Congratulations!!

[Ponine]

You know what I find amusing? As a side note...
Last MA I gave Disneyphile a pen I had on my desk for .... well over a year.. and her team wins.

This year, I wish CP good luck, because I've worked with her, know what she and her sweetheart are like, and had every confidence in them. Yes, I went back and gave luck to all the teams, I wasnt truly rooting for any one team.

But still.... <insert Twilight Zone theme>

In spite on injury, you kept going. I applaud the two of you. Great job.

[Kels]

Congratulations Happy Haunts!! CP, I'm really enjoying reading your play-by-play.

[wendybeth]

Hey, Ponine!
I'm going out and picking up a lotto ticket- wish me luck, okay?

[Sheila]

My most heartfelt congratulations go out to the Happy Haunts for their third First Place Win! Way to go! Also, so many of the top finishing invitational teams were *soooo* close in finishing times -- truly amazing there are so many really smart people who know their Disneyland!

My whole body is aching; everytime I swear I'm going to put in for the Monday off from work afterwards and I never do. Owwie. And my voice is gone; for some reason I always get assigned to all the talking duties during MA.

Thank god I ran Leg #5 (Evil Lyrics) -- it was one of the few chances I got to chat with everyone as the day wore on.

I was truly impressed with all the teams who hung in there; the first few quests of the Invitational were the hardest and the most humbling part of the competition.

Big hugs for all!

[Cadaverous Pallor]

We bumped into Spaceballs: The Team at the next leg, where I was chosen as the person that could match lyrics to a song. I did indeed know it (the crappy added on song for Jasmine at the Aladdin show in DCA) and we moved on, ahead of Spaceballs, who didn't know it.

Aside: Playing alongside other teams in a real race made this the most exciting MA ever, I thought. Although about 3 times I squinted into the distance and said "Hey look, it's Fellowship, they're ahead of us!" But it'd be 4 tourists in white t-shirts with backpacks. I swear, since Fellowship's win last year, I've gotten paranoid delusions.

After our "3rd place" booster and the victory at the Grotto, we were back in the groove. GD's leg was fine, other than the standard cramping we were both having, thank goodness! The Star Tours thing was a good puzzle, although I think there may have been a typo in the instructions. We went through that at a good pace, then decoded Atlantean. It may have taken a while, but just doing something correctly and as quickly as anyone would do it felt really good to me.

We went on to my favorite one, in Innoventions. We got lucky and got on just as Tom Morrow was beginning his spiel. As soon as we got in we took a right and hit the Google search. The site told us to find an envelope marked with coordinates, but we hadn't seen any coordinates before, huh? We pull them out and GD notices that the room is bathed in blacklight! We find an envelope with the latitude/longitude written in glowing ink and we did the happy hugging dance! The MA crew member nearby laughed at us. It was such a cool idea, using the blacklight like that! After writing down the numbers in normal ink and closing the window we were out of there.

We were standing on the balcony of Innoventions when a team brushed past us going in via the exit ramp. We said, "Excuse me? This is the exit." They said "Yeah, we're going in through the exit" with big grins on their faces. They knew very well that it can take much longer to go through the entrance what with the rotation and the spiel. We wrote down their team number, big tattletails that we are, but hey, this was a timed event, damn it.

Ok, so we need to get from Tomorrowland to the Disneyland Hotel. To Monorail or not to Monorail? The line always looks long but it's really not - it's just a matter of when the next train shows up. But we realized that it was not only the fast leg of the Monorail trip, but also that worst case scenario was that it took us about the same amount of time but we'd get to NOT WALK. Endurance was sooo vital to this.

So we got to stand in line, watch little birds take dirt baths in the planter and hop around, smile and breathe and talk and have a snack out of our backpack. It was anxious waiting, but still, what a break.

We felt a lot better when we got to the hotel. But that collage thing....wow. I'd never seen that collage before. In the time we were there tons of other teams showed up. I have no idea how long we stood in front of that case, straining to look at the higher items, trying not to give away the ones we'd found.

There was a bit of levity there though, a few jokes between competitors, and a bit of marveling at the collage itself. I'd like to go back and get some pictures of stuff I remember from my childhood. So many toys and books and junk, an amazing amount of memories.

