Jiminy Cricket may have failed a certain Curtis Cordery.

Curtis Cordery made the FBI’s Most Wanted list for bank robbery after he robbed a credit union in July.  He was apprehended after a neighbor spotted him at Disneyland.  The neighbor contacted Disneyland security who along with police apprehended Cordery.

You can find news articles here, here, and here.

Didn’t he learn anything from Captain Barbossa in POTC?

Barbossa: This is Aztec gold… The heathen gods placed upon the gold a terrible curse. Any mortal that removes but a piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity.

The punishment?  I hope Disneyland Security gave him a lifetime ban. That’ll teach him!

UPDATE 8/25/2009:  This benefit has been changed.  Now instead of a free stroller, you get your stoller rental at half price.

If you’re traveling to Disneyland with small children - consider leaving your stroller at home and renting some of the Disneyland strollers.  The strollers you can rent at Disneyland are nice, they’re convenient, - AND best of all, you can rent them for FREE.

Disneyland stroller (courtesy of LaughingPlace.com)

The Disneyland strollers are nice.   What’s nice about them?  They are sturdy, have big wheels, and have a big space below them and a pocket on the back.  They are relatively light weight for the size - this became important on our last trip when our stroller was three stroller rows deep after cast members had to get creative (I’m sure they do it every night during the busy season) to make room for them all outside of POTC.  I was relieved we didn’t have a monstrous stroller since I had to lift it up over the two rows of strollers.

The Disneyland strollers are MUCH more convenient than packing your own.   You don’t want to take up valuable trunk space if you’re traveling by car (that’s a big one for us) - and if you’re flying in, that includes your rental car, you don’t have to fold/unfold the stroller to get on the tram, you just don’t have to worry about a stroller at Disneyland - they’ve got it covered.  If you plan on doing a lot besides Disneyland - go ahead and bring the umbrella stroller - but leave it at the hotel when you’re at the park!

You can rent Disneyland strollers for free.  That’s right.  For free.  It’s one of the free perks of the Disneyland Visa Card.  Just head to the right after entering either Disneyland or Disney’s California Adventure, and present your Disney credit card.  You get two free Disneyland stroller rentals per day - as a cardholder perk.  Look at it as a free annual pass for strollers!  Strollers are $12/day without the Disney Visa.

Some things to keep in mind for strollers:

• You can take them between parks.
• They have a visor to help keep out the sun OR drape a baby blanket over it to keep out the breeze also.
• Tie your backpack onto the back of it and have a place to keep stuff - leave it at a ride while you go do something -people don’t come to Disneyland to steal - you can feel safe leaving it unattended - AS LONG AS YOU CAN FIND IT AGAIN.
• After returning to the park to see if I could find our baby blanket in the lost and found, I realized I now had the blanket but would have to carry it around with me while I rode on a couple rides.  As my family was back at the hotel for the evening, I used my card to rent a free stroller, I put the baby blanket in it, and parked it next to Main Street Station.  NAUGHTY.

UPDATE: I received word today 5/19/09 that this is no longer available.  I haven’t had this confirmed yet, but in the meantime, please don’t plan on taking advantage of this until you have called Costco beforehand to guarantee this.

For those who’ve been looking at getting a Disneyland Deluxe Annual Pass (a steal at $269 for 315 days of Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure for a year), you might consider picking them up at a SoCal Costco.

The SoCal Costco locations sell the Deluxe Annual Pass for $269 BUT you get a $50 Disney Gift Card - meaning an effective $50 discount for each pass!

This offer is effective in SoCal Costco locations only - but is available to all residents (of course you must have a Costco membership to buy them). The $50 gift card is picked up at the gates.

Oh and for those of you familiar with the black out dates on the Deluxe AP? You can activate and enter Disneyland (not DCA) on your activation date, even if it’s a blackout date. So keep that in mind.

If you are getting multiple passes, you might consider putting one of the $50 gift cards towards the Deluxe Parking Upgrade ($59) for one of your family members or party. If you paid parking on your way into the park to activate your passes - bring your receipt - you’ll be reimbursed. This is just what my Sister and Brother-in-Law did recently and they say it was super smooth.

One caveat - I’m aware that occasionally these passes can sell out - I strongly suggest calling ahead to verify that the Costco you’re heading to has the passes in stock, and also we aren’t told when this promotion will end. Better include calling ahead as part of your vacation plans.

If you don’t have your AP yet - this might be a great chance to do it.

Ok, forgive me another post about Disney shareholders.  As you may know, you can get a single share of Disney stock at OneShare.Com.  You can also buy more through any brokerage, and now MIGHT be a good time (or a bad time!) but the stock had fallen as low as $15.14!!! in recent weeks, and closed at $20.21 today.  Today I’VE GOT TO talk about the Disney Shareholder meeting…

There aren’t many perks to owning Disney stock beyond the silly old reasons of investing in a giant media company with tons of intellectual property it can leverage for years.  But in addition to the small dividend, like any public company, you can gain entrance to the ANNUAL DISNEY SHAREHOLDERS MEETING. This year the meeting was held on March 10 at 10am in Oakland. If you’re a shareholder, you can order tickets, set up a DRIP, or request the annual report here.

Ok - so I wasn’t going to travel to Oakland for the 2009 Disney Annual Meeting of Shareholders, BUT I did request my ticket.  Just.  In.  Case.

GotShares.com had a great recap of the event, including presentations by Chairman of the Board John Pepper, and CEO Bob Iger.  They presented the answer to the then much anticipated question “Are You 23?”, which was super exciting for those of us hitting refresh on the AreYou23.com page.  There were also a bunch of characters there, signing autographs and taking pictures.