Bonus - That time we were in a parade!!
I feel like this needs sharing! So I'm going to share it!!
After lunch, we did a couple more rides and then it was getting close to the time we needed to meet Tim. EEEEK!!! We went to the restroom to spruce ourselves up a bit before stardom really hit us, and then went to stand by the big blue bear to wait for Tim.
After a while, another family joined us, and then another young couple like us. There was no eye contact made haha, I think we were all wondering if we were in the right place! After a few minutes, Tim rocked up and we were all relieved. Yay! We hung around chatting for a bit and me and Ben had a chance to apologise PROFUSELY to Tim, who looked slightly peeved at the memory and gave us a ‘no problem’ which I personally felt was more like a ‘you’re lucky I didn’t change my mind’ hahah! It was all good though and he thawed out after a bit, we apologised sooooo many times! Once everyone had arrived, there was me and Benj, a young couple on their honeymoon (we LOVED them! ) a big American family (big as in amount of family members…not weight…) a small English family, and two CM’s who replaced two no-shows at the last minute. Why would you be a no-show!? Jeez, that’s almost as bad as being really reluctant to be in the parade! …….*tumbleweed*………..
Tim then led us all to a room in Pizzafari. There was a bunch of tables and chairs so we all sart down. We sat down on the same table as our new BFF’s, the honeymoon couple. Obviously we were great friedns as I can’t even remember their names hah! We were SO EXCITED at this point, and BFF’s were too
We were all chattering excitedly about what was going to happen. I was pretty much losing it. On each table, there was a photopass document with each couple/groups name on, YAY! Free photos! We already had Photopass, but YAY! There was also earplugs, as apparently the music was gonna get louudddd on the parade!
Tim gave us a speech about what we were going to be doing which was exciting
He then invited us all to queue up to get our COSTUMES! It was a hat and jacket, and we were allowed to choose which colour hat we wanted
Me and Benj got matching, cause we’re cool like that.
Then, we had our photos taken!
Look at the pure joy on my face
Our honeymoon mates asked us to take a photo of them, so naturally we asked them to return the favour
And then we took 1 more picture of us both, well, just because.
I thoroughly enjoy Ben’s face in this:
I’m really really not a hat person so was slightly freaking out about having to wear one, but Ben said I looked cute
so it was all okay.
Once everyone had their costumes on and had their photos taken, Tim gave a short speech about safety etc and what not to do (take photos backstage, obviously! ). According to my notes, he finished his speech with ‘Turn Up, Be Safe, and Have Fun.’ which I think is a motto we can all apply to infinite areas of our lives. What a wise man!
AND THEN, ladies and gentleman, it was time to go backstage.
Now obviously, we’d already been backstage a couple days before on our KTTK tour *flicks hair smugly* so it was no biggie.
I’M KIDDING! It was incredible and we were like the cats that got the cream. We were all lead out in single-ish file though a door and backstage. We paused by some lockers and were asked to put all unnecessary items in them. I of course kept back my lipbalm, and a pair of sunglasses, and put my bag into the locker. Ben didn’t have anything, as he is a man.
Most of the group was then held back, and one family at a time were led out of sight and we presumed, towards the actual backstage area. EEP! While we waited, we chatted with our honeymoon mates.
And then it was our turn! We had SUCH A BANGIN’ FLOAT! We were led to a rikshaw being led by a hippo! Only in Disney, eh! The guy driving the hippo was dressed as a bird too! Love itttt. He was already sat atop his hippo when we rocked up, so we waved at him and he waved back
Even more excitedly, guess who was behind us? Only MINNIE HERSELF! Oof it was all too much. We hopped atop our rikshaw and got comfy, then we were pretty much left to soak up the atmosphere! There were seatbelts on the float so we got strapped in, then sat back and just took it all in.
Honestly, this bit before the parade was even more fun than the actual parade. Seriously! I am fascinated by all things backstage. This was like a limited time backstage experience, for FREE! I’m going to try and extract every single memory from my head and write it down, partly to try to give you guys a glimpse into our experience, and partly because I want to remember it myself!
The floats were all lined up in the order we’d be going out. We were nearly in the middle, towards the front. We had a great view of everything going on around us as we were quite high up on our float
It was amazing!
