Kristi and I had the honor to attend the first ever MiceChat in-park event on Saturday. Had a completely unbelievably great and exhausting time.
The Event was the Gumball Rally. Basically the idea is to see if you can ride all of the rides in Disneyland in one day. Not as easy as it may sound.
First and foremost, we have to thank the entire MiceChat crew for putting on the best in-park event we have EVER been to. Seriously. We have been to a few "park sponsored" events (Coaster Solace, etc) that were no where near as organized as this.
On to the event:
So, can you ride all of the rides in Disneyland in one day??? That was the question that people have been pondering for years. Last Saturday a brave group of MiceChatters set out into Disneyland to find out.
Starting off at the Anaheim Hilton, we get on our Uniform for the day:
First order of the day, checking in at the Picnic area and getting the instructions from Dusty:
Peace Dusty!!!
Part of our packet was a VERY nicely done booklet of questions for each ride to ensure that you rode the ride. The questions weren't hard and even if we knew the answers we still needed to ride the rides. But a lot of it were questions that you wouldn't necessarily know ... unless you rode the ride. I have attempted to place the answers of the questions with each of rides we rode.
Kristi wanted to take pictures of the Halloween stuff ... no time for that today:
On the way to Fantasyland, most teams took a quick stop to the Main Street Theatre to see 6 screens in the round.
First order of the day, Fantasyland and Dumbo (and YES you can see IASW from Dumbo):
After Dumbo we headed for Mr. Toad (2 weasels on the chandelier) and then over to Alice (6 roses being painted). (Peter Pan was already a long line so we opted to get the rest of Fantasyland and come back to that later)
On Alice (me with the Video camera, which would come in VERY handy later in the day)
Next up, The Rockets!!! (Yes you can see Innoventions, Space Mtn and CA Screamin' from the ride)
After the Rockets we went and grabbed some Space Mtn fastpasses and made a bee-line for Toontown's 10:00am opening.
We got lucky as Gadgets Go Coaster was a walk-on. We did see some other teams who had the same idea we did.
And of course, Darkbeer with the camera:
This was the answer ... acorns!!!
WooHoo!!! 1 more ride out of the way
Our next thought was to head to Roger Rabbit but it broke down. Luckily our SM fastpass time had already come so we grabbed FP's for later in the day.
Heading back for Space Mtn we made a quick stop at the Tea Cups (3 arrows facing right) with no line:
We got delayed again since Buzz was a walk-on as well and said hi to our friend Boxobot!!! :
After Buzz we made a stop at Innoventions to count the 32 stairs and then Space Mountain where we went through the RED warp sequence and made 5 left turns.
When we were on Innoventions we noticed that the FP machines for Autopia are no longer in use (we were counting on this later). We didn't have time to worry, we had other fish to fry.
Headed through Adventureland, grabbed some Indy FP's and went to visit Tarzan and Jane who wrote something in the first book. Kristi dropped her pen, so we had to get a new one.
At this point we were hungry, so we took a quick 10 minute break, talked to Tim (one of the GREAT spotters) for a few minutes, got Kristi a new pen and stopped by Frontierland Shooting Exposition and saw the "for sale" sign.
Up next was the Mark Twain to see the 7 Teepees (there are 7, you MUST look closely).
Big Thunder from the Mark Twain:
After Mark Twain we headed over and did Single Rider on Splash and saw that there are indeed 14 molasses jars, picked up some HMH Fastpasses, and then took a ride to Tom Sawyers Island. Poor Eliza Hodgkins died in 1812.
It was then off to Pirates to visit Jack Sparrow. But he was not the main attraction for the MiceChatters on Pirates today ... it was a lowly guitar player, wearing a red neckerchief.
It was also at this point of the day where the pictures mysteriously stopped being taken. I guess we were so into the game, we forgot to take pics for a few hours. We will have to go on without a lot of pictures.
After Pirates it was time for our Indy Fastpasses. We said hi to our 16 skeleton friends, who we almost missed.
Went for a horsie ride with our driver Laura.
