Gumball Rally 2013 Results and Photos

May the 4th has come and gone, but it left behind Gumball Rally memories to last a lifetime. Whether you were with us for our three day extravaganza or just following along online, we hope you’ll join us in wishing all of the teams a hearty congratulations.

CARB LOADING PASTA PARTY
inside the TANGERINE Restaurant at the Annabella Hotel

The weekend of the Gumball Rally started of with a rousing dinner of friendly competition and friends at the Tangerine Restaurant at the Annabella Hotel.  Guests and players checked in at the reception desk and got a glimpse of the grand prize trophy for the Gumball Rally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pasta Party was a complete success and we can’t thank the Anabella enough for their support.

KICK OFF BREAKFAST at ESPN ZONE

The next morning at 6:30 am, teams met at the ESPN Zone for registration and the kick-off breakfast.  As folks got their packets they were asked to enter, take a team picture, and then grab their choice of coffee, orange juice, or water. Breakfast burritos were then served to everyone. Despite the early morning, everyone was psyched and ready to roll!

We completely filled the ESPN Zone’s two dining rooms.

 

FUN FACTS:

OFF THEY ROLL . . .

Teams spread out into the parks of the Disneyland Resort and began tearing through as many attractions as they could.  While not all rides were included in the race, the game covered both parks and plenty of ground.  It is an exhausting day, but one that is filled with adventure, fun and surprises.

 

 

THE AWARDS PARTY

The finish line for this year’s event was at the Pizza Press restaurant on Harbor Blvd next to the Carousel Inn and Suites.

After turning packets in, teams were welcomed to the Howard Johnson Anaheim Resort for the Awards Party and Game Show in their amazing pirate themed pool area.  We even had two food trucks on hand, Bacon-Mania and Chomp-Chomp.

 

Monorail Man presented a wildly fun twist on a classic game show with Who Wants To Be A Miceinaire. The show was an audio visual treat complete with music and computer animation.

 

 

 

 

 

Below are the final results for the 2013 MiceChat Gumball Rally.  Nearly 200 teams of 2, 3, and 4 competed to ride as many of the listed attractions as possible from 9am-8pm on Saturday May 4th.  How did we know what attractions the teams had completed?  Competitors were handed a small game book that asked very obscure facts to confirm having ridden an attraction.  Teams were not allowed to split up, nor were they allowed to use internet connected devices to help answer a question.

The Side Awards (Best Logo, Team Name, Spirit)

Best Team Logo (Tie)

LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALDARAN PLACES

Game Day Challenges

No matter how hard we plan, challenges are bound to pop up on an event this complex. This year, Anaheim AIDS Walk was held on the morning of our event . . . in Downtown Disney . . . right in front of the ESPN Zone where we were holding our Pre-Rally Breakfast and Registration. Worse, not all of the parking attendants at Mickey and Friends parking structure had gotten the memo from ESPN Zone about the Rally and refused to let some folks park, sending them instead to park at Downtown Disney (imagine the fee for parking there all day) ouch! Other than that, the registration was a breeze this year. The biggest challenge in the event lay at the feet of the scoring team who, this year, had to score over 200 team packets in 3 hours.  That is around 22,000 questions that were reviewed, verified and then either awarded or deducted. Then points had to be tallied and totaled for each packet.  To get everything scored on time, the staff had to score over 100 questions a minute and each game book was scored, totaled and reviewed a minimum of three times (5 times for the top 20 teams).

There were two mistakes in the game book this year and all teams were awarded the point values if they attempted to answer them.  They also had to take into account the many variables that pop up in a living, breathing theme park.  The scoring team wanted to walk in the shoes of the players this year, so we had them ride every attraction so they could catch any inconsistencies in the game books or find errors which popped up after the book was printed.  For instance, The Jungle Cruise Question was…

JUNGLE CRUISE
How many crocodiles are there in the Elephant bathing pool scene?
A) 1 B) 2 C) 3 D) 4 E) 0

The correct answer would normally be A) 1.  However, the day of the event, during show check, Cast Members noticed that the obscure crocodile figure in the far right corner of the elephant bathing pool had lost it’s bottom jaw.  It had fallen off and lay, on the ground, just inches away from the figure.  They removed the figure for the day and then opened the ride.  So, we had to change our answer key to “0” as that was technically correct on game day.

