Main Street Electrical Parade shipped from DL?

[sab53085]

I've always read that the MSEP was shipped back and forth from DL to WDW when that park was using it. When I took the Keys to the Kingdom Tour last year, the CM said this was false and that each park had their own identical parade. She said it would be too much work and too expensive to ship all of those floats across the country. Does anyone know the actual answer to this?

 

[Itinkso]

Disney was able to afford shipping floats from Tokyo for Festival of Fantasy. I would guess the CM is incorrect.

 

[DebbieB]

I saw it at DCA around 2008. I'm sure they can be unassembled and trucked across country.

 

[PiratesMansion]

Both you and the CM are somewhat correct. Originally both DL and WDW had their own MSEP (as did Tokyo) running at the same time; WDW's got shipped to Paris after 1991 where it ran another 10 years or so before it was allegedly shipped to Hong Kong, where the floats are presumably rotting away. I know one of Tokyo's floats was re-used for Fantillusion but it seems like no one knows what happened to their parade, probably also destroyed.

So anyway, WDW's original MSEP hasn't seen US Soil in more than 20 years. The parade that went through Times Square then to WDW near the turn of the Millenium then to DCA and is now running at WDW again is DL's MSEP.

 

[POOHsie]

There used to be a YouTube video of a Disney Manager at WDW narrating the story of the Disneyland MSEP getting transported to WDW and being re-assembled. However, I couldn't find it today. I did find an article from **************.net telling the story of the move, complete with a short video of packing up the parade pieces for transport. One float is seen being put on a semi trailer. The KTTK CM who said this story couldn't be true hadn't investigated the facts.
http://www.**************.net/2010/...treet-electrical-parade-at-walt-disney-world/

 

[sab53085]

Thank you everyone!