The Great Rubber Ducky Race

It's the little things that make a Disney experience "Disney" for me. And we happened to stumble upon a great one today.

At 18 months old, Chelsea isn't content to sit in a stroller all day and ride around when we visit the Disneyland Resort anymore. She wants to get out and participate in what the theme parks have to offer rather than just be a casual observer with an knee-high view of the world. So we set her free to roam about the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail today.

On one of the paths under the shadow of Big Sir, we saw a Ranger handing rubber duckies to children and heard a lot of quacking. Chelsea's an expert quacker so we needed to see what was transpiring down there. We found that it was a rubber ducky race and that the kids were "quacking" their individually colored ducks to victory alongside a meandering creek.



This looked like too much fun to pass up so we asked if Chelsea could participate, hoping that she wouldn't be too young. She chose a duck from the remaining ones available and we made our way to the starting point. I wasn't sure that Chelsea would necessarily get the idea that she'd have to throw her ducky into the creek but instead of holding onto hers too long, she actually jumped the gun and threw it into the water in between the Ranger's "Ready" and "Set," well before the "Go."



So our little "cheater" had a couple seconds head start. She did her best to say, "Quack! Quack! Quack!" to cheer her ducky to victory. The yellow duck, which we had seen win the previous two matches, was neck and neck with Chelsea's blue ducky but it hit an embankment and Chelsea's duck surged past. Though her ducky stayed in the lead for the remainder of the race, it was seriously challenged by a purple duck and later the yellow duck once again.



We were a bit embarrassed that Chelsea's ducky won since it had a bit of a head start but Chelsea was awarded the victory anyway. She got a cool sticker saying she was a Redwood Creek Challenge Trail Rubber Ducky Race Champion. All the other kids also got stickers saying that they were participants.

The stickers were simple mailing labels printed off a computer - nothing fancy. But they were a cool recognition of a fun little activity that can't be found in the day's event schedule. Truly a nice sprinkling of pixie dust by the cast members of the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail. Thanks for making our day!