Best spot for Parades?

[AlohaMickey]

(is it just me or is the search not working?)

Where is the best spot in DL to watch the parade? How early should we camp out and get our spot? Is it rude to put out a blanket?? I just want my kids and nephews to get a good view of everything. Their 2-2yo's and 2-4yrs old.

We leave for Disneyland next week and I just got our 5 day passes! I've got lots of planning to do. I'm so excited!!

 

[audrabolster]

I don't really know what the best spot would be, but I have found it to be much less crowded near the entrances than near the castle. I watched it once up near the train station and thought that was a cool view!

One thing to watch for- no matter how early you get there, there will almost always be that family that comes 20 seconds before the parade starts and tries to get to the front! Almost never fails with us!!

With that said, I have seen people put down blankets, but you might get stepped on, or people might try to take any empty space in front of you!

 

[ScooterL]

My favorite spot for the first parade is along small world way, since that's the direction the parade comes from, so it gets there sooner. To avoid having the sun in your eyes I recommend sitting on the Fantasyland side of the parade route - anywhere in the area that's between the popcorn cart and the pretzel cart is good. Standing on the terraced area that's across the way from there is good if you get there too late to have a front row spot on the ground.

I've certainly seen lots of people spread out blankets to sit on - as long as you get there early enough that's no problem. I believe the "boundary" is where the surface changes from concrete to asphalt, so as long as you're right up against that no one will be able to get in front of you. Cast Members will go up and down the parade route making sure people's legs/strollers/etc. aren't crossing over into that area.

I have no idea how early you need to stake out a spot these days...I've gotten a front row spot in that area ~15 minutes before, but that wasn't on a real busy day...if it's really important to you, I'd recommend at least 30 minutes before, if not 45.

Have a great trip!

 

[bumbershoot]

We watched from a spot over around the corner from Alice, in front of the bathrooms with the white rabbit statue.

It was a last minute decision to watch the parade, and a happy coincidence that I ended up there and remembered others mentioning that spot, and it was a nice place to watch from. However, you want to be careful of the trees. I was on the wrong side of a tree, and too close to it, so quite a bit of the "advance" view was cut off for us. Not a horrible situation, since we could still see just fine once the people and floats (do they call them that at DL?) got to us, but if we wanted the far-away view, we would have been frustrated.

The other good thing about that spot is that the people are only on one side, so you aren't sharing the performers with another group of people across the lane. They are only looking your way.

 

[bumbershoot]

I thought of more.

We were there about 30 minutes before the pre-parade, but there were people in front of us. The people all around me were all incredibly tall (I'm only 5'3" so most people seem tall to me, but these men and women were all 6 feet and above, and they didn't seem to be related), and instead of ignoring me, they all were VERY kind, and let us scoot up a bit (me and my 3 year old) or they just stayed seated once the parade started, because they realized they could see over us but we wouldn't be able to see over them. They were so nice!

 

[MouseFan Down Under]

It's a tradition for me to sit in the gutter along Main Street.

I always get there about 30 minutes prior and get myself an ice-cream from Gibson Girl Ice Cream Palor.

 

[prettyprincessbelle]

In December we parked ourselves on Main Street facing the train station, right on the curb. It was a perfect view, and we waiting about 45 minutes.. But it was the last spot the parade came to.. So we waited a little longer since we were near the end.. My DBF ran to get us Cherry Coke and pretzels from the Coke Corner while I stood ground at our spot.. It was great!

 

[Eighty8Keys]

The last two times we sat on the benches that line the walkway that leads from the Hub to the Matterhorn. We usually arrive about an hour beforehand with a beverage and a cooke and just people watch until the parade beings The walkway is narrow enough that no one sits in front of us and we have a comfortable seat. If you have little ones, you could spread a blanket out in front of the bench and they could sit there while the adults sat on the bench. The parade stopped right in front of us so we were able to get some great pictures.

One of our favorite things to do while we wait is to track the amount of time it takes between whens someone drops trash on the ground and a cast member sweeps it us. Nearly every time the trash was picked up in less than a minute. Kudos to the custodial staff. They are awesome.