Family Challenges, Quests, and Adventures...what are yours?

[bcrook]

2004 - After several trips as a kid and teenager to WDW where we stayed off site and never got to try a table service meal, I brought my family in 2004 to WDW. My goal was to stay on-site, enjoy a Disney pool, eat at a Table service restaurant and visit all four parks (I had only visited Epcot and MK).

We managed to accomplish those goals (enjoyed Coronado Springs and the Jaguar slide and pool, ate at Teppanyaki Dining Room and Hollywood and Vine, and had a great time at Animal Kingdom and Disney-MGM Studios).

We had a wonderful time, and planned on returning in 2005 - we have been back every year since (sometimes twice). Each time we have designed new missions ranging from food challenges to four park ride challenges. We have arranged photograph competitions and bass fishing tournaments.

What are some of your most memorable family Quests or adventures. I need some new ideas?

 

[bcrook]

List of Challenges:

• Key Lime Pie Challenge - 2009
• Flat Mickey Does the World Showcase - Bababear_50 post #4
• Chocolate Around the World - Bababear_50 post #4
• Hide your own paintbrush on Tom Sawyer Island - Bababear_50 post #5
• Visit all the Resorts - Tcherjen #6
• Catch MNSSHP and MVMCP on the same trip - SES1230
• Get pictures with CM with the same first name - ReluctantDisaholic post #10
• Resort Hopping - 2008
• Try Something New - 4xmom post #13
• Make a Character Laugh - 4xmom post #13
• Amazing Race - Jepperson1 post #14
• Four Park 18 Land Challenge - 2012 - post #17
• CM shout outs - 2013 post #21
• Try All New Restaurants - Mom2AidanAndEli post #24
• Earn Your Souvenir Money by stepping out your comfort zone - This Is Pickles post #25
• Pin Trading challenge #1 - Mom2AidanAndEli post #26
• Small World Game (finding somebody you know at WDW) - MagicLovinMama post #27

 

[bcrook]

We spent a week in June and a week in July during 2009. My DD and I set out on a quest to find the best Key Lime Pie on property. We created a spreadsheet, tasting guidelines, and a plan of action.

Here is a rundown of that adventure.

We had a wonderful time. Visited restaurants for the first time because of the dessert hunt - Olivia's turned out to be a nice surprise.

We fell in love with the Grand Floridian Cafe chocolate crusted key lime pie. This is so good, we drove over from Tampa to wdw last June, stayed a few nights in Kidani, skipped the parks - so I could get a piece of that pie!

Other food quests? Stories from others?

 

[bababear_50]

Hi Barry
Mel here from the DIS DISign forum

A few years ago a lady pm'd me that she had a very special daughter who she was hoping to encourage to interact with others at Disney.
I made up a game for her.
"Flat Mickey Does The World Showcase"
It went great!
I'll see if I can find the post and link it for you.

Link here
Lots of "Magical Moments" here and it makes me happy to know I was part of it.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2654857




I stopped posting my Flat mickey as Etsy and Ebay sellers were making money off of it .

This year I've made up a "Chocolate Around The World" Booklet to have signed and stamped by the CM's.
I'm kind of keeping it's design private until after I test it out.
Here's a link to the thread I started on it.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3216180

I love Disney and enjoy coming up with new challenges each year!
Have fun
Hugs Mel

 

[bababear_50]

Finding the "Paint Brush On Tom Sawyer's Island "
used to be a tradition of ours,
since Disney no longer does this I


Now Do This

I buy a paintbrush from Home Depot or Lowes
I attach our Family name on it.
Each family member gets their own color bandana.
I go over in the first boat and hide it.
Second boat is full of family.
We hold our own countdown and off they go!
The winner get bragging rights and one ice cream treat!

Lots of fun

Hugs Mel

 

[tcherjen]

No very traditonal but, we would like to visit all the resorts and see what they offer. So far we have been too: CR, GF, Pop, POR, PFQ, FW. I would love to have stayed at each one, but dh really likes FW. We have been to the boardwalk and had lunch there, but didn't visit the resorts. We will do that this trip.

