Probably not, at least not in the spectacular form described by Luke. The disciples knew that Jesus was going to return to the Father, but nothing indicates that they expected to witness his visible ascent into heaven.
Indeed, Jesus had announced his departure on several occasions. He had declared that he was going back to the One who had sent him (John 7.33; John 16.5), that he was going to “prepare a place” for his own (John 14.2-3), and that he would soon be glorified with the Father (John 17.5). After his resurrection, he had also said to Mary Magdalene: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father” (John 20.17). The disciples therefore knew that this separation was inevitable.
However, their last question reveals that they were still expecting the immediate establishment of the messianic kingdom: “Lord, is it at this time that you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1.6). They seem more concerned with the national restoration of Israel than with the imminent departure of their Master. Nothing suggests that they expected to see Jesus rise into the air before their eyes.
Luke's account stresses their astonishment instead. They remain motionless, “gazing intently into heaven” (Acts 1.10), as if gripped by the event. The intervention of the two men in white even shows that they stayed gazing at the sky after Jesus had disappeared (Acts 1.10-11). Their attitude suggests surprise and wonder rather than the expectation of a phenomenon announced in its particulars.
Moreover, the Old Testament contained a few remarkable precedents, such as Enoch, whom God took to himself (Genesis 5.24), or Elijah, taken up to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2.11). However, nothing indicates that the disciples connected these accounts with what was happening or that they had envisaged a visible ascension of the Messiah.
Thus, although the apostles had been prepared for the idea of Jesus' departure and his return to the Father, everything suggests that they did not expect the extraordinary circumstances of the ascension. For them it was an unexpected and spectacular event, which definitively marked the end of the Messiah's earthly ministry and opened a new stage in the history of salvation, that of the Church's witness under the direction of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1.8).