Minnie's Moonlit Madness - A Disneyland Cast Member Scavenger Hunt

After an 18 month hiatus, the Cast Member scavenger hunt at Disneyland was back!
The theme that we assumed from the registration was that this is a musical theme.

So back when we all went to the Pantages to see Peter Pan performed, Ruston came up with the fantastic idea that we should all be Dapper Dans!  After Theresa and I found the vests and hats on Amazon, Ruston completed the look by finding matching hat bands and arm cuffs.  We looked totally awesome!

On Feb 28th, the big day was finally here.  After sitting in terrible Los Angeles traffic, we finally made it to the parking structure.
A little bit of costume prep, pinning on our arm bands and trying not to stab Theresa with a safety pin.

First up was the captain's registration table where we picked up our armbands.

There are a bunch of teams all lined up and ready to go.  The staging area was in the Mickey and Friends parking structure.  From here, we went through a security bag check and entered the park backstage.

We only saw a few other teams dressed up.  The Sound of Color team did a great job getting into the spirit.  Mostly we saw coordinating t-shirts.  We did see a few other interesting costumes though.  There was a group of Beagle Boys (I wonder if they saw our costumes from last time), Pirates followed by Jack Sparrow, and a few super hero teams.

Unfortunately there were multiple signs all over the area stating "No Photography Backstage" and cast members were all over the place making sure people went the right way.
Also different from the last couple years we've done it, the trivia portion was being held backstage.  Guess that means no photos of other people in costume, or video recording the ceremony.  

As 9pm rolled around, our conductor Dylan for the evening came out to welcome us.  He always starts out with a bunch of bad jokes.  So yes, no photography but that doesn't mean I can't record the audio.  Here's the entire 50 minute show.

Minnie came out and scolded Dylan for the bad jokes.  
Then they welcomed a representative from Pacific Symphony and gave her a check for $5000.  This is what all our registration fees went to support.

Then it was time to start the event.  It's time for trivia!
We've always wondered what the policy was for googling the answers as it was going on.  Well when the trivia started this time, tons of phones came out and we even saw a laptop.  Alright, we'll wonder no more.
We started to answer the first 20 questions or so without help, but when we looked back and saw pretty much every team doing it, we also got out the phone.
Ruston did an amazing job with trivia.  Even without help, we answered at least 15 of the first 20 questions right. 

Here's a small sampling of the questions.  I'll have the full list in a later post.

1. What instrument does louis the alligator play in princess and the frog?
ukulele
bass
tuba
trumpet
xylophone

2. What musical sequence from The Muppet Movie was performed live on a results episode of ABCs dancing with the stars in 2011?
man or muppet
me party
life's a happy song
rainbow connection
manamana

3. Which disney full length animated feature contains the highest number of songs?
princess and the frog (10)
beauty and the beast (8)
alice in wonderland (18)
snow white and the seven dwarfs
home on the range (8)

4. The videopolis passport was an after 5pm ticket lasting all summer long in 1985. How much was it?
$25
$30
$35
$40
5 euro

5. In the music video Kokomo featuring the Beach Boys what WDW resort was featured in the background though unopened at the time?
polynesian
coronado springs
grand floridian
wilderness lodge
caribbean beach

6. What was the first silly symphonies cartoon to be released?
skeleton dance
three little pigs
the merry dwarves
the ugly duckling
the tortoise and the hare

7. What was the first disney tune to that proved popular to be released as a record and sheet music
some day my prince will come
when you wish upon a star
give a little whistle
who's afraid of the big bad wolf  Oh rats, my bad. (rh)
the ugly bug ball

8. What ballet was imitated in the show one man's dream?
giselle
romeo and juliet
sleeping beauty
kopamia
swan lake

9. What familiar disney tune plays on the ship horn to signal departure on the disney cruise line ships
mickey mouse club march
whistle while you work
when you wish upon a star
under the sea
minnie's yoohoo

10. What solo song does trixie sing in country bear jamboree?
all the guys that turn me on turn me down
heart, we did all that we could
tears will be the chaser for my wine
life's no picnic without you
the hibernating blues

From there, we were released into Toon Town Square to hook up.

 

And Minnie happened to be waiting for us in Toon Town.  Dylan joined her shortly afterwards. He asked if we were all ready to open our first clue envelope and hear our musical clue. He pulled out a kazoo and played the Mickey Mouse club theme and told us we were off.  We opened out clue and found that we had a red kazoo.   

Wandering around the sides of the entire group were Disney Cast Choir members with kazoos.  There were all sorts of color shirts they were wearing along with the light up glow sticks.  We found someone who had a red kazoo and red clothes and listened to them as they played "Casey Junior's coming down the track".  From there we were off!

I think this is where most people missed the first clue.  They wrote down the song that was being played instead of going to the location they heard in the song.  We moved quickly as a group over to Casey Junior and found this sign.  Write "Clarabelle Cow" on your envelope.

From there, we made a beeline to the madness that is clue central.  Imagine 350 teams of 4, all tied together, trying to navigate through the small area that is just 1/3 the sidewalk around the hub.

We met our awesome clue giver Jerry!  We learned his name as soon as we met him so we could start yelling it whenever we were on our way back.

Huge thanks to all the VoluntEARs who help run this event.

Our clues took us all over the place.  We went to New Orleans Square twice, King Arthur's Carrousel, Tiki Room, Golden Horseshoe, the Refreshment Center.
I'll have all the clues listed in a future post.

Solving a clue about the shields around the carrousel.

You only get one clue at a time, so we were constantly back and forth at Clue Central seeing Jerry to get our next clue.

The Disney Choir had a table for a bake sale, along with snacks and drinks.  We were so busy running around though that we didn't have a chance to stop.

Just a few of the other teams we were dodging all night.

And with 15 minutes to spare, would you look at that?  A completely full lanyard punched out.  We got all our questions finished!

 A quick wardrobe adjustment and we were ready to take some awesome group photos.

 Next we headed to Main Street to take a few more.

And we ran into a few of Ruston's friends and got some group photos.

 And we even ran into The Sound of Color and got a group photo with them too.

What an awesome night! We're tired and a little sweaty from all the running around, but we had an absolute blast!

So how did we do?  Official results won't come out until Monday, but this is what I'm thinking:

Total score:
Let’s assume we got 42 trivia question right x 3 points each = 126
First clue A = 100 points
10 hard questions (all right) = 1250
turning in rope = 100
total = 126 + 100 + 1250 + 100 = 1576 of out a possible 1600.

Let's hope that's good enough for a decent showing!