MouseAdventure 3/28/04 Recap Thread

[FEJ]

While many are just finishing the MA, I thought I would provide a thread to post your thoughts, reviews, complaints (there are always some), and stories.



How did you do?
What was your most/least favorite part/quest?
What did you think of the new format/quests?
How much do you appreciate the MP staff for doing this for us?
It was nice to see many of you ant breakfast and at check in.

[RStar]

I liked that we got all the packets at once and didn't have to keep going to some station to hand them in. This allowed us to look at all the quests and decide which ones to do. One problem though, was that we did a little too much on quests we didn't have time to finish, thus waisted that time.

And did I mention it was HOT. But a sunny dry hot, not like last Oct. when we had a humid, unbearable monsoon hot.

And how'd we do?

Don't ask. We go to have fun, not win. Because we never will.

[DisneyFan25863]

I don't think we did that good. My team didn't understand that the quests were the main part, and that eye spy wasn't required.

I liked the TSI one, even though I did it as we were walking through Tomorrowland. I hated the code one, the photo one, and the Tiki one.


I don't like the fact that we get it all at once. Part of the fun was having "Land Specific" tasks, and having to find the desks. It took us too much time to decide what to do next when we had the entire packet.

The MP staff rocks for putting this on. And I love my new Monsters INC. Book. :fez:

[Darkbeer]

I just want to say one main thing... (Secondary comment, I was spoiled hanging out with three beautiful and lovely "Pixie Chicks" today.......:fez:

But I think the MAIN thing to say is that a LOT of folks put in a LOT of effort to make sure this event went off as well as it did..... (100 Teams, yikes!:eek: ...

To EVERYONE who help make this event go off so smoothly........ THANKS!!!

Also, to all those CM's and guests that had to put up with us... also a BIG THANKS!!!!

I am proud to be part of MousePlanet.com and had a great time today meeting both new folks, and folks I know..... You are the folks who MAKE MousePlanet, even though the staff thinks they are......:~D

No Users, No MP...... (But we still need the staff, they are great folks, even though I know one who tailgates:fez:

Once again, to EVERYONE, thanks for a great day:D

[DisneyFan25863]

I would have to say this was probably the best MA I have ever been too. My personal highs for the day:


Meeting Lots of new MPers (GD, CP, Mamabot, Kevy Baby, Gus Gus, and a few others who SN's escape me)
Cracking up during the Awards as iSm starts to eat his Pixi Stix, and thinking how he is probably wondering why this kid who he dosn't even know is laughing at him
Winning a Raffle Prize (Mine!)
Standing right behind Lani, waiting for the exact second she boards the Twain
Countless other things



At the next MA, I WILL get over my shyness and intoduce my self to Monorail Man (all we've done so far is wave :fez:)

[Sophie832]

I agree that this was one of the best MA's I've ever been to. I didn't think any of the quests were impossibly difficult (ie: counting blocks), and with so many teams, it was very smooth. Great job by all the staff!!!

I was much happier having one whole packet instead of having to keep returning to the main area because we planned a route around D-land to do the quests. I can see how a lot of papers like that might be overwhelming at first, but in the end everyone's better off.

For us, the hardest quest was either the one with Walt's Dedication speech, in which we filled in the right letters, but didn't figure out the "Magic" part. However, it did take me 3 tries to crack the code on the Fantasyland quest.

Congrats to the Happy Haunts (2nd first place, way to go!), the John Henchmen (finally the well-deserved 1st!), and all the teams who braved the MA madness.

Even with the oppressive heat, I had a great time. My partner was a MA virgin, and he did great! I had a good feeling when I finished, and I'm proud of BabyFishMouth.

Btw...if you want to see really funny Pixi-Stick mishaps, try watching me eat them. I seem to be Pixi-Stick challenged. :fez:

This is my 6th time without ever winning a raffle prize, and I think that is amazing in itself. Come October, I'm looking to keep the streak alive (it's almost becoming this tradition for me now). Some really great raffle rrizes this time, though, so kudos for that, too. :)

[Ghoulish Delight]

Well, I suppose I'll give the rundown of who from the boards won (I'm exhausted and overwhelmed, so I may foget someone, sorry).

