Grinchmas and Macy's Parade

[Sabrina18]

Well it has almost been a week since the holiday festivities have started and we have no reports . Has anyone attended? How is it? Leaving in 9 days and interested.
Thanks

 

[Jason71]

The parade is worth seeing at least once. (Especially if you're a 30-something who grew up an hour outside NYC but whose parents never took you--not that I'm bitter.) Seemed to be the smaller, more generic balloons in the parade (ice cream cone, Macy's star), tho a lot of the huge character ballons (Garfield, Grover) are permanantly anchored around the park.

A LOT of entertainers in all sorts of costumes (the "slice of cake" girls are especially cute). They interact before the parade, too.

Not as many floats as I would have expected, at least compared to the Mardi Gras parade, and some are "recycled" like the toon trolley. But the appeal is, of course, the balloons, and they make the parade worthwhile.

Just walked thru Seuss Landing, but the decorations are impressive, very festive. With HHN, Mardi Gras, and Grinchmas, Universal really excels at the holiday events.

 

[tclowe]

Went to see the Balloon parade on Dec. 10th (Saturday). Good thing because it rained all afternoon on Dec. 11th. My family (including 2 small children) liked the Macy's balloon parade a lot. We got to the theme park around 4:00pm. Parade starts at 5:00pm. At around 4:15pm, people were parking themselves on the curbs near the entrance of the park.

The parade starts at Balloonpolis?, down the street where Shrek and Jimmy Neutron is located, around the terminator 3D, and ends near the Revenge of the Mummy, I think. We sat near the front of the Shrek 3D theatre around 4:20pm. This was the beginning of the parade so we figured that we can take in a couple of attractions before the park closed at 6:00pm.

While waiting for the parade to start, we were entertained by stilt walkers, goofy dressed ladies carrying Macy's shopping bags, clowns, and etc. They walked up and down this street talking to kids and taking pictures with the guests. A park employee in a wheelchair was going down the street asking if any of the guest wanted to be balloon handlers. Guest had to be over 18 years old. We declined.

The parade was a lot of fun. Lots of color. Some of those balloons require 14 or more people to help hold the strings. Just like flying a kite! There was one balloon that barely fit down the street. My favorite was the rainbow worm. The leader of the balloon handler had his people do the wave with the worm as they were marching down the street. There were a couple of marching bands from local schools playing. The parade lasted about 20 minutes.

Didn't see the Grinchmas performance on the small stage. There were cute decorations with Grinchmas theme, but I wasn't over. We loved buying and wearing our Red Thing 1 & Thing 2 sweatshirts for our two kids and Thing 1 & Thing 2 t-shirts for ourselves. We got many praises for the cuteness of our shirts as we strolled the Island of Adventure.

This was a great time to go to Universal. Just like San Francisco weather. A little nippy most of the time, sometimes rain, and sometimes sun. Most rides had minimal waits. Employees were friendly and not strict with the rules (oh, except Pteradon Flyers. No adults allowed unless you were smart enough to borrow a little kid).

 

[ThePhantomsGirl]

Hey...

I was in it on Sunday the 11th. I was one of the handlers for the Football balloon. I've seen it most of the other days as I work at Shrek and it goes right by there.

I enjoy it as it's the first time I'd ever seen it other than on TV of course in NYC. It does make a really fun atmosphere - everyone excited and smiling!

Smiles,
Holly

 

[sha_lyn]

was there on the 9.

Was a bit dissapointed in Grinchmas. Is the telling of the story and the decorations all there is too it?

Parade was nice.
Glad we did it once, but probably wouldn't do it again, except did like going the first week of Dec. The parks were empty until the 9. Then crowd was still managable.