Downtown Disney Discovery

Tim and I have spent the last month preparing for Regan's birthday party. We patterned it after the Mouse Adventure scavenger hunts we have done in the past, but slightly easier for the kids. We went down one night and spent about three hours writing the quest and the next several weeks finalizing it and having Garhett Bambrick test it for us.

So Regan invited 17 of her closest friends who gathered at our house and we all carpooled down to Downtown Disney. Our team leaders, Darrenn and Jenny Platt and Rick and Dawn Bambrick, were excited and nervous about the big day ahead. We gave them two hours and told them we didn't expect them to finish. All of them groaned about having to take even a few minutes for this group photo - they were so anxious to get going.

Darrenn, with years of experience behind him, sat his team down and came up with a strategy. Each of the kids were working on a quest (there were eight altogether) and he helped map out the direction to go. It was great to see Jordan, working furiously on the Backwards Brain Buster, yell out, "I get it! It's backwards!" (You think the name would have been a clue!).

One part of the adventure involved answering trivia questions. Each of the kids were required to attempt to answer at least one question. Rick was surprised when told even the leader had to answer one. He fumbled for a second and then pulled it out of the hat. Do you know what is being telegraphed in Morse code at the Frontierland train station?

Jenny worked hard to to let the girls do all the brain work. She knew she had a bit of an advantage having done Mouse Adventure in the past, so she kept quiet and let the girls lead the way. Bonafide Disney freak, Brice, really had a great time.
Of all the captains, Dawn was the most nervous. She had no idea what to expect. But she did have Chandler! She has been looking forward to doing something like this for years. So Dawn was able to partner with Chandler and rest of the team and do a great job. They especially liked the Photo Op section of the adventure.

Of course, Tim couldn't be left out of this whole thing. It was his birthday after all and he just LOVES this stuff. So he sat in the lobby of the Grand California Hotel and waited for the kids to find him. Then he delivered the trivia questions.

The kids did such a GREAT job on the Photo Ops. That was the section where they were given a list of item to find and photograph. They were free to find anything they could argue fit the description and they came up with some creative ways of meeting the requirements. So I had to showcase some of their photos here in this slide show.

After two hours and LOTS of running around, Team Mickey (Darrenn's team) ended up with the prize. They all worked together with each one taking a quest and working on it at all times. Notice Jordan is still working even as Darrenn is taking the photo!

Great job guys!!! Hope you had fun.