Oh to clarify something from my earlier post to anyone who misunderstood - I wasn't necessarily talking about a traveling/geographical distance issue when I said that I bet a lot of people won't be able to take advantage of the get-in-free-on-your b-day thing. I am talking about schedules and other issues. One of my friends was saying the other day that because her b-day is on a weekday and it is hard for her to get off work on a mid-week day in general,
and because she also she lives kind of far away,
and because the admission is just to one park and not both, it wouldn't be worth it for her to try to jump through hoops to do it on her actual birthday. She said she would be more willing to do it if it were a free trip to both parks with a hotel stay and all that, but to try to take off work on a difficult day for her AND drive a long distance AND pay for gas and pay to upgrade to a Hopper wouldn't be worth it. Yet another friend of mine (who has an AP but still is not as diehard a DLR fan as I am) said that, in her case, it would be a matter of getting off work mid-week or driving to DLR at night after a long day at work just to get a $69 Fun Card or a free ticket for a later trip in the next year, and same thing with her husband's birthday, and neither of them is that gung ho that they have to make a special trip for a Fun Card or a ticket when they are tired after a long day at work. Yet another friend of mine is a
big DLR fan but she lives in Idaho, so she is not going to be making a trek from there to here just to get in free to DL on the exact birthday. I am sure there will be lots others who share these opinions too, whether or not we hear about it on DISboards!
I guess what I am saying is that we are all a particular bunch of DLR lovers here on DISboards. We move heaven and earth to make DLR trips happen and our years are not complete if we haven't made at least one DLR trip, and we ponder every detail of all things Disney. Not everyone is necessarily like us out there in the 'real world'! So there is a whole other segment of people who do enjoy
Disneyland, but who may just look up their birthdates on the calendar and see it is on a bad day and say, "Oh well, can't go. No big deal." There are also folks who probably won't read the details of the birthday giveaway in full and mistakenly assume that they are getting in free to BOTH parks, only to discover later that they have to pay for an upgrade to a Hopper! For me, as much as I LOVE LOVE LOVE DLR,
if I am lucky enough to get a new job in 2009 and it turns out that I can't get off a mid-week day from my new job so early on, then I would have to skip DLR. If I am home and have nothing to do, AND have money to spend getting down to DLR on my b-day, then obviously I would go and get the Fun Card or the alternate ticket. But the money in transportation I would spend to get down to Anaheim and back home would probably exceed the price of the Fun Card, or just break even with it, so I would have to really decide if it was worthwhile for me, or if I could just save the money I would be spending on transportaion for a trip to DLR later in 2009 during the holiday season!
By the same token, I
do think the Free Birthday admission will attract lots of locals and people who are out of work, at least as far as DLR attendance. Not sure about WDW.
We are very excited. I'll be sure to let you know how the card goes. I'm pretty sure we will get the fun card since we are not expecting high crowds on Wednesday. 
