Does anyone else find it really hard to see the parades from a seated position in the front row? Half the time you're staring at the wheels of the floats or up the performer's noses!
Yep, that's my issue as well. The last time I got to the parade route early enough to get a decent spot was a few years ago. It was SpectroMagic. My dd, 17, and I got to FrontierLand about an hour prior to the start. We got to talking with a CM who was starting to put out the roping and stancions for the parade. She told us to stand in a particular spot....right where she was going to put the corner of the roping at...to allow for an exit way, to our immediate left. So, that's where we stood...for the next 45 mins. Well....others started arriving..one family put down 3 blankets to our right. Then, they left two strollers on two of the blankets and left a few people there to 'save' the spots..this was about 40 or so mins prior to the start.
Then, about 10 or 15 mins before the parade was to arrive, a family, with a sleeping child in a large stroller, came up behind us. They pushed that stroller right up against me...good thing I was standing and not sitting. So....the woman, with the actual stroller (she was with a group of about 5), starting making less than subtle comments that she couldn't see over my dd and I (dd was about 5'8'' then, my height as well). She got louder and louder...I just ignored her. She finally grabbed a passing CM and asked if she (the CM) could make it so that she and her child (still sleeping mind you) could actually see the parade. The CM asked if my dd and I could possibly sit down!! Ah, at this point, we had about 2 square feet for both of us. My old knees and hips make it hard for me to sit in that curbside position...keeping my legs out of the street!!! I told the CM that we had been specifically told to stand there, by another CM!!! She again asked if we could sit so others behind us could see. So we sat rather than cause a ruckus. Well...what did that woman do then??? She started pushing the stroller right against my back....saying to her group that her 'baby' couldn't see anything since we were still in the sight line!!! I finally turned around and told her...'I'm sorry you weren't here early enough to get this spot...but I was, and now I'm cramped and in pain. If you don't stop banging me with that stroller, I'm calling a CM to come over and deal with it!!!' She just made a face and was quiet...for a bit.
Or the time a CM put us in a specific spot in DHS...again at a corner since my dh is very tall and the CM felt that dh made a good corner point!!! So, there we stood, for about an hour. Then, about 10 mins before the parade was there, a woman and her child (about 10 or so) tried to squirm in front of us. We told her that we were there first.....she said, with highly accented English, that her child needed to be able to see the parade, so we needed to move for her!!! Ah no...that is not happening. I became planted in my spot. The CM came over to her and told her that she had to move since she was in a non-viewing space!!!
Or the mother that arrived at the Christmas parade during
MVMCP about 5 mins prior to the start!!!! She had a child of about 5 or so, in a stroller and was complaining that there was no way her child would be able to see since the crowd was about 6 people deep at this point. We were in the huge area just outside the Hall of Presidents, across from LTT. A family made room for the stroller but there was no room for the mom.....she could see the stroller,and her child, at all times. But she made life miserable for all of us around her....constantly complaining that people should have moved to let her go with the stroller!!!
I could go on and on....and this is why I seldom go to any parades anymore.