Disneyland

Well, we did it. Bought tickets to Disneyland that is. For only the second time in it's five year existence, the Knight family is going on a family vacation.

With this new job, Josh gets three weeks of paid vacation. He had to

choose all three weeks in June, so, not much

planning went into picking the dates. Josh chose his second week of vacation to be December 26th to January 2nd. Both of our children have birthday's at this time. Humm, Christmas, two birthdays... why not bag all the presents go to Disneyland instead?

When I first started looking for packages, it did not seem at all too expensive. About $2100. This price included everything: airfare, hotel, and Disneyland tickets. Or so I thought. When we found out it was reasonably priced, we decided to tell the kids and start informing the Knight family.

You see, the extended Knight family is accustomed to its Christmas rituals. Christmas is a big and important holiday. Lots of delicious food and gift exchanges. Also, Christmas is the favorite holiday of the Grand Matriarch and having 1/4 of the family not celebrate with the rest, well, it may as well be one of the seven deadly sins.

But then there is my family. We have not been to Alaska in a long time. Really, a long time. Plus, my parents just moved to Homer. They have a fabulous, rustic, quaint, Alaskan cottage. Breathtaking views, tons of snow, warm fires... what is not to love! To further feed my guilt, my sister and brother are both going home for Christmas this year. Breaking the news to my family that we decided to spend money in California rather than Alaska was equally difficult.

Back to the story.

So a few weeks ago I start to build my Disneyland vacation package at Alaska Airlines and the total price jumps up about $400. Turns out, that even though you are building a package (hotel airfare, tickets) the total price does not reflect the Disneyland tickets till you choose which ticket package you want. You see, there are a million different ways to see Disneyland. You can have just Disneyland tickets, or you can choose the Park Hopper tickets. Wait! You can have a 2 day Park Hopper, or a 3 day Park Hopper. You can get tickets for Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and about a zillion other things to see in Southern California.

Yikes. All of a sudden our cheap family vacation was not turning out to be so cheap. Then the realization hit us. We live in Spokane. It snows in Spokane. Last year it snowed A LOT. There are big mountain passes in between Seattle and Spokane. They close them often in the winter. Thus came the next logical conclusion: we decided to fly out of Spokane rather than Seattle. This complicated some thing (family) but uncomplicated others.

Logistically it makes sense to fly out of Spokane. Not only does it save us 10 hours of driving to Seattle, but we live here! The airport is about 15 minutes away and there are a ton of people who would drop us off, thus saving $ to park at the airport. And the kicker, we would not miss out on our vacation should we get massive amounts of snow and it become impossible to drive to Seattle.

So, Naomi, the queen of bargains (only when I want to be) spent hours on the Internet searching for deals. And boy, did I get them.

Turns out we had two mileage tickets on our credit card. Our credit card requires a Saturday night stay, so we had to move our trip up one day. Then Josh remembered that he had a credit on Southwest Airlines from when we was interviewing last year. He called up SW and they said that he did have a $75 credit, but it had to be used by Dec 27th. We were leaving on the 26th. Perfect.

So, I have Claire and I flying on our free mileage tickets, Levi and Josh flying Southwest out of Spokane for only $100/each, and then Levi and Josh flying Alaska home with Claire and I for only $140/each. Our total airfare, from Spokane to LAX, for four people, is under $500. Sweet.

Since we are leaving a day earlier than originally planned, this allows us to go to Disneyland a day earlier, Levi's birthday. He gets in free that day. Claire is two, she is free. That means we only have to buy one kid's ticket into Disneyland! Whoot! Adults are expensive.

On to the hotel. Obviously we will not be staying at one of the Disneyland hotels. It is like, $400/night at one of those places! No way. Not on my dollar. Okay, Josh's dollar. But there were several things that we important to me.

1. Closeness to Disneyland. We did not want to rent a car. Period.

2. Continental breakfast. We still have to eat. May as well get some free breakfast and snacks for the day!

3. Some sort of cooking appliances in the rooms.

I got all of those, and more, at a hotel called The Peacock Suites. Not only do they have two rooms (hello privacy!) but the rooms have a mini-fridge, toaster, microwave, and dishes! By the way, here is shout out to Hotels.com. They made it SO easy to find a hotel, with good reviews, that had everything that I needed. Plus, it is only $100/night. Not bad for walking distance to Disneyland. We are coming back to Spokane on New Years Day. I wanted to see the fireworks.

With two kids, we figure two days at Disneyland will be enough. My brother lives close by, so we will get to see him and meet his fiance. That will be nice. Plus a good friend of mine and her husband, who was in Medical School with Josh, are doing their residency in LA. They have two children, the oldest being Claire's age. So we will get to visit them as well.

And there you have it. A complete week long vacation for a family of four at Disneyland at Christmas. Total price? $1500.