MiceChat’s 16th-anniversary extravaganza and Gumball Rally have wrapped up, and what a weekend it was! We had three days of Disney goodness, but what made it most amazing was all of you. There was an incredible display of comradery, competitiveness, and good old fashioned fun.
Let’s take a look at the weekend and share the results of this year’s huge Gumball Rally:
The Buzz Way
Kicking off the weekend, David Price, the son of Disney Legend Buzz Price, and Kathleen Cohen hosted a panel about Buzz’s incredible generational contributions to the development of Disneyland and his legacy with the Disney company.
We had books on hand from both Buzz and David Price. Buzz’s book has long been out of print, so it was in high demand.
Gumball Rally
Hundreds of teams descended upon the Howard Johnson Anaheim Hotel on the morning of the Gumball Rally. The purpose of the game is to ride the most attractions at Disneyland in a single day. The game this year was themed around the Haunted Mansion and had all sorts of neat tie-ins with the questions in the gamebook. . . including sending messages to the Ghost Host!
Just as the game books were handed out, the skies opened up and gave everyone an unexpected twist to the start of their game: soggy shoes!
After a few hours, the skies cleared up and everyone rushed to hit all the attractions at Disneyland before the deadline. And because the rain washed around the expected tourists from the park, it was actually a great year for the teams. This year we added a new mechanic to the game, Spooky Selfies! Some attractions required that you take a photo while on the ride and all attractions required that you document your progress in some way on Instagram. By the end of the day, there were over two thousand posts for #micechatrally on Instagram. We’d love to share some of the photos we took as well as some of our favorite posts from Instagram:
https://instagram.com/p/BtrcmL1BNuH/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Btq02atA4cq/
Often times we find really great stories happening around the Gumball Rally. Some of the featured Instagram posts included newlyweds, some of which got engaged at a previous Rally. The team below was able to use their time during the weekend to meet up with all their siblings for the first time in years, one even flew in from Australia!
We had a huge group to grab a photo together:
If you got cut off of the photo on Instagram, here’s a wider version
https://instagram.com/p/Btq0p8yH5oU/
As the clock inched closer to the end time of 8pm, players were rushing to turn in their gamebooks before the deadline!
(Do you have a favorite photo you took during the game? Please share it in the comments below!)
Gamebooks were collected, counted, and scored . . . which would be announced the next morning at the MiceChat Anniversary Breakfast…
David Koenig Presents: The First Tour Guide
The following morning we had a panel hosted by author David Koenig and Bob D’Arcy, the first Disneyland tour guide. Bob had tons of stories about the early, pre-opening days of Disneyland, and has written a book on it “A Walk in the Park: Reflections from Disneyland’s First Host.”
After the panel, we revealed who the top scoring teams for the Gumball Rally were.
Spaces were limited for breakfast, but some of our winners were in attendance.
Congratulations to the top three winning teams!
Los Disney Hermanos took home this beautiful hand-crafted Haunted Mansion themed Gumball Trophy.
Final Results
Results through 75th place. If you don’t see your team name below, you placed below 75th place – but keep on playing, who knows, you might just win the whole thing next year!
Questions count. With a VERY close race, many teams will note that they were deducted points for wrong answers, and for infractions during the game.
(While we can’t answer questions about individual scores in the comments below, if you have questions, please contact [email protected])
* Results for place 67 through 73 have been updated. The results themselves have not changed, only the display of team points for those places.
(Questions about results will be removed from the discussion below, please contact [email protected] if you have any question about results)
Special Awards
| Best Team Name | Dead Fans Party |
| Best Team Logo | The Gibson Ghouls |
| Team Spirit Award | Explorinerds |
| Individual Spirit Award | Tiffany Wilhelm |
| Gumball Rally Traditions | The Dotter Family |
Gumball Staff
We’d like to thank our amazing staff who made the magic!
COCKTAIL PARTY & BREAKFAST COORDINATORS
Karen Covington
Christa Kay
With special assistance from Jennifer O’Brien Chavez
GUMBALL RALLY STAFF
Event Producer: Dusty Sage
Team Liaison: Michele King
Staffing Coordinator: Tiffany Wilhelm
Digital Liaison: Matt Juergens
Ghost Host: Aileen Guerrissi
Scoring Lead: Michelle Hamand
Photographer: Scott Attula
Trophy Design: Topher Hays
Graphics and Game Book Design: Anthony Hays
Questions/Book: Dusty Sage
SCORING TEAM:
Michelle Hamand
Matt Juergens
Matt Hamand
Alberto Gonzalez
Tiffany Wilhelm
REGISTRATION TEAM:
Michele King
Donia Bencke
Jeffrey Niederauer
Stephanie Fix
Jeff Gordon
Alberto Gonzalez
Dan Reed
PARK TEAM:
And a cast of dozens of spotters, photographers, and question testers.
SPONSORS
And our sincerest thanks and appreciation to our sponsors who made the events possible.
- Get Away Today
- Fairy Godmother Travel
- The Howard Johnson Anaheim Resort
- Anthony Hays Photography
We had a wonderful weekend with you and are already plotting a major twist on the 2020 events! Thank you one and all for another year of MiceChat!
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