Birthdays at Disneyland Really Are Free, Here's How it Works
Here at LAist we love freebies as much as anyone. We like to give you the heads up about free breakfast, free cupcakes, free tickets and more. So when we heard that Disneyland was giving free tickets on your birthday, we thought the least we could do was go check it out.
The process for getting into Disneyland free on your birthday is pretty simple. The rules say bring a driver's license or passport for adults and a certified birth certificate for kids. The offer gets you into one park. Or you can upgrade to a park hopper by paying the difference in price (adult one park $69, park hopper $94, you pay $25). Season pass holders get a credit toward purchases in the park equal to the free ticket they would have received.
Best of all you get this amazing birthday button. Throughout the day employees, characters and park goers wished her a happy birthday. Sometimes being around smiley nice people really does make your day.
Many people we talked to asked questions like: Is it really free? Yes. Can I go on another day? No. Did your daughter have the best time? Yes.
Now to be fair, once inside the park, it's hard not to spend money at every turn. We splurged on the three course lunch at Ariel's Grotto. After all Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Belle, and Jasmine wanted to wish our little one happy birthday too. After riding Soaring Over California, the new Toy Story Ride (it's awesome), several Bug's Life rides, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Star Tours, Pirates of the Caribbean, watching the Jedi Training Academy, and meeting Iridessa and Tinkerbell at Pixie Hollow we found a quiet table at The Blue Bayou (as quiet as Disneyland can be) for dinner. At the end of the meal there was a candle in her dessert.
Disneyland may actually be the happiest place on earth--at least during the weeks in the winter when the park isn't crowded or hot.