Then it was time for a nice relaxing trip on the Disneyland RailRoad. We saw our friend the alligator (or crocodile, who knows) sitting with a king and queen in New Orleans Square. A rather "Livery" sign selling Hay and Grain. Some Corn of the Future and 3 Pterydactyls (the ones with wings).
Walked back up to Tomorrowland and headed for Autopia, which was a surprisingly short line. Who knew that Chevron sponsored the ride and put their symbol on a door on the backside of the round building with not enough ventilation.
It was now time to head back to Toontown to do Roger Rabbit, Kristi's favorite ride (not). It was not nice to stick Jessica in that trunk.
We headed to this area at about 3:00 for a specific purpose. They close off Storbook Canal for the parade and reopen it right after. We figured we had time to do Pinnochio and Snow White and head to the Storybook boats right at the right time.
Worked like a charm.
Took a spin on Pinnochio, took a ride to the Salt Mine and then to Snow White to see a quite useful birdie holding up a clothes line.
This is where the video camera saved us. We both thought before riding that it was a deer. So in the first room I caught out of the corner of my eye the bird. But I wasn't 100% sure. Enter the video camera. A quick rewind and there is the bird!!!!
Now it was about 3:45 and we hit the Storybook boats with no wait. Again, we were not the only Rally team with this idea. But it paid off as we all saw Eric's ship with 4 sails with no problems.
While in fantasyland and you want to take a ride with the horses, just remember the carousel floor is made out of wolf-proof cement.
It was now time for our HM FP's so we headed through Frontierland, grabbed some Big Thunder FP's and said hi to Jack Skellington. Again, he was not the main attraction but the 5 singing pumpkins who like to call the graveyard home.
Back to Pooh who had a wait for the first time since shortly after it's opening. We said hi to the Heffalump playing the honey guitar with 5 strings.
Headed over to Big Thunder, not looking for a goat for a trick but looking for a sign warning us about Blast Area's ahead.
Over to Adventureland where some birdies were about to start their show, ran into another rally teams who stole our idea. Said hi to 12 little birdies on a birdmobile for some extra points, and the red little bird, who made us all dissapear.
Over to take a cruise in the Jungle, saw a lantern with some banana's and 4 people, up a pole with some fez on their head.
Back over to Tomorrowland, ran into some more teams. Took a ride to a Galaxy Far Far away, saw some yellow, red and blue lights, saw that our seatbelts do indeed snap from right to left.
I actually did take a picture!!!
Over to Honey I Shruk the Audience, where we got our picture taken by a camera of Yellow and red.
Then to Small World, only 3 rides left!!!!
Said hi to 4 Giraffes in the Jungle scene, headed over to Casey Jr where there are 3 tunnels, not 2.
Finally ther last ride of the day came, it was Peter Pan. Exhausted as we were, we weren't the only team who had waited until now. We only waited about 30 minutes. Said hi to 4 Indians (including the baby).
Our last ride!!!
Turned in our packet at exactly 8:15. 11 hours and 15 minutes, that's what it took to ride every ride in Disneyland!!! Well, no Matterhorn or Monorail, so next year we will have to try and beat our time, even though there will be more rides to ride.
Finally we could take a breather. I went out to the locker to grab my sweat shirt, we FINALLY sat down and had a meal at Rancho Del Zocalo (yummy enchiladas). Made our way to Small World to see the fireworks (Shouldn't we get extra points for this???)
Finally at 10:00 it was the moment we all had waited for. Dessert!!!! A private party at the Festival Arena.
We left the party about 11:30 as we were pretty exhausted.
Thanks for reading!!!
Can't wait until next year!!!
PS, were both happy to report that our new shoes for WDW are indeed broken in!!!!
PPS, I do have about 50 minutes of video from the day. I'm going to 'attempt' to make my first video using Premiere (I need to learn to do this before WDW). At the very least I will be able to take some pictures off of the video camera. There are some interesting shots!!!
Topic: Photo TR: MiceChat's Gumball Rally (Disneyland) (Read 3117 times)