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Enter: The In-Laws …

On the same day that Wifey™ and I celebrate our second wedding anniversary, we’ll also be spending most of that day sitting in the airport waiting for her parents and their friends to arrive from Canada. She hasn’t seen them since she moved here two years ago and is really looking forward to their trip. The plan is to get up early and get dropped off at the airport and wait for their arrival, sometime around 11AM. From their, we’ll take the new airtrain system to the car rental office to pick up the car we’ve reserved.

Doing our homework, we initially thought that the car rental alone would break our budget. Most places, like Enterprise and Hertz, wanted to have us pay about $800 for the ten days we’d need to vehicle — a minivan or SUV able to fit seven to eight people comfortably, with luggage. Even splitting the cost amongst everyone would be more than we were willing to spend. Then we came upon Alamo and found some reasonable prices. I think total, we’ll be spending around $250-$300 for a mini-van for ten days. It’s nice to know that there are companies that still offer good deals for people like us who just want to have a nice vacation. If you need a car, check out Alamo before anything else.

We’ve managed to save a little bit of money for this vacation to accommodate all their wishes, but being newly married, we’re also on a tight budget. So we’re looking for deals all around. So far, they want to go to Disneyland, Napa, Alcatraz and a tour of San Francisco. We’ve managed to bump off places like Vegas, the Grand Canyon and San Diego, just to save our sanity.

For the Disneyland trip we started doing research and quickly took the Disneyland Hotel off our list, since it’s way out of our budget. Just can’t afford that. So, we found the Anaheim Desert Inn and Suites, which is directly across the street from the park entrance and VERY affordable. I’m not a five-star accomodations type of person, only because I don’t spend a lot of time in the hotel. All I ask for is some clean sheets and a quiet room. This place offers that. We’re looking at their two-room suite,which sleeps ten and costs only $129 a night, since we are going off-season. Another great deal for folks on a budget. Be sure to check them out for your next trip to Disneyland. This is our room.

Finally, once we get to Disneyland, the price of getting in is probably going to cost us an arm and a leg. I’m going to check out discounts through my employer and through AAA, but it looks like its going to be around a $100 per person for a two day pass, which gets us in and out of both parks throughout the two day period. Not as bad as I was thinking.

Add to that, costs of dinners and sightseeing and we’ll pretty much be broke by the end of the ten day period. Ugh.

On the upside, I’ve lived in San Francisco my entire life and have never been to Alcatraz, so that should be exciting. Not to mention seeing all the sights with people who have never seen it before.

On the downside, our small apartment will be attempting to house six people. Way too many in my opinion, but we’ll just have to make due. Wifey™ and I are going to try and get to Target on the weekend to buy an inflatable mattress for two of the people. Aerobeds are too costly for our budget, so we’ll have to do with something else for now. Anyhow, you’ll hear all about it once it’s all said and done. In fact, I can guarantee I’ll have something to say about this experience. It probably would have been cheaper for us to fly to Canada and stay there for ten days.

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