ooooh! I haven't had suicidal madness in ages! well, since yesterday, at least!

First of all - let me be clear that the ambiguity in the quest language had nothing to do with us bungling this quest. We knew what the quest was "looking for" and we plain and simple missed it. (Heheh, third time's the charm for walking around the ESPN building ... when the third time's after the game is over.)

Actually, I'd have to have the decoded grid question in front of me to explain the problem (and yes, GD, there was a starter on that - - thank goodness). I wish I had written it town, because my memory fades fast nowadays.

But basically, it was because the decoded question read, "If there are any duplicates on the list" rather than something like "if any items on the list are duplicated." There were no duplicates on the list. Our problem was that we - by unfortunate coincidence - neglected to decode one of the words. The winning word. And so when we couldn't find a majority among the (incomplete) list of bobbles, we thought we were dealing with a trick question because there were no duplicates on the list.

Another potential ambiguity arose from use of the generic word "item." Of course, you didn't want the quest instructions themselves to give away the ESPN location ... but many of the Sports (such as football, basketball) are also "items" that are displayed in various locations on the ESPN exterior. Again, the line "it will bobble your mind" clearly indicated the quest was looking for the bobbles. But when at first we don't succeed, we don't hesitate to look for trickery at MouseAdventure!


Anyways, maybe you should use our team for Beta tests from now on. We are drawn to potential ambiguities like moths to a flame, and we are scoring more and more like average players!


(A side note - - I will not be able to respond to any reply from Alex till later this evening. They've blocked the LoT from my office computer network (haha, it took them long enough) and, well, you'll be reading a lot less of me around here from now on, I'm sorry to say.)

Our team was clearly told when we picked up that quest that there could be access issues and that if we couldn't/wouldn't do it to come back and there would be an alternate provided. It did get crazy at that station toward the middle of the day so I can see how not everyone got the information.

We did the long for the first time and did ok. We almost finished the last quest right before time was called. We spent wayyyyyyy too much time on a couple of quests where we should have just taken a penalty and moved on.

The eye spys were fairly easy. We only had to look for two of them.

It was a really fun, crazy day. Huge kudos to Alex and staff for pulling it off!

We got to that station later in the afternoon... I'd say after 1, since thats where we ended the day.
(I've sent an email to my team mates to see if anyone caught the name of who we asked earlier.)
It was wacky when we got our first redwood puzzle... it happened very fast, and we almost didnt get a crayon.

I can see with the amount of teams that were bottle necked at that station at the same time how information can get lost.
I'm not really bitter about it, know that folks. I did after all actually "play" an MA with two sprains. (I fell in the morning on my way out the door, wanted to go so badly I pressed on.)

It's something I need to train myself to ask more often. When I saw that we were headed in there, I didnt want to go back and ask again, and I didnt want to look like a wuss to my team mates.
I hated that quest in there for totally different reasons.
Hollywood... stupid stupid stupid. And the snake... dont even get me started...

Aww, I loved the "wood" quest. I thought it was pretty clever, and gave me the opportunity to say to Alex, "I got wood."

I liked the wood quest too - if I could actually add correctly it would have gone a wee bit faster. And the animal print one was a lot of fun too.

As I said, that was the end of our day.
We were hot, frustrated, and hungry. And double that for the fact that I had three new bodies.
I tried... I really did.
I told them, wear comfy shoes, eat breakfast, pack snacks, bring water, be prepared to get wet, be hot, and be cranky, and whatever will fix that, tell me.

Did any of them beleive me? Not a chance.
At the "colorful" check in station I turned to two of them and said "Look, and ice cream cart. Here's $10, go get yourselves ice cream and a water before I kick you"
They got the ice cream and gave me the change. (they had their own money too)
They kept saying we cant split up, blah blah... I didnt care by then. You could have made me climb grizzly peak by then... I knew we werent winning, I just wanted a fair shot you know?

So, in that state, we got the Snake thing.... it was prob easy if you went right as you came into Redwood challange. WE, on the other hand, went left.
Then when we got it, we didnt do the rubbing because someone had stuck the crayon in their pocket for safe keeping, and somone else didnt read.
Hence, my loathe for that puzzle.