Firstly, The Smilies (Nirvanaman and MonorailMan) got the Spirit Award, and boy did they deserve it. First off, their shirts were interactive. A little velcro and construction paper, and they had changeable smilies! It was awesome. And to top it off, they made sure to display their current state of mind during the event with their shirts. Truly committed. And boy what fun we had with those smilies at the awards ceremony :D

In second place in the quest only (right?) was Finding Teamo (gfy4dland, gfy4dland's husband, lesliebumper, and lesliebumper's husband). Congrats!
In an exciting first place finish in the combined category was The John Henchman (Not Afriad, cemeinke, and Techie7)! Wearing black turtlenecks on a code-90 day, no less! What an effort.

And then, my favorite part of the report :p, in first place for the quest only, and with the highest score of the competition (even higher than the trivia competetors).....US!!! Happy Haunts!! :D :D :D :D It was quite a shock. I mean, we felt we did pretty well, but apparantly we blew everyone away, which shocked the heck out of us.

I guess it goes without saying that we enjoyed the new format. The first 20-30 minutes were hectic as the seemingly overwhelming realization that time management, as well as paper management was entirely in our hands. But we came up with a pretty good plan of attack, and eventually settled into a pretty good grove. We actually felt like we had taken the whole thing at a pretty moderate pace, and yet we apparantly finishe more items than just about anyone else. I think that is a result of not having to return to Carnation Plaza between every quest, a major time savor.

A huge thank you to the organizers, as usual, even if they failed in the weather department. Win or lose, we had a blast as always. Now we just need to figure out how to sandbag from here on out so that we can get 2nd place and avoid being force into retirement. :D

[Sophie832]

I am proud of our under-the-radar 3rd place finish in the "Quests Only" category. :D

[Ghoulish Delight]

I am proud of our under-the-radar 3rd place finish in the "Quests Only" category. :DOh yeah! I forgot about the discovery of a scoring error that moved you guys up! Definite congrats in order there.

[Kevy Baby]

So. How come the results aren't posted yet? Its been six hours already!!!! :~D

[Polar33]

I would like to thank all the teams that were able to elicit a smile and a chuckle out of me as I saw you guys running around today. I can't be sure until some photos surface, but by the descriptions of the attire I've read so far I saw quite a few of you out there. I found myself saying aloud and to no one in particular "Only at MouseAdventure..." quite a few times. Good times. Perhaps I'll sign up one day...un till then I'll live vicariously via MousePad. Only one thing...whoever picks the dates for these things has some pretty bad timing...extreme weather, sudden attraction closures, cloggers...this event has seen it all. Certainly brings a new meaning to the mantra "Be prepared for anything".

[Not Afraid]

OMG! I'm still in shock! Will I ever stop having this face :eek: ?

I'm so tired, so I'm going to babble rather than answer Fej's questions. ;)

We were waiting so patiently to see if GD and CP won 1st that when Alex said:

For the Combined 1st place we have a team of three.........(Our ears perked up, but we didn't look at each other). He said more, but I don't remember any of it. As soon as he said the first name (the unusual one) we all just sat there in shock for a second. We were sitting with a bunch of MPers and everybody was cheering and yelling. It was an amazing moment. (I love you, team!)

Then we got to be up front when GD and CP got their First Place announcement and were humbled byt their point total! They ROCK!

Innerspaceman (The Denton Affair) came in second, however, they are retired, so that's not "official". (But they challenge us anyway.)

Our own Nirvanaman and Monorailman got the elusive spirit award. Good job guys!:| j/k :cool: :fez:

I'm sure there are more "hommies" that need to be mentioned, but shower and bed await.

The MP Staff did a ABSOLUTELY SUPERB job with this event. The quests were challenging and fun and the organization was seamless.

Thank you Alex and crew.

Also, this year was one to be remembered for cool raffel prizes and great winning prize selection. (Thank AVP and, oh, Kevin Krock):D

OK. More about the quests tomorrow. Now it is night night time. :eek: << still me.


Edit to add: Congrats to Danny and Helen for the discovery of their third place win! YAY!

[Sophie832]

Forgot to say that all the teams that really went all-out on costumes and theming put a smile on my face all day long. Some great new teams, and a lot of the returning teams I know I can always count on for creativity. I look forward to it every time.

