2018 Minnie's Moonlit Madness Results

After having a really fun time participating in Minnie's Moonlit Madness 2018 #minnies2018 everyone was really excited to find out our score. This year, we had a really good run. We attempted all 10 hard clues, answered all the bonus clues possible, and did pretty good on trivia! On Thursday February 22nd, the results were in! They were posted on the internal Disney Backlot page first, so Ruston was the first to find out.

Ruston called Jacob, Theresa, and myself all on a conference call and asked if we wanted to hear the good news or the bad news. We opted to hear the bad news first.
"Well" Ruston said, "The bad news is that you're going to have to take some time off work to come up to the Disney Studios. Because the good news is that we won first place and they're going to take our picture and present the team with our medals!"

We won!
Woo hoo! Congratulations team! Everyone was really excited!

And boy was it a tight race. According to the scores above, our score was 1794. If you remember in my write-up, as the winners of the CHOC auction, we received a bonus clue worth an unspecified number of points. Apparently that clue was worth 50 points. I was happy to have the points, but that's not how I wanted to win. Thankfully even without those 50 points, we still would have had 1744 points which was still enough for a first place finish!

So what's the breakdown?

144 points from trivia - 50 questions worth 3 points each. We missed 7 questions, but got the double or nothing for the last 5 questions.
100 points from Clue A - We solved the scatter clue
1250 points from 10 hard clues - Each clue was worth 125 points and we solved them with 3 minutes to spare
100 points from the Newsies Bonus clue - Ruston and I worked on this clue while Jacob and Theresa walked us through the park to solve other clues
100 points from turning in our rope before time ran out
50 points for taking the bonus Snapchat photo with our team number visible
1744 points Total!

And in the end, it all came down to trivia. The top 3 teams solved all hard clues and earned all the bonuses possible. First place missed 7 trivia questions, 2nd place missed 13 trivia questions, and 3rd place missed 14 trivia questions. Whew! Tight race!

2018 Minnie's Moonlit Madness - An After Hours Scavenger Hunt around Disneyland

Once again, February has rolled around and it's time for Minnie's Moonlit Madness. An after hours scavenger hunt for Disney Employees and their friends, and a chance for top teams to put their knowledge of Disney trivia to the test.

Ruston, Jacob, Theresa and I all had a blast competing together as a team, all the way up until 2015 when the event got so popular that instead of requiring only 1 Disney Cast Member per team, they started requiring 2 Disney Cast Members per team. Our party of 4 only has one cast member, and with that, all our hopes for competing together again were gone.

Since then, I've had a blast being a volunteer for the event, seeing some of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into putting on an event like this. But there's nothing quite like competing...

Fortunately every once in a while, a little Disney Magic can happen.

Celebrating Valentines and the Lunar New Year at Disneyland

It's the weekend and we're celebrating at Disneyland. There's two holidays coming up this week, so we've themed our hats to match.
Alli and Theresa are sporting pink and red princess hats with hearts all over for Valentine's Day coming up on the 14th. Ian and I (and later Ruston) are wearing Pluto hats because on the 16th it's the Lunar New Year and this year is the year of the dog.

14th Belmont Shore Chocolate Festival

Every summer we make it a point to visit the Belmont Shore for the Stroll and Savor. Right before Valentines Day, the same area of Long Beach has a chocolate festival! This is the 14th year to celebrate chocolate here.