Magical Memories in the making !
Written: Dec 20 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Lots of Lights, Almost all of your Disney Characters, Music,
Cons: Crowds, Didn't want it to end, hard to take pictures
The Bottom Line: Lights, Music, ACTION. A parade of this caliber shouldn't be missed. Share a memory with the ones you love.
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| sskoshi's Full Review: SpectroMagic Parade - Walt DIsney World |
My husband and I went to Walt Disney World this past July 2003. My husband had never been to a Disney park and it had been at least 15 years since I had been. One thing I remembered from when I was a little girl was the Main Street Electrical Parade from the Disney Land park in California. I loved watching all the floats go by and the music and oh how I loved all those dazzling lights. My mother had even bought me a Record (Yes, an actual big, round, black record that plays music) that had all of the Electrical Parade music on it. I used to just sit and listen to that record with my eyes closed and I could almost see all the floats. I was in love with it.
I told my husband this was one thing we would HAVE to see.
Details
The Main Street Electrical Parade is a parade in Disney Land. The Walt Disney World version of this parade is the SpectroMagic Light Parade. It is essentially the same thing. It is a lighted parade that winds its way down Main Street in the Disney Park. And, if you don't know already, Main street is just what it sounds like it is, Its the Main street in the Disney Park.
The parade takes place at night with all the street and building lights turned off, and the parade floats are all lit up with colorfull lights. Its never really dark because of all the bright lights on the floats. There are a lot of different floats each one usually having it own theme or characters on it. The whole parade is done to music.
Dissapointment
As we arrive at the Walt Disney World park and get our schedule of shows and parades, I noticed that there is NO mention of the Main Street Electrical Parade. I became dissapointed and thought well why would they cancel such a popular parade. But, then I noticed they had a nightime parade that I thought suspiciously could be my Electrical Parade. I asked, and sure enough it is. Except, Since they are 2 seperate parks (Walt Disney World and DisneyLand) they each have their own parade. The Electrical Light Parade is the DisneyLand parade and the SpectroMagic Light Parade is the Walt Disney World parade.
The wait
So, it was our last night in Disney and we hadn't seen the parade yet. They do 2 shows a night on some days and 1 show on the other days. We were there during there 2 day showing. We had just gotten out of some building doing something (I don't remember what), stepped on to Main Street, and noticed there was a huge crowd starting to build.
I looked at the clock and said, "Oh the parade is gonna start in a about an hour and a half. Should we claim a seat now?" So, yes, we sat our butts down on the sidewalk and were lucky enough to get a good seat, right outside the candy shoppe. We did the best with our time and made conversation with the people sitting next to us. My husband made a trip to the candy shoppe and bought some caramel and chocolate covered apples. We sat on the curb and watched people walking by, the sun go down, the street get darker, and Cinderella's Castle start to glow, all the while eating our apples. That was a beautiful sight. The castle changed colors every 10 minutes or so. It was kind of special, magical, and romantic for just the two of us.
At about 15 minutes till parade time we hear a voice, oddly familiar, over the speakers stating that the parade was going to start soon. That voice was none other than Jimminy Cricket. They started to rope off the street and start doing crowd control down the center. We started getting really excited.
The SpectroMagic Light Parade
Finally it begins. We were sitting in front of a family with children, so my husband offered to let the children squeeze up front with us and watch the parade. He said it was because he felt like the parade was more for the kids anyways.
We see the lights of a moving parade peek from around the corner. "Ooo, Its coming." " Look, there it is." People started oohing and ahhing all around. This unfriendly, tired, and impatient crowd became a friendly, childlike, and innocent crowd. You could feel the magic in the air. Everyone who was frowning before was smiling now.
The parade reaches us. It is so special and magical. There are floats with the cast of "The Little Mermaid", "Alice in Wonderland," "Cinderella," "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," with the Dwarves walking around shaking hands with the children. And of course you couldn't have a Disney parade without Mickey and Minnie, Goofy and Pluto, Donald and Daisy. There are a lot more floats than that, I just don't want to spoil ALL the fun for you all.
My husband, who had previously stated that this parade is for the kids, was jumping up out of his seat and shouting ,"Ohh loook its Mickey. Can you get a picture of that. Oh Wow look at {so and so}."
The parade lasted about 30 to 45 minutes.
Final Note
This is one thing you just can't miss out on if going to the Walt Disney World Park. It created Magical Memories for me as a child and for my huband as an adult. When we decide to have children, I can't wait to take them to create their own magical memories.
Just remember to line up early to get a good seat. We started sitting about an hour and a half before the parade started. We got a seat right at the front of the parade route, from where we were sitting it looked like the best seats to see the parade were up on the Train Station platform at the park entrance. From up there, it looked like they got views of the whole floats at one time, instead of bits and pieces of it at a time. I preferred to watch it a little bit at a time though, made it last a little longer.
The parade started at 9pm and another parade was going to start at 11pm, I think those were the parade times. We watched the early show and after it was over a Lot of people started to leave the park. So, maybe the later parade wasn't as crowded.
You can try to take pictures, but unless you have a 35mm manual camera (the old ones that you have to Manually load and select your shutter speed), the pictures may not come out. I tried taking pictures using a 35mm Advantix camera and out of the 1 1/2 rolls I took, I got 5 pictures of the parade back. And the quality on those weren't that great, you couldn't tell it was a lighted parade. It could have been because my camera was low on battery, that would explain why some pictures came out and some didn't. I really feel like if I had a camera that I could control the shutter speed on though, the pictures would have come out better.
This parade is really great for anyone. the little children we were sitting next to were enjoying it just as much as my husband (27 years old). We even saw older couples enjoying the parade just as much as we were.
Despite the different names of the two parades and a few other changes (the music selections, the characters), it was still just as wonderful as I had remembered it as a child, and now I have new memories to enojoy. If I could only find that record album I used to have (and my mother still has) as a kid on CD, I would be a truly happy person.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
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Epinions.com ID:
sskoshi
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Member: Tracy
Location: Florida Panhandle
Reviews written: 48
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
Busy, Busy, Busy - Does life ever slow down?
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