Our Tom Sawyer's Island Paint Brush Adventure - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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There is a fun, little known game that occurs every day on Tom Sawyer's Island in Walt Disney World. Cast members hide Tom's paint brush somewhere on the island. If a guest finds it and returns it to a cast member, the guest is often rewarded with some sort of prize. Our family had heard of this game and often looked for the paint brush on the island... but to no avail. We didn't really know what we were looking for.
Well, the mystery is solved! Just last week we visited Tom Sawyer's Island fairly early in the day and happened upon a paint brush!
WOW! We finally found it!
Our first paint brush ever found! It was found essentially right behind us in the picture, near the stairs.
The paint brush had a little note written on the side.
Turn it in for a reward!
Excited that we had finally found the fabled paint brush, we continued to explore the island. Shortly thereafter, we stumbled upon a second paint brush! Holy moly!
Paint brush number 2
We had no idea that there were multiple paint brushes on the island! Despite the picture above, this brush was found hidden deep within a cave on the island.
Here is the detail of the note...
Subtle explanation of the game
I have to admit that at this point I was tempted to stick a brush in my backpack and take it home as a unique Disney World souvenier, but that just didn't feel like a nice thing to do. We also decided to re-hide this brush for someone else to find, as it clearly says "one brush per family" on the little note.
Continuing to explore the island, guess what we came across...
The Yellow paint brush
Which was hidden exactly here... [spoiler]
Do you know where this is on the island?
Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. We've found 3 paint brushes so far after years of not finding any. The whole family was excited by our Tom Sawyer's Island adventure and we wanted to find out what our reward might be. We put the other brushes back in their hiding places and went back to the Raft loading areas.
I decided to get a drink of water when I spotted something...
A second blue paint brush!
This was right in the loading area with a lot of people milling about, so I didn't even touch it.
I thought about alerting another family... but figured that I would just get a lot of blank looks. I pictured myself trying to explain the game to these families and having a tough time of it, so I abandoned that idea. Nobody else took any notice of the paint brush. Too bad for them.
Back onboard the Raft I had my daughter present our paint brush to the cast member. She took it and immediately gave us 4 Fast Passes to Splash Mountain and 4 Fast Passes to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad! Woohoo! It was a busy day at the park so that was very much appreciated.
So there's the mystery of the Tom Sawyer's Island paint brushes... solved. I hope I didn't give away too much. Have fun hunting!
p.s. Sorry if the pics are too big.
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WDW Nov 2008
WDW 10/2010
Heading back: 04/2013
Last edited by home4us123; 10-25-2010 at 08:23 AM..
Reason: fp212
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That is AWESOME!! Tonight we were playing Maagic Kingdom and out of teh blue my son started talking about these brushes. I must have mentioned it in passing. Anyways. they have no clue we are going, so I said hmmmm. Maybe one day if we ever go back we can look for one. They LOVED that idea!
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I love this picture because my daughter's facial expression matches the Queen of Hearts exactly, and it was completely unintended!
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VERY cool! My kids LOVE TSI, so we'll be sure to look next time. I am sure it helps to head over there early.
Congrats to you on your success after so long!
ohh the pictures are not too big at all!!!! how awesome that you were ablt to lacte soo many!! wow i hope to keep a look out next time i am there! you hear so much about this little "secret game" and if they are still doing it and now we know!!! Thanks!!!!!
That was funny that you found so many. Our our visit to the Island a few years ago we searched for a brush but couldn't find one. Then a couple of older kids pointed out a hiding place to my daughter (they already had their brush). Our prize was a FP to either Splash Mtn or Big Thunder Mtn (our choice)
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That was the first time we'd been on the island in YEARS. 
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