to keep quiet a bit longer.

I can't wait to see the look on her face!!:D

[cruzingthebriny]

For our two grandchildren, ages 13 and 14, we planned a cruise in Jan. for a Christmas prestent. I got pictures of our ship from travel magazines and pasted them on construction paper the size of a large greeting card and did the whole scrapebooking thing on them. We then placed them in a box with sunscreen, sunglasses and an ID holder to be worn around the neck. They had no idea what was in the boxes. The look on their faces Christmas morning was priceless. Needless to say we didn't have a day go by until the cruise with many questions and excitment in their voices.

[boodoll33]

How are you going to make sure she takes a birth certificate / passport?

 

Well, since she is my roomie as well, I snuck her passport and used it to fill out the fun pass. I also told her to bring her passport in case we decide to hop into Mexico for the day since we'll only be 30 miles from the border. The worst problem i've had so far is to convince her to pack a formal dress!

[sea_u_onboard]

The worst problem i've had so far is to convince her to pack a formal dress!

Easy - just sneak something out of her closet and pack it in your suitcase.

[clazar2121]

Last year my brother & I with families surprised our parents with a 8 day cruise on Carnival Legend. We gave it to them on x-mas day. Carnival had sent out little gift boxes that played their melody when you opened the box. This year we already have them on Carnival Freedom for the trans-atlantic cruise in April 08. The suprise will hopefully be again on X-mas with t-shirts being made up by other Cruise Critic passengers on our roll call proclaiming " Freedom To Rome ".:rolleyes:

[Weeze624]

We surprised our kids by packing after they went to bed and then taking a "long cut" to school. They didn't know a thing about it. They had no idea we were going on a trip at all. We were about 10 minutes out of town when they started guessing. They were so thrilled when we go to the pier.

 

For another cruise we wanted to surprise my MIL and FIL. We had to let my MIL in on the surprise, so she could arrange for their time off work. After she had everything taken care of, we presented a card with cuise documents to my FIL for his birthday. The look on his face was unforgettable! I will treasure that forever! It was their first cuise and I am so glad we were able to go together.

 

Have Fun!

 

Starr

I LOVE the way you surprised the kids!

[IslandDreamers]

The second cruise DH and I went on, was a surprise..to him!

I had received a nice little bonus from work and went straight from work to the travel agent!

When it came time to tell him, I asked him to sit down on the couch in the living room while I "slipped into something a little more comfortable".

 

Needless to say, he was getting pretty giddy.

I secretly hit "play" on the cd player- I strolled into the living room to the song "KOKOMO" (Beach Boys) while wearing my bikini, my full snorkle gear and tugging a suitcase. I handed over the itinerary to him and just stood there while he tried to figure out what was going on.....I looked like a dork but it was pretty funny to see the look on his face!

Now, this cruise is for his 40th bday. I secretly up-graded our room to a Jr Suite....let's see how he likes that! He thinks we're getting an inside room!

hee hee!!! :p I too have a hard time keeping secrets like this in...there's been plenty o' times I've wanted to tell him but I keep thinking how happy he will be when he walks into that room, not expecting it!

[LPast50]

My Mom will be 75 July 15th. Her present from me is: Highlighters, post it notes, assorted sizes of Ziploc baggies, a Space Bag, and a 5 day cruise to the Carribean:D in October (all of this in a big bag).

My son, daughter-in-law, daughter,her boyfriend and my 2 grandchildren will also be joining us for their 1st cruise to celebrate my Mom's birthday. This has been planned since April & it's been so hard for everyone not to talk about the cruise to my Mom. Only 1 more week to go & we won't have to be quiet about it any more!:D :D

[jens1097]

I surprised my husband with a cruise for our 17th wedding anniversary. He was opposed to a cruise so I just booked and paid for it w/o telling him. I even bought him "cruise clothes" and arranged with his boss for the time off work. I had to tell him about 2 weeks out because he was going to get his new schedule at work...and it showed him off. I took him on a weekend trip and told him I had a surprise for him. I had wrapped a Carnival t shirt and 3 shot glasses from the ports we would be visiting (all bought off ebay) and our cruise docs. He opened it and just stared. He was very excited and still says it was the best vacation and surprise. We leave for our second cruise is 33 days!!

[Loyal2RoyalCaribbean]

Ten years ago, my Grandmother decided that she wanted to go on a cruise (1st time for all of us), and her DH wasn't interested, so desperate to find a cruise buddy, she called my mom and my aunt and they agreed to go, both single mothers however, my grandmother decided it wouldn't be fair if the mother's went and the children didn't go, so she bought 6 tickets. My cousin, my brother and I had no idea about it, so when it came time to leave for the trip, my mom told me and my brother that we were going to spend the weekend with my grandmother, we used to do that often so it wasn't a big deal. Once at my grandmother's, my grandma told us that the next day we would spend the day in Boston, MA just to explore and go to the museums, cool enough for the kids. We were woken up at 4:30am the next morning, put in the van and were off to Boston...we didn't figure out that we were going on a cruise until we got to Logan Airport. So on the plane my grandmother showed us what we were about to do. We've all been cruise buddies ever since :-)

[auburncruisegirl]

We just went on our first cruise last year (Grand Princess-Eastern Carribbean) and absolutely loved it. I had been hinting to DH that I really wanted to do another cruise this year for our 10th anniversary, but he wasn't biting. Something about having to pay bills.....:) Anyway, at Christmas I opened up a scrapbook from DH. It had a cut out on the cover to display a picture, and DH had placed a picture of one of our scrumptious cruise desserts with the intriguing caption printed below: "Part II". Inside, I found our passports, other pictures from the "highpoints" of our previous cruise, and a note addressed to his "Beautiful Bride". He explained that we would be celebrating our anniversary by cruising to the Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten for seven days on the Glory! Better yet, our best friends are going with us again and were in on the surprise the whole time! Also included in the scrapbook were our itenerary for the next cruise and lots of empty pages for collecting new memories!:p