 

[bcrook]

Hi Barry
Mel here from the DIS DISign forum

A few years ago a lady pm'd me that she had a very special daughter who she was hoping to encourage to interact with others at Disney.
I made up a game for her.
"Flat Mickey Does The World Showcase"
It went great!
I'll see if I can find the post and link it for you.

Link here
Lots of "Magical Moments" here and it makes me happy to know I was part of it.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2654857




I stopped posting my Flat mickey as Etsy and Ebay sellers were making money off of it .

This year I've made up a "Chocolate Around The World" Booklet to have signed and stamped by the CM's.
I'm kind of keeping it's design private until after I test it out.
Here's a link to the thread I started on it.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3216180

I love Disney and enjoy coming up with new challenges each year!
Have fun
Hugs Mel

Hi Mel,

First those Flat Mickey pictures are wonderful! Thank you for sharing.

Now, that chocolate adventure has the making of a memorable trip. That design is fun.

 

[bcrook]

No very traditonal but, we would like to visit all the resorts and see what they offer. So far we have been too: CR, GF, Pop, POR, PFQ, FW. I would love to have stayed at each one, but dh really likes FW. We have been to the boardwalk and had lunch there, but didn't visit the resorts. We will do that this trip.

After visiting Disney for 40 years, I finally made it into the contemporary last year. I was amazed by the Mary Blair Mural.

I think visiting all the resorts is a fun adventure. I still haven't visited them all, but that was a goal in 2008.

 

[ses1230]

Well this is something we haven't done but hope to do. We want to go to MNSSHP and MVMCP on the same trip. I think we may have the opportunity to do it this year, our dates are Nov. 1-9!

One accomplishment we do have is visiting SAB. We did this just last month and it totally lived up to the hype!

I also want to do chocolate (or candy) around the world!

 

[ReluctantDisaholic]

One little thing we do is look out for CMs with our first names and get our picture taken with them (it took until trip #4 for my son to meet an Evan - then we found 2!).

 

[bcrook]

We purchased DVC in 2007 and for our 2008 trip we were able to test it out.

We started at Disney Hilton Head Resort, moved to Old Key West and finished at the Beach Club. So our goal for that trip was to visit all the resorts.

We had fun planning our routes using buses, boats and the monorail.

We did the DTD resorts by boat visiting Port Orleans and Saratoga Springs. At some point we took a bus to Wilderness lodge and then took a boat to MK and used the monorail to visit the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian - we had a blast at the Park Fare Dinner buffet. Those stepsisters were fun.

At the Beach Club we toured all five resorts around the lake, and we bussed over to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to see our new DVC home - although Kidani wasn't finished yet.

And then we ran out of vacation.

We missed all the value resorts, I still haven't seen Caribbean Beach. We had visited Fort Wilderness and Coronado in 2007.

In 2012 we had breakfast at the Wave - my first visit to the Contemporary and Bay Lake tower, and my daughter and I decided that we would take a tour of Art of Animation and Pop so we hopped a bus. We still haven't been to the All Star resorts.

Sometimes the missions take time!

 

[bcrook]

Well this is something we haven't done but hope to do. We want to go to MNSSHP and MVMCP on the same trip. I think we may have the opportunity to do it this year, our dates are Nov. 1-9!

One accomplishment we do have is visiting SAB. We did this just last month and it totally lived up to the hype!

I also want to do chocolate (or candy) around the world!

SAB is fantastic!

 

[4xmom]

Our last trip was "Try Something New". We stayed at place we had never stayed before, we surprised the kids as we were pulling in and we only ate at places that we had never tried before. The kids took it one step father to try every ride, so our theme saying was "you can live through anything for 60 seconds". They would chant this to themselves while we waited to board something (I did too at the ToT).

