Zaira and I had never attended Gilroy Gardens (aka Bonfante Gardens) Holiday Lights celebration before this year, so decided to take the plunge despite their incredibly high prices for relatively little amusement value. What really put Gilroy Gardens over the top for me was the fact that the Peanuts Gang would be there for the holidays and I was looking forward to getting our pictures taken with them since we seem to have such difficulty locating them at Knott’s Berry Farm.

As you can see (above) we first came across Linus and Charlie Brown himself. It turns out that Linus is Zaira’s favorite Peanuts character (something I didn’t know) and she was not only excited to meet him, but also to have the opportunity to purchase an “official” Linus blanket during one of the shows.

Next we met up with Sally (aka Linus’ stalker) who happily informed us that Snoopy wanted to be Santa Claus. Now, Snoopy’s always been my favorite part of the Peanuts gang specifically because of his rich fantasy life, but it seemed odd that he had such a deire to be Santa.

However, when we met Lucy she assured us that Snoopy did, in fact, want to be Santa Claus, dog germs and all! Don’t ask me why Lucy’s digital frame has wild animals on it. There are a grand total of zero animals at Gilroy Gardens. However, we were happy to add the digital frame to our collection and I do think they’re adorable in their Santa hats. It seems Snoopy isn’t the only one who worships the jolly fat man in the red suit.

Finally, we came across the wondrous beagle himself and, sure enough, he had become Santa Claus! Since we visited the park the day after Christmas Santa was on vacation and Snoopy was filling in for him at Santa’s Workshop! We also learned that at Santa’s Workshop on of the photo options was to have it in a snow globe! Since Z collects snow domes this was pretty exciting news as we’d never encountered this option before. Alas, it was not meant to be as they were all out of snowglobes But now we know to hassle other parks about it

We ended our evening (and purchased most of our photos) at the (apparently) temporary photo booth near the front gate where we were helped by Kathi. She was awesome! Not only did she provide superb customer service, but we talked with her for about 30 minutes about ride photos and amusement park photos in general. She’s also a big fan and totally understood our collecting nature! Unfortunately, I totally forgot to mention the site to her, so if you know Kathi from Gilroy Gardens could you please send her by? And pass along another thank you from Aahz and Zaira when you do!

Zaira and I visited the “new” Gilroy Gardens on Opening Day 2008 in order to see if Cedar Fair was handling it any better than they were handling Great America. Our primary goal was actually to get a new Timber Twister ride photo with the new Gilroy Gardens logo and perhaps their nifty mascot: Gil the Garlic Clove.

Unfortunately, despite having more than 18 months for the transition Gilroy Gardens was even farther behind in the transition and, despite it being the official Opening Day, the photo booth for Timber Twister was closed all day.

I simply can’t understand why these companies disregard the revenue generating opportunity of on-ride photos. I suppose they have a better view of the economics than I do, but Zaira and I regularly set aside extra budget resources in order to buy photos. If you are a fan of ride photos (and I assume you are if you’re reading this site) be sure to purchase as many photos as you can and encourage your local park management to not only maintain their current photo booths but to open more as well!