Simultanously obnoxious and hillarious moment of the day:

The first quest had us running around Main Street and Town Square. While counting canons in Town Square, we suddenly saw a member of another team running away from the Mad Hatter.

"Why are you running away?" asks the Hatter.
"Because you're trying to take my number!" the horrified contestant responds, referring to the numbered sticker all MA players must wear during the game to identify their team.
"I'm not trying," the Hatter implores. "I'm going to!"

Not a minute later, I'm suddenly aware that someone is hovering at my right shoulder. I move slightly to regain my personal space, but I can sense that they are still there. I look down in time to witness Alice pull my number off my sleeve. My first reaction was to angrily yank it right back out of her hand. Fortunately I calmed down enough to realize how wonderfully silly the whole scene must have been for tourists watching and restrained my usual competative snarl to a simple, "I need that," as I walked away in a huff.

We had a great time but also got held up in a few places and waited way way too long to take a penalty. This isn't our best format and it was very puzzle intensive, I suck at puzzles.

We knew the code was a locker code but wasted a bazillion hours trying to figure out the picture instead of just going to the lockers and trying to figure it out from in there.

The compass was also our downfall. And try as we might we did not see anything resembling a "bloom" with numbers from the Sunwheel. We did finally recognize an MP staffer and see the umbrella on the ground, then walked around and got the other two numbers. We also didn't count Grizzly River Rapids as a mountain (I mean technically is it really considered a mountain?). We figured that out right as time was up so didn't get further.

Loved going on a lot of attractions to find answers. And the mouse ears quest was a lot of fun. As Swanie stated more than once, "we are definately getting our money's worth".

I really enjoyed the trivia portion at the awards. I thought it was a really fun addition.

We'll definately do it again.

I'm gravely disappointed today. Not because we did so poorly (even though during the game we thought we were) but rather because we did so well and then rushed at the last minute and transposed our answers. The teams of Superstar Losers and Ralph Wiggum, Fej and the POP featuring Nirvanaman were both down two members so we joined forces to form the superteam of Superstar Losers featuring the POP and Nirvanaman (formerly of Ralph Wiggum, Fej and the POP featuring Nirvanaman). Powerhouse that we thought we were, we all failed to produce even one clipboard. Amateur move right there. No worries though, I happened to have a hearty Range Rover brochure handy in my bag that served the purpose just fine.

We were doing great at the beginning, thanks to Andrew's quick thinking, and we were in second place just mere seconds behind first. That is until the evil map/lockers/buzz lightyear quest. None of us rent lockers either so the fact that the number was a locker combination didn't dawn on us until it was far too late. We were sure the drawing was an architectural map of some sort...to the point where we almost convinced ourselves that it was a map of Hollywood in DCA. However, we still couldn't make sense of the code or even what we would do when we got there. We thought the code may refer to numbers on the map, and it did correlate with all of the buildings in the Hollywood section of DCA...but we still had no idea as to what we would do once there. So, we ran around tomorrowland, went in all the stores, and even braved innoventions. Heck, worst case some secret clues might start glowing right? But no luck. We were about to give in...which no one on the team wanted to do...and use the cursed failure envelope to give up on the task and go to the next step. Then Babette reread the clue, which we had all done a million times, and focused in on the word "unlock." We then had a bit of a brainstorm, and decided maybe we should try the lockers...even though there were clearly no instructions of any sort that indicated we should go there. Even still, some on the team were encouraging the use of the dreaded envelope...but we pursued on. After all, there aren't that many lockers in DL right? Once in the locker room, we saw the luggage and cursed the evildooers. Never had I stepped foot in that room before. Drained and feeling like we failed...we moved on.

We did well again from here on out for the most part. We checked into the next location to discover we had fallen back to the 11th place team. Pretty big fall, but perhaps there was still a chance. Isaac saved us 20 minutes of torture by having memorized the entire spiel to the Tiki Room. Bouncing through several answers, depending on how the question was interpreted, he was finally confident of his answer. And really, who knows the park better than him. We trusted his instinct and went with it. This was our chance to catch up a bit after our fake map failure. We opened the envelope. Phew...looks like we were right and this next bit is a legitimate quest. Babette rescued us by breezing through the Soduku, instantly recognizing the need to translate symbols into numbers. Once we had a concept of where we were heading, we assumed incorrectly that the answer would be Splash Mountain. We were aware that DCA was still a possibility but we decided to head down to Splash anyway to save time.