[KarenW2]

This was the fifth MouseAdventure for my husband and I and the first time at it for our 2 other team members. We were the team known as "Captain Jack's Sparrows", complete with matching team shirts, pirate head scarves, sashes and our team mascot, "J.D." (for Johnny Depp) the stuffed Capuchin monkey, also dressed in pirate garb and MouseAdventure pin. Our friends had a great time and are already trying to figure out what our theme will be for October!! We all thought the planning and execution was excellent, especially having the different people at their various "stations", helping out at registration and turn-in time. Also, a much better PA system this time!!

We much preferred the new format, not having to check in each time for a new packet, our only note being that it would be more helpful if the pages were land-specific again, labelled by area, like the previous tickets were. For the questions we had time for, we did really well, so that was the good news. The bad news was, we just didn't have enough time, as usual. Sorry we couldn't "visit" you because of the new format, AdrienneK, but I still say you made the best looking pregnant woman in the park today!! :D

Least favorite part of today? The intense heat, but at least there was a nice breeze this time! Much better than last October, where we sweltered all day. We had a hard time understanding the tiki room/opening day speech answer too and ended up giving up and moving onto other areas. Didn't make it to Main Street. Was the answer the Magic Shop? Also, I was soooo disappointed (read HEAVY sarcasm here, folks!) that I didn't win one of the highly coveted 2003 calendars!! :D Would've loved to have won the Pirates press kit because of our theme, oh well.

Still miss being able to get our pages back, so we could see which we missed and finishing the ones we didn't have time for on another visit and kinda miss the "Team Mixer", but also like not being so stressed at the very beginning, so I can go either way on that one actually.

Best part of the day that really made me smile? After turning our stuff in and running over for our much anticipated prize of a Dole Whip, as we were standing in the mile long line (which when we finally got up to the front, we were told the machine was broken and all they could sell us were pineapple spears! :( ) a little girl came up to me and asked me the following question:

"Are you REAL pirates??!!"

She was so cute and sincere, I was sorry I had to disappoint her and tell her that no, we weren't, we were just pretending and playing a game today.

Muchos kudos to all involved today!! You did another superb job! :D

[KarenW2]

Thanks to "Kolby" of Team Pepe, for taking our team photo today and emailing us a link to it tonite. I'm not sure if you're a "Padder", but in case you are, I wanted to say thank you from our team, Captain Jack's Sparrows!!

[Sophie832]

We had a hard time understanding the tiki room/opening day speech answer too and ended up giving up and moving onto other areas. Didn't make it to Main Street. Was the answer the Magic Shop?

The quest involving Walt’s dedication speech did mention the Tiki Room, but that was just a red herring. The quest was actually one that led to Main Street. After filling in the letters, we were supposed to see that they were all the same 5 letters (M, A, G, I, C). Then the point was to re-arrange those letters in order to spell out the name of a shop or restaurant on Main Street (the instructions said the Tiki Room birds had invaded a shop or restaurant on Main. St., and that the missing letters from the speech would give us a clue as to where they went). The clue of “magic” was a reference to the Magic Shop. The actual answer to the quest was the names of the two neighboring stores. One was 20th Century Music (right?), and the other one I don’t remember. My team got it wrong because I think we somehow ended up with an “O” and an “N” mixed up in our letters, and the only place I could think of on Main St. that had a “G” in the name was the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor, so we went from there.

The other Main Street quest inside the Cinema was a lot of fun after I took about 10 minutes for my eyes to fully adjust to the light. That light became awfully important in the end, though.

[KarenW2]

It's so late and I'm so exhausted, but that was what I meant. Was the solution to the missing letters the Magic Shop, which you then had to name the shops on either side. I was going to go with that as the answer and looked at the map, but the new one doesn't even have the Magic Shop listed on it.

I much prefer the old booklet-type maps, my favorites, the great ones that listed all the attractions, shops, restaurants, etc. The new ones just list a selected few! Oh well.

Thanks again for the info!!

[Morrigoon]

Ooh, I know this one (because we got both names wrong!):
20th Century Music and Disney Showcase

[EandCDad]

We much preferred the new format, not having to check in each time for a new packet, our only note being that it would be more helpful if the pages were land-specific again, labelled by area, like the previous tickets were.

First of all, great outfits on your team.

Alex may cover this in his "wrap-up" of the event, but I think there is going to be a trend for more quests that go all over the park and are not land-specific, which is why (I think) they were not labeled during this game (for example, the picture spot quest.)