To the right of us was the place where all the fur characters were hangin’ out. There was a giant fan and they all just kept standing there bless em, must have been sooooo hot! After a few minutes, a few of the characters noticed us, and that’s when the fun really started
First of all, we had Timon. Now, I don’t mean to be big headed or anything, but he took a bit of a shine to me and it was honestly one of the funniest 15 minutes of my life. First of all, he looked over at us and we waved, and he waved back. Then he did like a double take, and stroked the place his hair would be if he had long hair like mine, then pointed at me and nodded. Lol! I thumbsed up
Then he went all like coy and stuff (what an amazing CM to be able to act all this out wearing that costume? So impressive!) and shuffled over to Baloo (love the random mix of characters all hanging out together!) He tapped him on the shoulder, Baloo turned around, and Timon pointed at me and fanned himself! Lol! Then Timon kept looking over at me, checking his pulse (LOL) walking over to the giant fan and peeking behind his shoulder at me! He then walked away but was still looking at me and kept bumping into other characters! Our driver turned around and said “Are you doing that to him!?” hahaha we were absolutely cracking up, it was so funny! I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt! Massive props to whoever was Timon as they honestly made our day
Another CM then walked past, saw Timon, looked at me, and said “Stop being a troublemaker Timon!” hahah ohhhhhh. We were also big time loving Baloo, who was just walking around the fan area, twiddling his thumbs!
If we peeked behind us, we could see Minnie getting her costume checked for the final time
I just loved how in character they all were. I mean I know they have to be, because there were civillians there (guests
) but we still just found it incredible! Minnie was dancing around her float once her costume was all ready, so cute!
After about 20 minutes, the music started. It was go time! We had absolutely no idea what we were going to do haha, we were just going to go with the flow! As the characters left the fan area and went over to their floats, we got a big wave from Timon, and then Chip and Dale waved to us! HIGHLIGHT.
Thennn, we were off! The music was super loud but bearable, and we got used to it pretty quickly. We didn’t wear our earplugs. The float moved a lot slower than we thought it would, but before we knew it we were onstage! Ironically, we’d never watched Mickey’s Jammin Jungle Parade but I could already tell from the bangin’ tune that we were going to love it! It has such a catchy song!
Honestly, it was such a surreal experience to be on a float, in a parade, with thousands of people staring at us. I actually could not believe it was happening to us. It was initially really crazy and a bit scary, and we didn’t know what to do! However, we just started dancing and jiggling like crazy people, and after a few minutes I was KNACKERED and drenched in sweat and thinking ‘OMmmggggg this is going to be loooooong! ’
I knew it was really important to smile the whole time, and look like we were having an awesome time. Which we were! I had a whole new respect for parade CM’s – if we were knackered sitting down, imagine doing it walking/jogging along, and dancing, and smiling, and singing!? And imagine doing that in a costume! ? Exhausted.com!
We were able to have brief conversations as we went along when there was a break in crowds, and I remember us both wondering what the other guests were thinking as they saw us!? Were they like ‘Ooh, who are these guys? ’ or was it more ‘Ummmm what are these guests doing in the parade!?’ haha! I quickly learned it was more rewarding to direct my attention to children/younger guests, as they weren’t fussed either way who we were and were just chuffed when we waved to them! Hehe
I did enjoy interacting with adults though and we got loads of cheers and woops which was nice
Possibly they were also thinking “why hasn’t Ariel got her tail on” hahha but we’ll never know! I loooved it when adults waved to us, felt like a right celeb
We improvised some dance routines during the route which I think is fairly impressive given the circumstances; in particular there was a bit during the music where it went ‘BOOM, BOOM BOOM BOOM’ and we worked out a little move around that bit which involved some foot jiggling and air punching. If only we had a video!
By about halfway through the parade route, we were both sweaty messes, but having a ball! There were lots of CM positioned along the route who gave us mad support, which was nice
They made us feel like we were doing a good job! I was SO HOT and sweaty by this point.
Towards the end of the parade, there was a couple of photopass guys positioned right next to the parade route and he took a load of photos of us, which I will share here for your viewing pleasure!
(think this one is half way through that special move I mentioned
)
Amazing, right!? So glad we have these!
Eventually, we spotted our honeymoon mates bouncing up and down and waving to us on the right hand side of the parade route, and then our float stopped and we hopped off
DONE!
Tim was there and he said well done
We stood with our chums and whooped and cheered everyone else on as the other floats bought up the rear. Chip had been walking behind us and he came up and hugged us as he walked by
And then who should come over to us but Timon himself! He walked over clutching his heart hahaha, and then Benj showed Timon his ‘Just Engaged’ badge and pointed to it! Lol! Timon took a step back, shook his head and shook Ben’s hand! He then kissed my hand and waved goodbye as he walked backstage. Awwwww. So sweet.
Once the other familiies had hopped off their parades and we were all stood together, we waited for the whole parade to go backstage and then were led back to the lockers. We got our stuff out and then went to the Pizzafari room again where there was cold water, YES! I downed mine in like 2 seconds. We then gave our costumes back
said goodbye to our honeymoon mates, hugged Tim and thanked him profusely, and then we were back out into the park! It all happened so fast, it was like it had never happened!
What an incredible experience!! Okay, back to the food!!!