While we do our very very best to hand Dusty the absolute most accurate numbers the night of the event, we also believe in accuracy.  You will note that three teams who were not announced on game night have been added to the top 10 and will receive medals by mail.  The reason for this is that we score first by point total and then by time to break the tie. As teams were coming in, we doubled up to accept packets and some teams came in at the same time. We had some trouble telling the time on a few packets and set them aside to add them in once we had everything sorted. Unfortunately, these three did not make it back into the stack and therefore were not placed into their correct order. To be fair, we have added them into the bracket that matches their point total and because we could not break the tie, we will produce extra medals to mail to these teams.

Below are the top 50 teams, ranked from 1st to 50th

Because of a request for several teams not to be identified by name, we invite you to give your name if you’d like in the comments section below.

1st Place – Powered by Pixie Dust – POINTS: 84

The rest of the winning teams:

2nd Place – Quack Attack – POINTS: 82

3rd Place – Foxtasmic! – POINTS 80

4th Place – The Unofficial Team – POINTS: 79

5th Place – 3 way tie
NAP SQUAD – POINTS: 77

5th Place – 3 way tie
NO WINDOWS AND TWO DOORS – POINTS: 77

6th Place – The Ghost Hosts – POINTS: 77

 

7th Place – Marcel’s Mauraders – POINTS: 76

8th Place – Kessel Runners – POINTS: 76

 

9th Place  –  TIE
Sturm und Drang – POINTS – 76

 

9th Place  –  TIE
Dip Weasels – POINTS: 76

 

10th Place – Rebel Alliance Without A Cause – POINTS:75

• 11th Place Twain and a Half-75
• 12th Place Team Eeyore Strikes Back-75
• 13th Place CLUELESS-75
• 14th Place The Wildest Riders Strike Back-75
• 15th Place Space Rangers-74
• 16th Place The Bubble Yums-74
• 17th Place We’re the Droids You’re Looking For-74
• 18th Place Scruffy Looking Nerfherders-74
• 19th Place 3 Minnieateers-73
• 20th Place Oozma Kappa Racers-73
• 21st Place Vinyl Chasers-73
• 22nd Place Team BAD-73
• 23rd Place Two Mouse Crew-73
• 24th Place World Explorers-73
• 25th Place Bounty Scum-73
• 26th Place MUFASA-73
• 27th Place Country BEER Jamboree0-72
• 28th Place May the 4th be ever in our favor-72
• 29th Place Team Refurb-72
• 30th Place The Jawawockeez-72
• 31st Place Mousenators-72
• 32nd Place Main Attractions-71
• 33rd Place Wicked Wenches-71
• 34th Place The Lost Girls-71
• 35th Place Goof Troupe-71
• 36th Place BEAR LEFT! RIGHT FROG!-71
• 37th Place Tiki Room Titans Strike Back-71
• 38th Place Mickey’s Pals-71
• 39th Place Tinx Minx-71
• 39th Place CPs Unchained-71
• 40th Place The Fourgotten Dwarves-71
• 41st Place Atomic Mice-70
• 42nd Place A Waltz Through Disney-70
• 43rd Place Han Duo-70
• 44th Place The Newsmakers Strike Back-70
• 45th Place Rex’s Midnight Runners-69
• 46th Place The Dapper Dancers-69
• 47th Place T-Town Tinkerbells-69
• 48th Place The Darkwings-69
• 49th Place Winnie the Pooh & Tigger Tutu!-69
• 50th Place The Goofy Troupe-69

LIBRARY OF TEAM PHOTOS TAKEN AT THE BREAKFAST
(this is why we needed you to get your pic as you walked in folks.) 

