Great Moments In Our History: Splash Mountain Redux

Last week, we introduced you to one of our favorite pastimes while we're hanging in either of The Parks.

We won't go over the entire thread again (you can click and read if you haven't already) but to put it short and sweet, we enjoy setting personal "records" while we're at The Park.  We like to see how many times we can ride a certain attraction in one day or how many consecutive trips into The Park we can ride the same attraction; things like that.

As of last week, one of our favorites involved Splash Mountain.  Up until this point, our high-water mark (punnage!) on this particular attraction was our riding it three times, consecutively, without ever having left our raft.  But we were determined to break that mark this past weekend.

In fact, if you'll recall (and read last week's post) we had grand designs of blogging while we were actually on the ride, as well as breaking our own record.  We suppose 1 out of 2 isn't bad.  The whole blogging thing didn't really work out.  Guess a DROID with a dead battery will do that.

But just as we had planned we wandered over into Critter Country around 8:45, around 15 minutes before we knew that Fantasmic! would be starting.  Unforeseen, but completely welcome, was the addition of three other friends from Twitter to our party:  Julie, Jenna and Destiny.  The pressure was palpable.  Not only did we have to beat the record for ourselves, and our blog, but we couldn't be seen with egg on our faces in front of our new friends.  It was on, Br'er Rabbit.

We'll spare you all the gory details, but it should be sufficient enough to say that five spins around the mountain later our record was completely smashed.  By this point (thankfully!) the lines were finally forming again and we had to jettison our boat.

Our record-breaking extravaganza wasn't without peril and consequence, though.  Deciding it would be best to man up and protect the women from the impending flood of water, we sat in the front of the boat.  We don't think we've ever been so wet in our entire lives.  If we had jumped into the Rivers of America fully clothed we couldn't possibly have been that wet.  We got off the attraction with our tuckus completely numb, our ears ringing (primarily from Destiny screaming the entire time), and weighing a full 100 lbs. heavier than we were when we got on.

But we all agreed (as we wrung the water out of our hoodies, poured the water out of our shoes, and cinched our belts tighter so our pants wouldn't fall off because they were so weighed down with water) that we had a blast.  We would have to think there's not many others who have done what we did.  If there are, our hats are off to you.  As it stands, though, we think we've done all we can take for right now.  The wetness must come to an end, and we are still in the process of drying off.

But like the Splash Mountain shirt says (only $19.95!), "It Was Soaking Awesome!".

---

Great Moments In Our History: Splash Mountain

Note:  The title of today's blog is not "Great Moments in American History" or anything quite so overly-dramatic, but is simply a nod towards our greatness, with maybe just a dash of narcissism thrown in for good measure.

One of our favorite things to do when we're hanging out at one of The Parks is try to set new "records" for ourselves.  We're by no means in competition with anyone else directly (at least, not that we know of), but we kind of enjoy competing against ourselves if you will.  We like to set marks and keep streaks alive for as long we can.  Some of our own "personal marks", if you will, include: 

• Most trips on California Screamin' in one day:  4
• Most consecutive back to back trips on California Screamin' in one day: 2 (and boy, were we feeling wonky after those!)
• Most trips on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in one day: 3
• Consecutive trips to Disneyland Park with at least one ride on Pirates of the Caribbean:  we're not entirely sure about this one, but by our guesstimates, around 35

Well, you get the idea.  One we've been stuck on for a while now (that we're seeking to dump on its head when we go to The Park this weekend) is one of our streaks on Splash Mountain; this one involving the most consecutive trips around the Mountain without ever having to leave your raft.  Right now, our record stands at 3.

We somehow managed to stumble on a really good time to do this a few months ago while wandering around New Orleans Square right around Fantasmic! time.  With nothing else to do (we had already ridden Pirates; at that time our streak for that one was still alive) we wandered into Critter Country to find that the line for Splash Mountain was practically non-existent.  Eager to seize such an opportunity (usually the lines are horrendous) we waltzed right to the front of the loading dock and right into our raft with four other people.  We made our first run, and were genuinely surprised when we pulled back to dock to find that no-one else was in the entire building at all.  The other people in our raft bailed (chickens!) and we were left to fly solo on round 2.  Back around we went, how do ya do?  We pulled back into the dock to find only two more people waiting in line.  On our raft they came, and off we went around the mountain for a third time.  By this point, we had already begun discussing the possibility of a fourth time around without even having to leave our seats, but we could hear Fantasmic! had ended, and just as we pulled back into dock, a line had begun forming once again.  So off we came, our streak rudely ended by Mickey's victory.  We figure we spent roughly 40 minutes or so in the same boat without getting up (if our numb butts were any indication).  Quite the accomplishment, we think!

But we haven't forgotten that fateful night, or the hanky-panky going on in our ride photo perpetrated by the couple in front of us on our third time around.  And we're determined to top it.  That is, we're determined to top our ride record.  Not the hanky-panky.

So this Sunday night, we're taking on the Mountain again.  We hope to blog about it while we're doing it (live blogging from the ride itself; who'd'a thunk?!) so we hope you'll be around to see it.  Will we do it?  What do we think our chances are?  

Pretty good, sure as you're born.

Do you have any Park records you're willing to put on the line?  Anything you think we'd like to try and top?  Let us know about it.  It's on! 

---