My voice is tired from saying 99 times:

"Is this a 3 player team? Do you have green numbers? Good. Please place them on your sleeves. Just like that gentleman over there has them. Don't place them on top of your shoulders or on your chest. Great. If you would like to make a name tag for yourself, feel free to do so at this table. Oh, you have buttons, then you can skip that. We have sunscreen available, so help yourself if you didn't bring any. Do you see Shoshana, she's wearing a black cap and holding a clipboard? She's waving now. Go see her and she will help you with your team picture. If you don't want a team picture, please get in line for one anyway, because we have to send you someplace else after that for instructions. Good luck."

Best comment heard while manning the nametag table - "Do we need a pen for this? I don't know if we brought a pen."

It was fun to be on Tom Sawyer's Island (for those who actually went to the island to solve the quest) with Doc Krock trying to make sure no one rang the bell themselves. Some people just sat and waited while working on other quests, one or two teams asked someone to ring it for them. One team asked two kids who looked at them like they had corn growing out of their head and kept on walking.

No one asked me to ring it. I would have, if someone had asked, but no one did.

I also had a funny moment in helping to pass on the information about the New Orlean's Square sign quest.

Me: "Did you hear that one of the signs at NOS was taken down, it's called "La Petite Patisserie."
Team: "oh, ok, how do you spell that?"
Me: (long pause) "I don't know."

I have to say that while it looked like a hot, tiring and at times frustrating day for some, everyone I came in contact with was friendly, upbeat, and curteous to other guests. Good job by all the participants.

[BlueEeyore]

Though my team placed not so high as others, this was my first time doing MA & I had a great time. I can see where time-management & letting the pressure work for you can really help. I felt like my team & I started to come together on things at the end & how a little more organization in the beginning would have equaled a higher score for us. If only there was a prize for Most *Almost* Completed Quests!!

Anyhow, it was fun, and though it was hot out, when I was sweating the most, i realized, "I'm doing this again!"

Thanks to the MP Crew for putting it all together & thanks everyone for making it so much fun.

Oh, and to answer Fej's queries:
1.) See above!
2.) My favorite part of the quest were the puzzles, as I'm a puzzle fan! My least favorite part of the quest was the TSI quest. Not because it was so difficult, but because it looked so daunting. I guess that's what I get for letting such a big-point quest sit in the folder!
3.) As a first-time participant, I can't generate an opinion in comparison, but I think that this formay probably required more organization than what I gave to it!
4.) See above!

[gfy4dland]

We had a great time yesterday! Thank you soooooo much MousePlanet Staff for putting together such an awsome adventure.

I really enjoyed meeting at WWS before registration. Although I don't post often, it's still nice to see the faces behind the usernames. I also thought the registration process was very smooth.

I was glad to receive all the quests up front. It played upon our strength being able to organize our game plan with all the materials in front of us. It was nice to spend all of the three hours solving the quests rather than returning to a central point.

I can't say I had a favorite quest. I liked them all. Some highlights for me were 1) finding the two missing persons early in the game and lesliebumper coming up with the answer to the trivia question. It was nice to have some points on the page. 2) Having Huck Finn come up to us while waiting for the raft to Tom Sawyers Island. He came up to say hello, so we asked if we could have his autograph. He said, "You want me to practice my letters?" Anyway, part of the game is the luck of being in the right place at the right time.

Again, kuddo's to the MousePlanet Staff! How will I pass the time waiting for next October to roll around? Guess I'll have to hang out at DLR. :)

P.S. What was with the Cyper quest and Mr. Toad's? We couldn't decode that one.

[Not Afraid]

We were the team known as "Captain Jack's Sparrows", complete with matching team shirts, pirate head scarves, sashes and our team mascot, "J.D." (for Johnny Depp) the stuffed Capuchin monkey, also dressed in pirate garb and MouseAdventure pin.
You guys looked GREAT! I loved your outfits (and accessories;)). We were sitting one table over from you during the awards. I had a few exchanges with the bearded guy on your team (who was much pirate-like), but I wish I had know it was you! The hardest part of being a Padder is putting real names and faces to screen names.

Next time. (I think I always say that). Hey, I met quite a few new people at the potluck, so that's a start.

[cemeinke]

Well, it's the morning after and I'm still shcoked that we took first in the combined competition (thank goodnees the Happy Haunts don't like trivia- or they would have blown us away).