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF THE TEAMS!
As much as we would like to list all of the team scores, we learned long ago that it is much more polite to list the top quarter and give the remaining teams something to strive for in future events. And there will be lots of events in the near future, including a Walt Disney World version and a possible half-Rally at the Disneyland Resort.

Sunday MEGA-Meet at Disneyland

Although they were tired after an epic day at Disneyland, well over 100 folks marched right back into the park on Sunday to join us for the traditional day-after celebration of the winning teams. We chatted for about half an hour, took a group photo in front of the castle, had lunch and then rode Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. Even Al Lutz made a rare appearance! If you missed the meet, you can join us almost every Sunday at noon in the very same spot we’ve been meeting for over a decade . . . the Walt and Mickey statue in the central hub of Disneyland.

!!!THANK YOU!!!

We’d like to thank our amazing staff and sponsors who make these events possible. More than half of the cost of your admission into the event was covered by Fairy Godmother Travel, the Howard Johnson Anaheim Resort and the ESPN Zone. The sponsors help us keep the ticket prices low, which in turn allows us to offer the Rally at a super low rate.

Every year, we recruit a staff to handle everything from writing questions, sales, marketing, registration, web coding, store support, audio visual, spotters, greeters, wranglers, crossing guards, game show hosts and even a character or two. In all, we had nearly 100 support staff this year. While we can’t list them all, the following are the folks who were in key positions this year:

Event Directors:

• Staffing, Spotters, and Registration – Michele Kersteins
• Parties, Prizes, and Sponsor Relations – Jennifer O’Brien
• Game Show “Who Wants To Be A Micenaire” – Hastin Zylstra
• Marketing – Jeff Gordon
• Trophy Design and Construction – Charlie Arnold
• Art Direction and Game Book – Norman Gidney

Staff Positions:

• Registration – Melissa Parsons, Troy Parsons, Jeffrey Niederauer, Michelle Hamand, Gwen Dreyer, John Luevanos, Tiffany Wilhelm, Ben Ragunton, Keith Lane
• Photographers – Matt Jergens, Alan Kawartani, Matt Hamand
• Wranglers – Lu DeLucy, Rick Wright, Joshua Morris, Teresa Cory
• Support Staff – Troy Parsons, Matt Jergens, Jeff Heimbuch, Trevor Demerse, Werner Weiss, Jim Haasis
• Spotter Management – Tiffany Wilhelm, Gwen Dreyer
• Spotters – Thank you to the huge team of spotters who gave up a day to help us run this event. You are all spectacular!
• Event Photographers – Matt Jergens, Alan Kawartani
• Scoring Team & Question Testers – Michelle Hamand, Martina Gona, Jeff Heimbuch, Matt Jergens, John Luevanos, Sabrina Luevanos, Melissa Parsons, Troy Parsons, Andrew Warner, Crystal Warner, Tiffany Wilhelm
• Mr. Fishbulb’s Official Head Scratcher – Sabrina Luevanos
• Welcome Crew – Rick Wright, Lu DeLucy, Matt Hamand, Michele Kerstiens
• Awards Party – Scott Linder, Gwen Dreyer, Dan Peterson, Charles Wang, Jennifer O’Brien, Hastin Zylstra, Dustysage

Event Producer – Dustysage

If you are planning a trip to the Disneyland Resort in the future, we hope you’ll remember our wonderful sponsors who did so much for you this year . . .

But the most important person we need to thank is YOU!  Yes, YOU! Without you and your support of MiceChat, none of this would be possible, or even worth it. It’s the smiles on your faces, the many thanks, the families and friendships brought together that make this all worthwhile. Thank you for making us all feel so good about what we accomplished with this year’s record setting event.

If you missed this year’s event or just don’t want to miss the next one, please sign up for the MiceChat Newsletter. Don’t forget to add [email protected] to your address book so the messages don’t end up in Spam by mistake. You can register below:

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Until we roll again . . . we’ll see you on MiceChat . . . and may the force be with you, always!

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