Tips on avoiding mobs of people around parade time (magic kingdom)

[slickpoetry]

I'm planning my first trip to wdw this fall. The guidebook I'm reading says that Main Street and Frontierland gets crazy in the afternoon because of the parade. We want to avoid being in a mob. We'll still try to watch the parade maybe one day, but the second day, forget it.


When do crowds start lining up on the parade route? How long are they there? How bad are the crowds, really? (Specifically, for the afternoon parade).

What do you do when you know you don't want to see the parade? What parts of the park do you head to?

Thanks for any insight!

 

[DizneyLizzy]

If you want to avoid parade crowds, I would plan to be in Tomorrowland/Fantasyland from about 2:30 until 3:30/4:00. This can be a pretty packed time of day, so if I were going to be there, I would want to be in Tomorrowland doing things like Carousel of Progress or the Peoplemover, or in Fantasyland riding the train, seeing Mickey's Philharmagic, or sitting in Gaston's Tavern having a snack. By 4:00 all remains of the parade will be gone and the crowds will have dissipated.

If you want to see the parade without terrible crowds, see it from Frontierland because it's always less crowded than on Main Street. If you want to see it away from a mob, get a table at Sleepy Hollow around 2:30 and get a snack. It's not a perfect view, but you can see enough of the parade since the floats are high off the ground.