This next trip is all about characters and our 4 parks 1 day. This was the kids idea since they didn't get to help plan the last trip at all. The characters is something that we have to complete in order to make our quilt. However, the kids are a mission to see who can get a character to laugh the hardest. (oldest ds 13 won last time after telling Cinderella that he was a princess in disguise and she lost it laughing)

Tradition for our relaxing day is to travel to all the resorts on the monorail and end with a boat ride to WL/FW.

 

[jepperson1]

My DS3 and DS6 have never been to WDW, so we've planned a big surprise trip are leaving in a few days. They are addicted to "The Amazing Race", so we've made up Amazing Race "clue envelopes" and we are going to play a real life Amazing Race with the final destination being WDW. We live in Chicago, and we're going to pick DD6 up from school on Tuesday, race to sites around the city, and "pit stop" at a hotel near the airport. They may think that's the end, but the next morning we will continue racing, and end up on a flight to Orlando! We're going to keep it going each day with clues about which park to go to, which land to explore, etc. Can't wait!

 

[bcrook]

My DS3 and DS6 have never been to WDW, so we've planned a big surprise trip are leaving in a few days. They are addicted to "The Amazing Race", so we've made up Amazing Race "clue envelopes" and we are going to play a real life Amazing Race with the final destination being WDW. We live in Chicago, and we're going to pick DD6 up from school on Tuesday, race to sites around the city, and "pit stop" at a hotel near the airport. They may think that's the end, but the next morning we will continue racing, and end up on a flight to Orlando! We're going to keep it going each day with clues about which park to go to, which land to explore, etc. Can't wait!

That sounds super cool! Continuing the adventure in the park will be a blast. Please share your adventure. I would like to read about it.

 

[bcrook]

Our last trip was "Try Something New". We stayed at place we had never stayed before, we surprised the kids as we were pulling in and we only ate at places that we had never tried before. The kids took it one step father to try every ride, so our theme saying was "you can live through anything for 60 seconds". They would chant this to themselves while we waited to board something (I did too at the ToT).

That is awesome.

This next trip is all about characters and our 4 parks 1 day. This was the kids idea since they didn't get to help plan the last trip at all.

We did this in 2012 - story below. You will have a great time. It is an accomplishment.

The characters is something that we have to complete in order to make our quilt. However, the kids are a mission to see who can get a character to laugh the hardest. (oldest ds 13 won last time after telling Cinderella that he was a princess in disguise and she lost it laughing)

Tradition for our relaxing day is to travel to all the resorts on the monorail and end with a boat ride to WL/FW.

This is hilarious. Great story.

 

[bcrook]

We spent two full weeks on site in May/June 2012. We accomplished a couple of challenges that trip. The kids tackled the 18 Land and 4 park challenge - I only visited all the lands (I didn't ride all the rides), but I made it through the day. The teens were proud of their accomplishment.

Here is the full story.

The kids rode at least one ride in each "land" in all four parks. They started at rope drop in DHS, rode the boat to Epcot, took a bus to DAK and finished at MK with a late close. It rained really hard all day long which made for short lines. The only drama was making it to Splash in the pouring rain and hoping Disney didn't shut down the ride. Luckily, it stayed open long enough for the kids to finish the quest.

 

[1000HappyWishes]

I am historically known for being a slow eater.

My family members usually keep a running total of how many times I was the last person to finish my meal while traveling. It will undoubtedly come up at some point during every trip.

 

[bcrook]

I am historically known for being a slow eater.

My family members usually keep a running total of how many times I was the last person to finish my meal while traveling. It will undoubtedly come up at some point during every trip.

. . Thanks for sharing.

My sister is that way too. Is the time delay longer, shorter or about the same at buffets? Just curious.

 

[bcrook]

One little thing we do is look out for CMs with our first names and get our picture taken with them (it took until trip #4 for my son to meet an Evan - then we found 2!).

That sounds like so much fun. I wonder if I would find a Barry? It definitely goes on the list to try. Thank you.

Our last trip in October involved a CM quest...