One of my all time favorite parades is the Main Street Electrical Parade. Nostalgia is probably the main reason why I enjoy the parade so much. I remember watching it as a child when we had visited Disneyland, listening to the music and watching the parade coming down Main Street.
When I was in college I did a language internship in Belgium and the family that I was living with took me to Disneyland Paris (Euro Disney at the time). We had a great spot on Main Street to watch the parade going down the street. It brought back fond memories from when I was a child seeing it at Disneyland. It was a perfect way to end the day.
We started to go to Walt Disney World they no longer had the Main Street Electrical Parade, but replaced it with SpectroMagic parade. It is a very nice parade and I enjoyed it but the clowns do scare me a little. The only problem is that it is no Main Street Electrical Parade. Now normally they still had the parade at Disney California Adventure, but when we had gone to DCA it was not being done. In fact our last trip in April I was really excited to see it, but later found out that it was being moved to Walt Disney World for the Summer Nightastic.
Well with that announcement and a strong desire to see Star Wars Weekend (yes I am a big Star Wars Fan, but that was discussed in a previous blog) I was convinced to book a small trip to WDW. We had decided that Rachel and Becca would go to Flower and Garden (always a great time to visit), and Josh and I would go in June to Star Wars Weekend & to see Summer Nightastic.
Now Josh is not a big fan of the firework show so we were able to watch parts of it from our balcony as we had stayed at the Bay Lake Tower. It was nice to watch and was very neat. However, that was not why we came. We did have to line up pretty early to get a good spot for the parade and it was hard for Josh, but we did have the popcorn, games, and small toy they sold right before the parade but we made it to the start.
When they turn down the lights and the music started everyone started to clap to the beat of the synthesized Baroque Hoedown. You could feel the energy of the people gathered there to watch it. Josh was mesmerized by the experience of the parade, the music, the lights, the characters, and the floats. It was everything I remembered and more as they had added some additional floats and changed the music a bit.
Now I am not one that gets to attached to an attraction or a show at the Disney Parks. I feel that if they need to change it, go and do it because for the most part they make it better. However, with the Main Street Electrical Parade I wished that it were still there and not the SpectroMagic Parade. For now I was glad that they brought it back for the summer and it allowed me share a bit of my childhood with my son.
Ray