Going home now, more after lunch

[Not Afraid]

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE HAPPY HAUNTS AND TO UBERGEEK, NIRVANAMAN, BABETTE AND RALpH WIGGUM! (and special Kudoos to Babette for making it through with HER injuries!!!)

First AND Second righ here, folks! I wish I remember who else won, I was so content to sis on the side of the stage and roar.

I am looking forward to the official results to come out. I am dying to know where we were. Sheila hinted were were up there in standing - which for me in my physical condition - would make me incredibly happy.

EVERY muscle in my lower body hurts today (ummmm time for 4 more Advil), but, for me, my big personal success was keeping up with the group and finishing. AVP told me at Innoventions that, if I needed to drop out, now was the time. We discussed it, and I was still working hard and doing fine. It wasn't until the last 1/2 hour that I really started to lag and hurt. Thanks, my son, for pulling me along and providing encouragement!) So, for me, I feel successful in just finishing it ALL. We took one hit on a quest and had to get a time-costing piece of advice. The locker quest is what really screwed us up. But, otherwise, we did it all.

Oh, and, as is tradition, we didn't get spirit/costume award. LOL I think I'd throw up if we ever did. It's just one of those things that have eluded us for YEARS. It's doesn't matter. We like being snappy dressers while running around like crazy in the park.

The walk to the GC was like that old diarrhea billboard that was on the 5 (near the Citadel)for YEARS............The Last Mile is the Longest. I actually had to almost fight someone for the couch, but I was so not moving that I was probably doing one of the smiling but rudr things. I'm am so sorry, lady - I'm really not like that. But, our hours of lounging did me good. Oh yeah.

It was GREAT to see everyone who we only see twice a year. I really do LOVE this event - even though it kills me sometimes. We've won or placed enough to know that, winning is fun, but playing is better.

Alex or Sheila, if you're reading this, please send our love and thanks to the entire staff at MousePlanet. You guys are the best and put on the BEST game in the Disney Universe!!!!! (Extra smilies for Alex )

[mousepod]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

So we got to stand in line, watch little birds take dirt baths in the planter and hop around, smile and breathe and talk and have a snack out of our backpack.

When I first read this, I thought that the birds were talking to you and snacking from your backpack.
Of course you won! You're Mary F-ing Poppins!

[Ghoulish Delight]

Good morning. I hurt.

Umm, please insert all of the requisite thank yous and congratulations here. If you feel I should thank you or congratulate you, then consider yourself thanked or congratulated.

I might as well continue the insne account.

Let's see, collage. We had it down to 3 items, desperately trying to find a tin whistle (which ended up being the one missing), a 25 year service award, or an Olympic Spirit passport. At that point, Ubergeek's team finished theirs and took off! That was frustrating. But only a couple minutes later, we had found the last 2 items we needed to find and took off right behind them.

Lo and behold, we get the next clue...and it involves solving a type of logic puzzle that I do every single day! And, because most people have never seen one of these before, it was a really really easy one for anyone who's done 'em. So I sat down and finished it in mere moments, and headed off to the parking structure, where we were supposed to look for a car with a 5 foot Mickey parked in the handicap section of one of the levels. As we power walked our way over, we passed Ubergeek's team, still working to decipher the puzzle. Knowing how to do those was a BIG advantage for us.

We we went up to Mickey, which is kinda middlish (and had a working up escalator), checked that level, and decided to divide and conquor (we were allowed to split up for this one). I said I'd go up, and sent CP down, we'd meet at the bottom of the escalators. I go up, and found Mickey on the very next floor, so I go straight down, trying to catch CP on the way. I didn't see her. Meanwhile, CP had gone down one level, didn't find the clue, then discovered that, duh, there was only one level below where we started (the original clue had said it wasn't on the ground floor). So instead of waiting at the bottom, she started going UP looking for me. Grrr, so I'm sitting at the bottom, fuming 'cause she wasn't waiting where she was supposed to. I tried yelling for her, but she didn't hear. Fortunately, it only took a couple minutes to meet back up.

