[Milocalwinnings]

I'm surprising my mom with a cruise for Christmas... except it's the week before Christmas so I need to give her the "gift" early.

I need a good way to surprise her with this. My dad suggested a box with the tickets in it, but that's not really any fun I bought a Royal Caribbean cookbook and was thinking of giving it to her saying "Maybe you can use this when we get back" but thought I'd see what other ideas I can get.

[tarynls]

I did this a few years ago. My dad is retired, mom works in a hospital. First called my mom's supervisor (awkward conversation, even though I know her!). Had to make sure Mom could get the days off for the cruise I was looking at.

Once I booked the cruise, I went onto the cruise line's website and printed out the itinerary, what was available on the ship, etc, etc. Put everything together in a nice binder for easy reference.

Called mom & dad to come over, showed them the itinerary on the website, said I was thinking about taking the trip, what did they think? We went through everything that was onboard - restaurants, spa, oohed and aahed over the ship's amenities, etc...

After looking at it online, I handed my dad the binder with their tickets & told them it was done, they were going, not me.

They were surprised!

ETA: This was my parents' first cruise. My mom was apprehensive at first (motion sickness possibility), but I reminded her I was fine on the cruise I took the year before. She became more excited as the cruise approached & when they returned, she said she absolutely loved it. They're looking forward to their next cruise.

[bits619]

How about a little bathtub toy boat wrapped inside a box, with the tickets/itinerary in/on the boat? Or a small tote bag with waterproof money holder, sunscreen, motion sickness meds (my mom swears by bonine and ginger pills, fwiw), and some other doo-dads for happy cruising, along with the itinerary and boarding passes tucked in the bag?

[Milocalwinnings]

I called her supervisor a few weeks ago and she took the week off for my mom. My mom has no idea and is not going to be too happy to find out that I took a week off for he... but hopefully she'll get over it when she realizes I'm taking her on a cruise... and if not, I'm sure I have plenty of friends who would love to go

My dad usually does something with us like he makes us answer trivia questions and each gift has a lottery ticket on it- every time we answer a question correctly we get the ticket and the gift, but if we get it wrong someone else can answer it for the ticket.
One year we had to play hangman for each gift. Another we had to do a scavenger hunt. Last year we had an auction... he gave us $XXX and he had some general gifts anyone could bid on and others specifically for one person who could buy for a discount of what he paid or keep the money (all gifts were returnable to where he purchased them).

I'm just not sure how I want to do this one. Hmm...