As of today (Jan 7th): No more paint brush hunt on Tom Sawyer's Island

[Tinkwings]

Glad to read someone heard they would start up again...I came home last night ready to vent about that....we saw a girl get a paint brush last Tuesday...but we were not first raft and just having fun aiming to arrive early later in week...which we did TO FIND out AFTER searching entire island...."they are not doing it anymore"...I asked permanently? and the CM said yes.....:lookaroun.....meant to write to someone somewhere to complain but I suppose that makes sense with the BTM shutting down et al. Paint brush finding has been a tradition!!!:sohappy:


I happily rode BTM, my FAVORITE ride anywhere, 4 times on Jan. 8th...and looking forward to seeing it restored...missing possums, Cousin Leroy's tub a turnin', the rocks threatening us etc....plus I noticed the gear HM was overgrown and not recognizable.....:animwink:.

 

[GLaDOS]

Either way I am just happy she assured me that they would continue doing it once Thunder opens.

Will they, though?

Sounds like a BS excuse to get people to not talk about it and forget about it in the months BTMRR will be closed.

 

[Scuttle]

Will they, though?

Sounds like a BS excuse to get people to not talk about it and forget about it in the months BTMRR will be closed.

It sounded like she was truthful with me. She said with enthusiasm that they stopped yesterday and that they will be doing it again in May when Thunder opens. I told how great of a tradition it is and she agreed and said she loves hiding them. Then I was sure to ask one more time and she said yes they will continue hiding them when Thunder opens, so I dunno I believed her.

 

[Master Gracey]

I never heard of the "hiding of the brushes", but I thought I read (in a Steve Birnbaum book) years and years ago that kids used to actually paint (whitewash) the fences? Is that correct or am I imagining this?

But now that I know this, I'll definitely take my daughter over there... like I said, I have never heard of this! Cool!

Judy

I don't know about actually whitewashing, but I remember around 1997, while the Adventureland Challenge was being held in Adventureland (the forerunner and superior of Kim Possible and Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom due to the live Colonel Wayne P. McSwagger, and not just a video screen) there was the Tom Sawyer Island Scavanger Hunt run by Cuzin Elton. I don't recall a backstory to the game, he just gave you a map of the island and the flip side had pictures of objects you had to locate on the island and write down where you found them. The first person back to the starting location (varied from game to game) recieved a handfull of backdoor passes to Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain and a VHS copy of "Tom and Huck".

The island was also used for the short lived "Missing Walt Disney Quote Challenge". Players met at the Giant Stone Head in Adventureland (where the Carpets now stand) where Col. McSwagger or his Lacekey would appear to tell about the lost quote of Walt Disney. He handed out a map of the park and gave you two hours to answer a list of trivia questions that you had to go into the least crowded attractions (i.e. Enchanted Tiki Room, Carousel of Progress, Liberty Belle River Boat etc.) to find the answers to. Then, your final clue led you to Tom Sawyer's Island where you had to locate a box containing the missing quote and bring it back to Adventureland. The prize was a certificate and three pieces of Colonel Currency (AKA front of the line pass to any Magic Kingdom attraction). Oh how I wish they would bring back these great scavenger hunts, especially the Adventureland Challenge (which had been recently run in 2009 for a huge Jungle Cruise Skipper reunion and in 2011 for the Adventurers Club Convention, the ConGaloosh).

Some days you eat the mouse.
Some days the mouse eats you.
But the Club still stands and hope remains!

KUNGALOOSH!​

 

[DisneyRunner]

Here I am with a paintbrush from our trip in August. It was around 5:30 in the evening. The prize was a FP for both BTMRR and Splash. Funny thing is, the FPs were from earlier that day. So, paper can't be a reason for cutting cost.

I was very excited to find this. On past trips, I've been on the first raft of the day and never found a brush. There were plenty of others looking for the brushes that morning, too. My sister asked and the impression she got from the CM that morning was, today is not the day for paintbrushes. I just got off the phone with my sister, who is at Disney now. She said the CM told her last night was the last day for BTMRR.

 

[walterdisney]

nevermind..

 

[Maerj]

I found the paintbrush once but I didn't know it was a game. I just thought a painter CM dropped his brush and left it there by accident. Oh well. :shrug:

 

[Brian Noble]

Sounds like a BS excuse to get people to not talk about it and forget about it in the months BTMRR will be closed.

Except that the Disneyana community is kind of like a pit bull with a piece of raw beef in its jaws. It won't let go...c.f. the AC thread.

 

[zooey]

Except that the Disneyana community is kind of like a pit bull with a piece of raw beef in its jaws. It won't let go...c.f. the AC thread.

It's not necessarily that people can't let go, it's that Disney takes things away without replacing them. Walt had an old rule, you can replace stuff, but it has to be as good or better. Period.

 

[disney fan 13]

It's not necessarily that people can't let go, it's that Disney takes things away without replacing them. Walt had an old rule, you can replace stuff, but it has to be as good or better. Period.

Zooey, I could list a lot of rides that fit the wore then before or nothing a all picture. But since I am on a smart phone and don't feel like typing all that... Just think

 

[unkadug]

Zooey, I could list a lot of rides that fit the wore then before or nothing a all picture. But since I am on a smart phone and don't feel like typing all that... Just think

And that is exactly what "declining by degrees" is all about.

 

[disney fan 13]

And that is exactly what "declining by degrees" is all about.

I could have said that too, but I wanted to be dramatic

 

[unkadug]

I could have said that too, but I wanted to be dramatic

:lol:

 

[WDW1974]

If anything is declining by degrees at Disney, it is the guests.

Why return a paintbrush, that others may play the game too, when you can keep it as a free souvenir?

I certainly wouldn't want to give guests too much props because they certainly (and often) show that many are not fit to be out in society with others.

BUT ... there is something called the 'cost of doing business' ... and that means you will have some degree of loss by people doing what you said. You might be boggled if you knew how much merchandise walks out of the Emporium on a daily basis (and I believe Disney has made this so much easier by making that whole side of Main Street into the MK's defacto WoD outpost with meaningless facades outside -- but that's another rant and I gots a plane to catch so I'll leave it there).

Point is, if every day Disney loses half its brushes to thieves (with a strange taste in what's worth owning), so be it. You buy enough to cover that and it's all part of doing business.

It's much like the soda thievary, which I see happening a whole lot more in the real world like last week at the local McD's and Pollo Tropical units where families got water cups and proudly filled them with Coke or Pepsi. Is there a loss? Yes. But they have figured that loss is tiny compared with having to serve the drinks from behind the counter and having folks do refills.

~The Amount of Data Your Cell Provider Has Should Cause You To Stick It In the Microwave!~

 

[WDW1974]

I could have said that too, but I wanted to be dramatic

Drama ... can't be no drama without a certain Spirit involved.:wave:

~Matterhorn Closed For Six Months: No Mass Suicides Among DL Visitors Reported~

 

[Brian Noble]

It's not necessarily that people can't let go,

My point wasn't that they shouldn't. My point was that "hope they forget" doesn't seem to be working elsewhere.