Favorites or least favorites - don't know, we didn't do as well on the puzzles and certainly sufferd from not have Stan4dSteph on the team to focus on those. I'm happy we finally located to Wicked Queen to get our team picture with (My team, wouldn't allow me to stop during the quest when we found her in the castle).

I'm sort of ambivalent on the new format - it certainly seemed to work for us, but we had a mad shuffleing a lot of paper throughout the competition. It did make sure that evreyone had something to focus on during the entire event. The downside of that is that while I know the itimate details of some of the quests, I have no idea why we had to keep stopping at photo spots, other than a quest was involved.

As for the MP Staff they were awsome. I think it's great that they can do this event twice a year and each time it's freash with something new.

I'm very happy for Team Smilies, they definately deserved the spirit award (even if our outfits were "hotter" :fez: ). I also enjoyed the "Captain Jack Sparrows" outfits - I'm sure you guys got lots of questions along the way. All in all a great Mouse Adventure - I can't wait to see some pics.

[adriennek]

Sorry we couldn't "visit" you because of the new format, AdrienneK, but I still say you made the best looking pregnant woman in the park today!! :D

Ahhhh, thank you!

My least favorite part: The heat and not seeing teams come in to the check-in station so I could see the teams throughout the day :) The other staffers got to interact a lot more with the teams. I missed grading as we went, too, just because usually I get to be following teams and see how they're doing and have an idea who's doing well, etc. On the other hand, I was much more relaxed than I usually am by the end of an MA day!

My favorite part: I got to sit in the shade the whole time and people brought me food and drinks and some unexpected (but very friendly and familiar) faces came by and kept me company.

My favorite quest was the logic puzzle because it was the only puzzle I did but I enjoyed it and I got the right answers. :D

I really appreciate the staff. I appreciate all the staff that were prepared to follow me home last night when I started having eerily regular contractions. I thought it was funny when one person kept asking if we had time to eat dinner first. (We had plenty... they stopped again...) And I always have a really fun time working with the staff at MA! I think we have a GREAT team! Yeah us! :D I've always said that the thing I love about MA is that I might nto be the most talented person, but I know how to pick a great team :D

Adrienne

[Ghoulish Delight]

"Is this a 3 player team? Do you have green numbers? Good. Please place them on your sleeves. Just like that gentleman over there has them. Don't place them on top of your shoulders or on your chest. Great. If you would like to make a name tag for yourself, feel free to do so at this table. Oh, you have buttons, then you can skip that. We have sunscreen available, so help yourself if you didn't bring any. Do you see Shoshana, she's wearing a black cap and holding a clipboard? She's waving now. Go see her and she will help you with your team picture. If you don't want a team picture, please get in line for one anyway, because we have to send you someplace else after that for instructions. Good luck."All we got was 3 seconds of annoyed mumbling and some incromprehensible hand waving. I think I'm going to protest the results for this unfair treatment!!! :p

I think the only question from FEJ that I didn't answer was my favorite part. This time around, that's a really tough question. All the quests were very well balanced, no one is really standing out in my mind. I guess I'd go with the NOS sign one, despite the missing awning. I liked the Eye Spy-like nature of it, and it was the first one we did, so we were in the best mood. Although the missing awning did drive us nuts. We had all the other signs and had found them in the word search. Then we figured we might be able to solve it without the last one just by looking at what was unused. While looking, we found Pattiserie and Petite. We thought, hmm, that must be the awning, let's go look. So we went, and of course there was no awning, so we though maybe it was the answer. But, of course, it overlapped other ones, and the isntructions said the answer was in "unused letters," so we were confused as heck....until we noticed the outline of a missing awning on the wall!! :D

To answer gfy4dland's question about the Toad quest, you had to use the ENTIRE text on the crest to decode it. We tried 3 times, first with just "Sempre Absurda," then with just "Toadi Accelerado," and finally with both, "Toadi Acceleardo, Sempre Abusrda." that finally worked. That was a fun moment. For those that never figured that out, the decoded questions could be answered by looking at the statues of Toad and friends that are in the very back of the outdoor portion of the queue. So we got into the queue which was just long enough to get us barely close enough that if we leaned forward and squinted, we could kinda read what they said. And the ride was down, so the queue wasn't going anywhere. We couldn't quite make out the last one, so we got the attention of the people next to it and asked if they could read it to us....poor people were so confused. :)