Happy One Year Anniversary to My Canceled Disneyland Trip

On March 11, 2020- I was happily packing for my trip to Disneyland. Spring break was near and we planned to leave on March 13th. We would be driving from El Paso to Anaheim, and despite the growing concern of coronavirus, I was determined to continue my trip- and confident that I'd still make it to . I was terribly wrong.

One year ago, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. It's been a rough twelve months. The world has drastically changed- and with it came the cancelation of my Disneyland trip.

I had been keeping up with the alerts. One event canceled, one NBA game canceled then suddenly, the whole world closed. Disneyland, though, remained opened. I watch on social media as visitors to the Happiest Place on Earth posted short lines and almost no crowds at the amusement park.

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I was excited, selfishly I thought how great it would be if there weren't that many people at Disneyland when I got there. I imagined a short line for Space Mountain, and a short line for the churro cart. However, on March 12, 2020 all of that changed.

The announcement that Disneyland was closing due to the pandemic hit me like a ton of bricks. Lots of people tagged me in the announcement, and with each notification I got- it stung a little more. I'm not going to lie. I cried. I came in to work the next day- and everyone knew. I got messages from others who also had to cancel their Disney trip.

The announcement originally said that Disneyland would reopen in April, but April came and went. They haven't been open since.

I called to see if I could get my money back but the response was that I'd have to wait until they reopened to see if they could issue me a refund. Well now they plan to open back up in April, but only to California residents. Will I get my money back? I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm grateful that I wasn't already on the road when they decided to close. I'm also very grateful that I'm still here one year later, I know that many others didn't get the opportunity.