[innerSpaceman]

Congratulations, phoebe33. Awesome job!

Sweet congratulations to zapppop and his team, moving up the ranks quite nicely to come in 2nd in the two-day competition (by odd coincidence, my namesake crew, Team Zlick, came in second in the one-day competition. Kudos to them as well).

More congrats are in order for FEJ/P.O.P/RalphWiggum and featuring Nirvanaman team for a cool 4th place finish in the grueling 2-Day.

And a tip of my hat to the Happy Haunts for their unofficial 5th place finish, but yes - 18th is in your future. It's all downhill from here. Masters, Schmasters ... we're Retired! Bah.


Despite our dismal 18th place showing (our worst performance ever), we conversely had one of the best times. I thought the daytime version was very well-thought-out in involving Disneyland exploration, Disneyland fun, and concentration on 50th anniversary decorations and additions - such as the Cast Member window, the Opera House displays, the map of hidden fifties, and the photo mosaics in the Small World mall. The quest on Tom Sawyer Island (communicating thru the squawker phones) was particularly fun. We even had fun in the (brief) rain, trying to protect our thousands of pages of materials from the downpour. There was a heck of a lot of stuff handed out, and I really miss the days when they would hand you one land's worth at a time.

I don't think the nighttime version was nearly as well thought out. Only the Main Street lightbulb sign patterns was clever, and involved a nighttime-only feature. The blacklight postcard revealed on Winnie the Pooh was the highlight of the evening, but other than these two things - I think the night version fell flat. To my team, it seemed like too much of it was puzzles that could be done at home. There were puzzles on Sunday as well, but it seemed that 90% of the game required - ya know - being in Disneyland.


And though they managed to pull it off, I don't think the MouseAdventure staff was quite on top of their game this time. But I did appreciate the way they scrambled to improvise for the forgotten protractors, the forgotten trivia questions, the shortage of maps, and the usual suddden park changes since Beta testing took place that inevitably affect some of the quests. There were no big mishaps, only small inconveniences, and I think everyone had a terrific time.