Epic Spring Break Adventures: Downtown Disney, Knott’s Berry Farm, & Adventure on the Harbor

For a trip that began on a Saturday, we have now reached the point of Wednesday, and the fun's not over yet (my apologies - you're gonna have to deal with two more vacation posts).

After the Touch of Disney experience on Monday, Nicky hadn't quite had his Disney fix, so he begged to go back to Downtown Disney. We had some unscheduled time Wednesday morning, so we obliged. Tim and Amber stayed back at the condo and met up with us later. 

We walked over to the Disneyland gates for a photo. When we went in November, they wouldn't let us very close to the gate, but this time, they allowed us to go right up to the gate for a photo. 

We did a bit of shopping. The kids got a few souvenirs, and Scotty and I couldn't resist picking out a puzzle or two.

Okay, three.

Since we had annual passes to Disneyland when COVID hit, we are now considered "Legacy Pass Holders." Basically, annual passes no longer exist, and we were given a prorated refund, but to make us feel better, Disney has given us a special name. 

As "Legacy Pass Holders" we get the perk of receiving a special car magnet, and we could have gotten a customary button from DCA, but the booth was closed by the time we got there. A restaurant in Downtown Disney was offering a special shake for "Legacy Pass Holders" only, and since we're suckers, we had to go get one!

Ten dollars right there.

When in Disney...

After our morning in Downtown Disney, we went to Knott's Berry Farm for the Taste of Boysenberry Festival. This event was not hard to get tickets for, thank heavens! Because Scotty had actually bought tickets for Tuesday, and we showed up on Wednesday! Oops! We were so fortunate - a manager was able to swap our tickets. 

At Knott's Berry, we each got a badge with a QR code. Adults were able to get five food items, and kids were able to get three. All of the food items had some sort of boysenberry included. I had a shrimp taco with a boysenberry salsa. Nicky had a hot dog on a boysenberry bun. There was boysenberry cheesecake, boysenberry ICEE, and even boysenberry sriracha ketchup. 

The food... was not great. It was mass-produced theme park food. But it was still fun to look over the menu and pick what we were going to try. The kids enjoyed getting to choose whatever they wanted.

One thing Amber and I discussed when we planned this trip was that we wanted to do some things in California that we'd never done before. Amber proposed that we rent a boat in Balboa. We looked into it and made our reservation, splitting the cost. 

On Thursday, April Fool's Day of all days, we spent the morning at the pool. Then we headed to Balboa for our boat ride. Tim and Amber took off early, and we left shortly after. We ended up not being able to find anywhere to park. We drove around for about half an hour trying to find somewhere - we weren't sure if we were going to make it. We ended up having to park a bit far away, but we got there right at the last second. We boarded our boat with Skipper Tim and took off in the harbor.

Things started off well enough (don't let Eva's face fool you - that's just what she does). We admired the houses and the yachts - the likes of which we'll never truly know. Then Tim started saying it felt like the boat was going slower. We chocked it up to a head wind, but then we started noticing all the other Duffy boats passing us. Eventually, we weren't sure if we were moving at all, but the boat was still ON and was still putting off a slight vibration through the floor.

With all the fancy boats and yachts in the bay, it's a little unnerving to be drifting around without full control of your boat. That's what brought us to this moment of Scotty attempting to save the day...

That didn't accomplish anything, so Scotty called the number on the paperwork and talked to a guy named Doug. The boat was still moving ever so slightly, so he told us to just work our way back to the rental company. We tried (though it would have taken us about two hours), but eventually, the boat really wasn't moving, and Tim couldn't control the steering. Scotty called again, and Doug had to send his employee out to rescue us. The employee, whom we refer to as Captain Morgan because he came to save us in his skiff like so...

...towed us back to the dock where we were kindly offered a refund. 

It worked out great because even though we traveled at the speed of a geriatric turtle, we still had a blast, and we got to do it for free! 

We had to laugh that it happened on April Fool's Day, of all days!

That night, we had our traditional April Fool's dinner at the condo. 

Tim and Amber were willing participants, though they made sure to eat pizza beforehand, and we may have caught Amber trying to hide her peas. Though she is a legit adult, Amber eats like a toddler (she’s all ketchup, nuggets, and bologna).

Sadly, that was our last night in the condo. We had to bid farewell to Tim and Amber (who, for some reason, didn't want to see us off at 6:00 the next morning), and try and catch some zzzz's before our next adventure. 

TO BE CONTINUED...