So, onto the the tram headed, as instructed by the next clue, to lockers with a string of numbers in hand that Mickey was holding. The numbers were supposed to line up to reveal a locker location and password. Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication by the MA crew, and the people who wrote the puzzle wrote it with a 4 digit locker number (0144) while the person who filled in the number at the last minute (because of course they had to get the locker that morning) went based on what the ticket said, which had a 3 digit locker number (144). Fortunately, I noticed that the string of number Mickey was holding had a leading blank space, so we knew something wasn't quite right. So we fudged it and it worked out. On the tram, there was a team next to us (the eventual 3rd place team), but we lost track of them right after we got off the tram and didn't see them again. But anyway, we got to what we hoped was the right locker area, put in the code, and voila, the locker opened and had a stack of envelopes. The next clue told us to go....to the freaking Howard Johnson!!

Holy geez, that was a long walk. And the whole time, we saw no other team either in front of us or behind us. Until we were almost there and we saw a team LEAVING. It happened to be the team that we saw going up the Innoventions exit ramp, so we were none too pleased, to be honest. They gave us a thumbs up from across the street. I think I might have glared back, I don't even remember.

Anyway, we get to HoJo, find the room number (which was revealed by the 2 post cards we had traded for earlier with the open teams). We were given a choice, a word search or...trivia challenge against David Koenig! Our first instinct was, "holy crap, we can't beat Koenig at trivia!!!" But it was pointed out that if we did the trivia, we could give up and switch to word search...but not the other way around. So, while CP kinda stood like a deer in headlights, I decided we'd go do trivia, and let CP take the reins. Turned out to be easy, just a matter of buzzing in faster than David. All she needed was one right, she got the 3rd one right. The one she got was, "What was the first attraction to use sophisticated animatronics," easy enough. So we were in and out quick.

A quick translation of Mara script, and, oh joy, walking ALL the way back to Fowler's Inn! (the McD's fry shack in front of Mansion). Oh, man that was a long walk, but we knew it was the end, so we pushed through the pain and motored our way back into the park. We saw the orange beret's in line getting into the park too, we realized they must have not figured out the locker thing and were headed in to look for more lockers. Felt kind bad for them, so we were happy to find out afterwards that (after taking a hint and penalty) they were able to complete the course.

So we hit Fowlers, and get our time logged. We happened to notice that we were the second team to finish...and we happended to notice that team ahead of us had a 40 minute penalty! It was then that we were pretty confident that we had won, 'cause we knew the team we saw leaving HoJo was not very far ahead of us. It also explained how they got a head of us, because we were ahead of them at the collage, and then saw them ahead of us at HoJo. They must have used their Jump Start on the parking garage one, thus the 40 minute penalty.

So yeah, we finally got to sit down...which was a mistake because then our legs started to tighten up. It must have been quite a sight to see the two of us struggle to climb the Pirates bridge on our way to our locker. We were (and still are) wrecked.

But boy was it worth it. Despite the early headaches (all of our own doing), we had a blast. It was really a brilliantly designed game from beginning to end. What an amazing experience.

[Not Afraid]

No, Jen is not MP, BUT, while walking through Fantasyland, Steph cam VERY clost to being hit my a flying duck. At which poing she yelled FU-K! In Fantasyland no less. My "Son" was teasing her that she shouldn't be yelling DUCK so loudly in FL.


OH! And the other mishap! How could I forget this one!!!! (Because it was me and I'm TRYING to forget.)

We had a quest at the HUGE glass case collage at the Disneyland Hotel. We had to find which one on the long list was NOT in the case. This was a popular quest and there were people 5 deel trying to find things. I ended up in from, on the ground making the that was really a mineature dedication plaque. Suddenly my "Son" said "Lisa, come here". "Why." "Just come here." "Now?" "Yes." "Well, OK then."

I warned those around me that I was about to get up and that, my muscles were a bit weakeded. I got close to being on all 4's as I could in that crowded space and hoisted myself up. Part way up, I go a hottible cramp in my right calf and knee.

Back down I went, against the glass case, only buffered by several people around me. I almost went through the glass case! Ahhh, the memories that would make!

Some slight guy decided to pull me up and I almost pulled how back down on me and into the case. Anyways, I finially just get muself get up the qay I used to when I had Graves and my muscles were severly diminished. But, What fun. I think Alex either got to witness it or got then right after. Alex always gets to see me at my best.

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

No, Jen is not MP, BUT, while walking through Fantasyland, Steph cam VERY clost to being hit my a flying duck. At which poing she yelled FU-K! In Fantasyland no less. My "Son" was teasing her that she shouldn't be yelling DUCK so loudly in FL.

I think that duck almost hit me while I was waiting for my team at the Hub! Crazy duck!