How do you get the bubble ceiling off without making a huge mess???

Hire someone to do for you?

It makes a mess, no way around it. Place dropcloths down and cover any remaining items in the foom and just go for it.

Do all the rooms at once, drape bed sheets over everything, get a flat spatula or sheetrock paddle and scrape the popcorn off the ceilings. Wear a dust mask and goggles/glasses to protect your face. You will have a gosh dusty mess. The other option is to move to a new house :).

It always makes a mess - no way around it. Two tips. Wear a mask - that stuff is horrible to breathe in. AND do not use your hoe vacuum to suck up the debris - I killed a vacuum cleaner doing that. Sweep up as much as you can, then use a lightly dampened mop on wood, tile, or laminate floors. If you have rugs, again, sweep the heck out of the rug. Only vacuum when you have gotten almost all of the dust up.

Mist the ceiling with water using a pump garden sprayer working in 3 sq. Ft. Sections. Allow the water to absorb into the texture but don't let it dry before scraping it w a mud knife. Be careful not to leave gouges because then you will have to float those in. There will still be dust yet significantly less and the water will make it easier to remove. Please do as others suggested and protect all surrounding areas. When we did this we wore shower caps, dust masks, and safety goggles. We looked silly and gotter dun!

Attach a mud knife at the end of a shop vac with duct tape... it should stick out less than an inch from the end of the tube and you want the tube inward or preciding the knife when you scrape. This way, most of the material you scrape will be directly sucked by the shop vac... you may want to empty your vacum before it is completely full. BE CAREFUL! Even if this trick cuts the cleaning in a quarter of the time and energie, you still need to protect yourself and surroundings.

Cover every part of your body you can, the dust is fine and will go down the neck of your shirt, and every where it can. The contractor who scraped our popcorn ceiling they covered every surface possible, including walls and carpet. It was an unholy mess! If you are going to use a vacuum to pick up any of the debris make sure you use a wet/dry vaccuum, the fine dust could ruin your home vaccuum.

Beware, that much of the 'bubble' ceiling material in the US contains Asbestos...call a professional, please

You can't!