Well it would seem that these fancy soduku puzzles seem to change constantly, as Babette had warned us. We were now certain that we needed to head to DCA and we couldn't be further away. No biggie. We headed to Grizzly, which was wrong (and closed) and we headed back to Soaring to solve the next clue, which we did in record time.

Collecting eyespyes along the way, we were actually doing much better than any of us realized. We had few problems with the compass exercise, save a bit of time having difficulty in tracking down those tires and we called the correct phone number on the first try, after getting all the answers correct. Off to the sunwheel, where Babette's sharp eyes caught those umbrellas, that the rest of us didn't see at first. I really have to argue that an umbrellas is not a bloom, but whatever. It was a lot of fun. So after we solved the remainder of that puzzle, I believe it was time to head back to DL, but not before a quick stop at ToT cause I was sure that art deco clock had to be somewhere over there. It was, and we captured the time (there was some disagreement about this with the officials at the end, but it was resolved).

Back into the park for the final test, which seemed to be more of a wild goose chase than anything so we didn't complete all of it as it didn't seem to make much sense. We correctly solved the final riddle and then we were off to the judging desk with only moments to spare. We then needed to do some funny math with the times on all the clocks we collected (we found all but one of these eyesspys) and then needed to transfer this to the answer sheet. And herein lies the problem. In the chaos of the last minute rushing and screams to turn the packet in, we did not realize that the lettering system used to identify the eyespys failed to follow normal English conventions in that it labeled photos down the column vertically, then over to the next column, as opposed to moving left to right…in the same manner in which we read. This seemingly minor transgression and a failure to double-check our work given time pressures lead to udder devastation as we handed in our answer sheet and watched as large X's were drawn through all of our seemingly correct answers. Wrong wrong wrong…was what we heard. All the right numbers were on the page…we failed to place them in the correct boxes.

So…all that..for naught. 7 hours. Miles of walking. And in the end, we did it all, and did it all correctly. We never gave in to the temptation of the penalty envelopes and we were vigilant in pursuing the eyespys. Needless to say, that leads to mixed emotions. Yes we were one of only 25% of teams to finish. That's little consolation. Actually, it would have felt better had we failed in earnest as opposed to a minor secretarial transgression. What hurt the most was that after what seemed like an impossibility due to our struggles with the locker task, it looks like we would have placed first, instead of ninth, had we simply double-checked the placement of our correct answers. Utterly devastating.

Of course..this is just some silly Mickey Mouse game…right? Right?

I make more than my share of typos, but I couldn't help but chuckle on this one. Sorry Lisa!:D

I thought you felt stronger when I hugged you!!;)

Oh, and the Buzz quest for the open teams....

We had to ride it 4 times to get the scores right!:rolleyes:

Sorry to hear about that little, but devistating mistake, NervanaMan!

Well it LOOKED like y'all were having fun when I ran into you yesterday...

I am still glad I am not participating -- after that year when I was literally screaming at my teammates out of sheer annoyance and frustration, I realized events like that are not for me :)

I came to the same conclusion - I wonder who my teammates were? :p

I wonder! I wonder! I wonder why Matt and Rose don't talk about it... :D

MouseAdventure + Chernabog = A$$holebog ..... he doesn't come out to play too much but I don't like him at Disneyland :)

I had to me nice to my team mate. It was my mom......:eek:

Well, I still have the damn compass and Pru is in Seattle. I'll let her share the details.

Nirvanaman said it all! Except: [smacking forehead] stupid, stupid, stupid! I cannot believe I transposed the friggin numbers!! All the answers were right, just in the wrong boxes. We were one of the few teams to actually find the clock times, and it didn't matter. We were so rushed, we had like 10 seconds to turn it in or be DQd at 4:00. The boys were pushing for the "Finish Line" envelope and I was convinced we could finish! The 60 minute penalty put us exactly 59 minutes after first place. We would have won by one minuite! One minute! Sorry guys! You were an awesome team!

My main complaint with this format is too many puzzles and all at separate times. Four people had to be doing the same puzzle or just sit around feeling useless. You try to find a way to help, but end up distracting the solver and wasting more time! Working all together means a plethera of hands and arms blocking the portion of the page you are trying to decode so they can fill in the answer they've solved. Not so efficient. I like when you get many quests together so you can divide and conquer. Then, check each other's work. You turn it all in and hope you got 'em right!

I didn't like any of the prizes anyhow!:p