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Author: Adventures by Anne
To continue the National Park Week series, we’re going all the way over to the West Coast!
Today, I wanted to highlight Pinnacles National Park in western California because it is one of the newer national parks and may not be as well known as other California parks, such as Yosemite or Sequoia. We visited here several years ago as part of a Pacific Coast trip and spent an afternoon hiking in the park.
Let’s go hiking at Pinnacles National Park!
To continue the National Park Week series, we’re exploring another different landscape.
Last December, we visited Saguaro National Park in southeast Arizona as part of our cross-country trip. Saguaro is home to the huge saguaro cactus, the tall one with multiple arms that you typically think of when you hear about cacti in the American West. Well, there are tons of them clustered together here!
Come with us to the Sonora desert to visit Saguaro National Park!
To continue the National Park Week series, we’re going to climb up instead of down this time.
A few years ago, we went to Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado as part of an epic trip visiting the parks around Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. That is still one of our favorite trips, and this park is one of the most fun parks that we’ve been to so far. Sand sledding! Who knew?!?
Come sledding with us at Great Sand Dunes National Park!
To continue the National Park Week series, I’m featuring a park that’s totally different from Valley Forge NHP that I featured yesterday.
A few months ago, we visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park in the southeast corner of New Mexico during our cross country trip. This park exceeded all expectations! There were so many unique formations in such a huge cavern.
Come visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park with us!
To celebrate National Park Week, as mentioned in my post yesterday, I am starting a series featuring a different national park each day this week.
To kick things off, we took a trip to Valley Forge National Historical Park!
Let’s visit Valley Forge National Historical Park together!
To celebrate National Park Week, I will be doing a series featuring a different national park each day this week. Follow along on my Park Visits page.
This year, National Park Week is celebrated from April 22 – 30th. To kick it off, there’s free admission on Saturday, April 22, 2023 for the ones that charge an entrance fee, though I don’t mind contributing to support the parks anyway. The National Park Service parks and related entities will host activities all week.
This year’s National Park Week theme is “Your Park Story”. Which park is special to you? Share “your park story” about your special connections with places in national parks or communities. Share and follow stories on social media using #MyParkStory and #YourParkStory. You can follow the NPS social media here.
We love the national parks! We just did an epic cross country trip last December where we went to 5 of them. We’ve been to almost half of them so far, and honestly, cannot name one that we didn’t like. It’s hard to pick a favorite. Each one is so different and so cool in its own way. Hopefully, you can learn more about each park and explore them yourself too.
Visit this NPS page for detailed information on all of the events to celebrate National Park Week. #NationalParkWeek
Saturday, April 22nd, is also Earth Day, so check out the Earth Day page for activities to commemorate this as well. #EarthDay
Visit the NPS site to learn more about the national parks and to plan your visit. Note that some parks require timed entry tickets, so plan ahead.
Feel free to contact me if you want to chat about a national park trip. Hopefully, we’ll see you out there!
Pics ©National Park Service
Recently, a friend of mine went to Disney World with her young kids, as a group of 8 people altogether. She was kind enough to write this awesome article offering her insight on her trip. Hopefully, this helps you if you fit this demographic too. There are great tips for anybody going to Disney though. Thanks, Linda!
6 Tips for Traveling to Disney World with a Large Group and Young Children
Breaking News!
Disneyland California has suddenly announced that sales will resume for all four of their Magic Key annual passes tomorrow, April 11, 2023!
Sales will start no earlier than 9am PT online, but will likely use a virtual queue, so get to the website early. Last time they opened up sales, there were hours long waits and some sold out very quickly.
To purchase passes, visit this Magic Key purchase page tomorrow morning. They should all be clickable to add them to your cart at that time.
The different passes offer varying amounts of dining and merchandise discounts, free theme park parking, certain PhotoPass benefits, and more. For details on the Magic Key passes, visit the general Magic Key site.
Feel free to contact me if you want to chat more about Magic Keys or Disneyland trips. We were just over there this past December.
The Disney Incredi-Pass, Sorcerer Pass, and Pirate Pass will resume sales on April 20, 2023, online only.
Eligible Disney Vacation Club Members can purchase the DVC Disney Sorcerer Pass online on April 13, 2023 as part of Membership Magic.
The quantity of passes will be limited and may become unavailable for purchase at any time, so be online early when the window opens and be prepared for a potential virtual queue that could have a very long wait.
Annual passes give you discounts at various Disney dining and merchandise locations, as well as free parking at the parks. There are also frequent passholder events and benefits such as discounts on resort stays.
Even if you buy the passes now, they will not start until the first day you activate them (when you go into a park), so you can buy them now for a trip later in the year. They will be valid for 1 year after that first day you activate them.
Since park admission prices can vary by the day, it’s hard to give an exact cost comparison, but on a high level, the annual passes generally pay for themselves after about 12 theme park days. The initial price may seem daunting at first, but if you calculate how much it would cost if you were buying tickets individually, you can see how it adds up.
Folks who already have an annual pass can continue to renew them per your usual renewal schedule, though you can use this opportunity to upgrade your pass immediately outside of your normal renewal window. Florida residents are able to purchase the Pixie Pass already anytime. This is primarily for new sales of the 3 other annual passes for folks that do not have one yet.
The key difference between the various passes is the number of blackout dates and park reservations. However, if you live outside the state of Florida, you are only eligible to buy the Incredi-Pass.
For details and comparison of each annual pass, visit the Disney Annual Pass page.
Since there’s no telling when they may stop selling annual passes again, if you are seriously thinking about getting them, I suggest getting them as soon as this window opens.
If you want to chat about annual passes or Disney trips in general, feel free to contact me. We have been passholders for many years now and it’s been great being able to pop in for short trips or long trips anytime.
Disney Cruise Line has announced the sailing itineraries for Summer 2024 (late May – late Sept). Bookings begin on different days next week, starting Monday, March 27, 2023, for different levels of Castaway Cay members and other Disney affinity groups. General members (those who have never sailed on a Disney cruise) can book on Thursday, March 30, 2023.
Be among the first to drop anchor at Lighthouse Point, a new Disney Cruise Line island retreat celebrating the breathtaking beauty and vibrant culture of The Bahamas. Or set sail on a glorious adventure exploring the majesty of Europe, the wilderness of Alaska or the tropical islands of the Caribbean.
Costs are generally the lowest when you book during this initial release, and some of the more popular itineraries can sell out fast, particularly the initial Lighthouse Point sailings. It is expected that there will be long waits on the phone with DCL. If you don’t need to apply a placeholder or credit to your new booking, it’s definitely going to be faster to book on the DCL website starting at 8am ET.
For complete details, visit the Disney Cruise Line Summer Itineraries page:
If you would like me to help with your bookings, feel free to contact me ASAP. We love sailing DCL, so let me know if you want to chat about them. I have some recaps of our past sailings in the Trip Recap section of this site if you want to see what they’re like.
©DisneyCruiseLine
Adventures By Anne 