Disneyland Wouldn't Let Us In - or - Blackout Dates? - or - The Loves Go To Knotts Berry Farm INSTEAD of Disneyland!

We have to have some background here...each year, Troy and I say that we are not going to get each other any presents or we will at least stick to a strict budget. Each year, I follow the guidelines Troy sets and each year, he DOES NOT!!! He always makes me feel bad because he went way over budget and I got him socks. This year was no exception.

Despite the fact that Troy quit his job on Dec. 23rd and, at this point, has no prospect of a paycheck in the near future...he used up all the points we've been racking up with our Disney credit card over the past 5 years to buy season passes. I had tucked the desire to go to Disneyland (which burned inside of me for months) away in a nice little box in my heart where I thought it would have to patiently wait for quite a while. Surprise, surprise, I opened a nicely wrapped box on Christmas morning to find three season passes - we don't have to pay for Ben until he's 3.

Troy informed me that he had already booked a hotel for three nights - we were to leave Sunday evening after church and go to Disneyland Monday - Wednesday. I had tucked my little dream away so neatly that I was having a hard time getting excited. Weird, I know. Long story short, Monday morning, as we were getting ready to turn into the parking garage at Disneyland something clicked in my head and I said, "Troy, don't these passes have blackout dates? Did you check to see if we can even go today?" He didn't even have to check, we both knew instantly, our tickets could not be used that day.

Lizzy burst into tears, Troy was, naturally, very frustrated with himself, Ben didn't know the difference and I started to laugh. It just seemed so ridiculous and unbelievable to me that we were actually in that situation that I couldn't help but laugh. We immediately changed plans and headed for Knotts Berry Farm. We had a fun day together and then headed home on Tuesday. It was cheaper for us to eat the cost of the hotel for Tuesday night than to stay a couple more days paying for entertainment we hadn't planned on. We will go to Disneyland again - Troy did buy the season passes. :)













That evening as we were driving around Anaheim we noticed signs that read, "Disneyland Sold out for today". Whew! I guess it was a blessing in disguise. The park was so full they actually reached maximum capacity. I'm glad we weren't there.