The wood puzzle... THAT.... that was just ugly. We finished it with three words wrong.... so we were in the lookout looking for a herd.
Moose... we were looking for Moose.

so I stood there.... this doesnt feel like Alex I thought. My team members think I'm insanne.
I said, see, a few things I keep in mind when playing this game:
a staff member in a wierd place in the park can be a clue.
Alex and co. have a very odd, or off sense of humor.
And if the "ah ha!" Moment doesnt come.... somethings wrong.

another what seemed like 20 minutes tying to figure out what was wrong...
while I stood there saying... it has to be obvious...
jeff.... you dont suppose................

Then we got the paragraph... I should have passed and ended on a good note. :P

What do you get when you put two people with zero attention span on the same team? FUN TIMES!

I had a blast. This was my first attempt at Mad Scramble and Matts second. I doubt he'll post so I'll do our re-cap.

We booked our way through the first quest only to have issues deciphering what it said. I thought it said the "Limo Lot" and thought we were supposed to go back to where SSL used to be. We turned towards DCA and discovered it was closed. After some would they make us...nah... where do Limos park... it dawned on us that it was the Lilo lot! Yay! Off we go. There were still a ton of teams in the Esplanade and we were off to a good start.

Got to the Lilo Lot and did the Hollywood Squares quest first. That was a really fun quest. After one wrong answer and a return trip to the grid got it right on our third try.

We really enjoyed the jigsaw quest. We looked at it as a puzzle until we were almost done and the words started making sense. We though the duplicate items were "balls" and that was our first wrong answer. ESPN Zone dawned on us and off we went. We couldn't figure out what "Bobble the mind" meant but we did figure out that it was the pictures high on the walls of ESPN Zone. Right answer and off we go back to DCA.

There were lines to get into DCA and we debated whether or not to go back through the Grand Cal enterance. We decided to get in line because I was pretty sure we couldn't go in through the Grand Cal yet. The decision was confirmed as we ran into another team who tried that. They gave us sunscreen too. THANK YOU! We also ran into Andrew who "joined" us in line. No answers were given and he was not keen on granola bras.

We found the "colorful" area right away and took our first quest. I did forget the order of the quests, but we did them in alphabetical order. Redwood Creek was fun, the evil paragraph was evil but we did solve it after taking assistance (the last three words really helped!). Paradise Peir was fairly easy because we are so easy to distract and we kept looking at different things. Found the super eye-spy there too.

Bugs Land was fun as well. Matt had wanted to get on the train right away and I should have listened to him but I was convinced the other questions had to be answered. We lost a lot of time doing that. The second quest was fairly easy and we memorized the grid. I remembered seeing LisaP by the sprinklers but I forgot about it as we went looking for a queue in that shape. We were about to give up as I remembered that really we just needed to find a staff member and thats when I rememembered seeing LisaP. YAY! We went through and only got a little wet.

Off to Hollywood Backlot where Andrew asked us if we wanted easy or hard. We only had 25 minutes until the game was over so we took the easy. I figured out how to do the puzzles and we booked it over to the Anamation Building where Matt identified who we needed to draw. Off to the Sorcers Workshop where Matt started drawing Genie and I drew the last two slides. Note to team: Matt is the artist.

Turned the packet in right at 4.

I'm not sure if I like Mad Scramble or Classic better. They both have their perks. We'll most likely have a newbie next time and I'm not sure if I'll subject him to Enchanted Race.

Thank you Alex and staff for a great event!

Hehehe, we were heading to DCA from the Downtown Disney quests and, knowing that we were headed for the San Francisco Street, we knew that going thru the Grand Cal would be the shorter route. But we were talking with another team as we walked thru DTD (ugh, can't remember their names ... insane, pin-laden, khaki adventurers outfits with Aussie hats).

Anyway, we didn't want to reveal our "strategy" to another team, so we hung back for a moment, and then dodged into the Grand Cal entry near Libby Lou. Well, Team Khaki saw through that, turned around, and followed us through the Grand Californian to the DCA entrance.

As bad luck would have it, they were actually enforcing the Hotel Guest Only entry policy. Well, a member of our team happens to carry around her old hotel key from July and we get through .... but Team Khaki, who are actually staying at the Grand Cal, left their key in a locker and were turned away by the CM. They had to go all the way around to the DCA main entrance!


I hate to laugh at another team's misfortune .... but I did.

Ooh, we met them last time. They were first-timers then and they won the Best New Team award. Very spirited, smart group.
The California Adventurers:


Funny story :evil: