Surprise on a Disney Cruise

In November of 2014, we pulled off one of our biggest surprises. Let me set the stage. My father-in-law was trying to surprise my mother-in-law for her birthday. They had been on two Disney Cruises in the past with us, and he wanted to surprise her with another trip. He talked to us about going with them, but with a child in school we told him we couldn't go. Since we have gone on over 10 Disney Cruises, he asked us to book the cruise for him which would also help keep it a surprise from his wife. Before we booked, we decided we would go with them, but not tell them. So when we booked their room, we also booked our room, right next to theirs. The surprise was set, but how should we surprise them?

The Setup

In November of 2014, we pulled off one of our biggest surprises.  Let me set the stage. My father-in-law was trying to surprise my mother-in-law for her birthday.  They had been on two Disney Cruises in the past with us, and he wanted to surprise her with another trip.  He talked to us about going with them, but with a child in school we told him we couldn’t go. Since we have gone on over 10 Disney Cruises, he asked us to book the cruise for him which would also help keep it a surprise from his wife. Before we booked, we decided we would go with them, but not tell them. So when we booked their room, we also booked our room, right next to theirs. The surprise was set, but how should we surprise them?

The first thing we did was NOT tell the kids. We knew if they knew, the surprise was over. We talked about different ways to surprise them, but decided the best way was to do it was in person. As the time approached for the cruise, the in-laws left their home a few days early to be able to make the drive from North Carolina easier. They stopped at a hotel in Georgia, and then booked a hotel right next to the port for the night prior to the cruise. (Side note: there are a few hotels that allow guests to leave their cars at the hotel during their cruise for free. With the port parking being so expensive, your hotel stay is equivalent or less than port parking. You may want to look into doing this if you ever need a hotel the night before a cruise.).

The Plan

We finally decided, if everything went right, we could get to the port before them and board the ship before they saw us. A few days before we left, but after we knew the kids wouldn’t be seeing their grandparents, we decided we could tell the kids about going on a Disney Cruise. Then we told them the plan to surprise their grandparents. They were all for it!  To surprise them on the ship, we had to get to the ship early. To do this, we drove from North Carolina to Jacksonville. The next morning we left the hotel early to get to the port as soon as we could. As Platinum Castaway Club members, we have the benefit of boarding at our leisure. All other guests are given a time window as to when they can board. We knew the in-laws’ time, so we knew we needed to be on board before then.

We were able to get to the port, check in, and get on board before they got to the terminal.  Now the hard part: how do we surprise them? One of our kids said we should just show up at dinner and surprise them then. This was a good idea, but what if we ran into them before dinner? We decided that the best thing to do was to catch them in the only area we knew they would have to go through, which is the main lobby as you board the ship.  Luckily text messaging allowed us to know when they were at the port, but we couldn’t trick them into telling us how long until they were to board.  We hid in the lobby looking out the portholes at the gangway, and we spotted them.

The Surprise

The kids and mom hid against the wall while dad filmed the surprise. They walked on board, and as we had hoped they didn’t turn back to look around but walked right into the ship.  We had told the kids not to jump on them, and only say “Surprise!”. We snuck up to them, and the kids did their jobs perfectly. Grandma and Papa looked at the kids, and it finally hit home – we were on the cruise with them!  One more surprise was in store, but this time for us. Grandma was so surprised, we thought she was going to have a heart attack. That was a surprise we hadn’t counted on!

See the video below to watch us sneak up on Grandma and Papa: