MouseAdventure is a full work day, and not just for the staff. Sign-in began at 9:45, and most teams did not head home until well after 5:00 p.m. It’s a long, hard day of playing, but hopefully all the teams left having had one of their best times ever at Disneyland.

For this MouseAdventure, we altered the format a bit. In the past, teams were given only a portion of the game at a time, and many of our veteran teams had developed solid strategies for this. This time around, however, we simply dumped the entire game packet on them at the beginning (and some teams relearned the lesson that you should be careful what you wish for).

The most interesting thing about this change was the number of veteran teams who responded that it was pretty overwhelming to receive everything in that way. It’s interesting, since we actually cut back on the number of tasks this time around (from 15 quests to 10).

We had tried to schedule the spring event a little earlier in the year to avoid high temperatures and huge crowds, and were defeated on both counts. Fortunately, our players had such great attitudes that you’d have never known it was a difficult day to hold the event.

With the new format, we were able to offer a bit more in the way of side games and staff interaction. Many teams were willing to risk catching Lani on the Mark Twain for a chance at some extra points and not a few found themselves taking a tour of the Rivers of America while time dwindled.

Over on Tom Sawyer Island, Ed and Kevin hung out and watched teams play Choose Your Own MouseAdventure and try to figure out just what was supposed to happen when someone rang the bell. Over in Town Square, Sheila sat under her umbrella waiting for people to come take her quiz.

Since people always seem to miss our “Find So-and-So” person, we decided to double the odds. Two staffers were planted in the park, and still many people walked right by them. One team even said “hi” to Jennifer as they passed, not realizing they needed to find her.

In the end, the active teams walked many miles to earn their points. All appearances are that most enjoyed themselves despite the crowds and heat and many returned to the picnic area for chances at raffle prizes and to learn the final results. With the help of some new amplification technology, I’m sure many people were hearing my voice for the first time.

Finally, to end the recap on a bit of a down note, our worst fear finally happened. A scoring error was made that had an impact on the announced results. So to Helen and Danny of team BabyFishMouth, we express our regrets. Their corrected score would have put them in third place in their category and the final results were corrected.