A spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electro-syntho-magnetic sounds

Okay all you "stalkers" out there (aka Amy and Aubry :-D), here's my new blog...

On Sunday afternoon, John and I headed over to the Disneyland Resort hoping it wouldn't be too crowded - and we lucked out! It was busy, but nothing unbearable. We wanted to see at least one of the advertised "Summer Nightastic" shows and decided that it would be the Electrical Parade in California Adventure because I really wanted to see it - after seeing the farewell parade 13 years ago!

We got our seats near Paradise Pier at the beginning of the route around 7:45. We sat down with our dessert - I had a chocolate covered banana (those are SOO good!) and John had a Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich - and waited for the parade to start. It's a good thing we had our iPhones to keep us entertained! I can't remember what we used to do before portable electronics?!?! (Oh, and I apologize ahead of time for the quality of the photos - they were taken with my iPhone)

A view of Paradise Pier as the sun sets

It finally got dark and the parade began with a snythetic voice over the speakers, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Disney proudly presents our spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electro-syntho-magnetic sounds. Disney's Electrical Parade." I know you can just hear it in your head now...well, at least the version that says "Main Street Electrical Parade."

For the most part, the parade is pretty much the same as the old one, though the lights look more like Christmas lights instead of the larger bulbs they used to have. I read that they're now LED lights and everything is battery operated.

The beginning of the parade is also different, with Tinkerbell and her fairy friends leading instead of the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio. I understand Tinkerbell, but I just don't get the whole "fairy" fascination. I guess they're trying to create a similar following as the Disney Princesses. I guess I'm just a Classic Disney person - stick to what has worked!

After the new Tinkerbell float is the Casey, Jr. Train, engineered by Goofy.
The "title" float in the parade - It switches between "Disnye's Electrical Parade" and "Brought to you by Sylvania" or something to that effect. Gotta love sponsorships!

The next part of the parade is probably my favorite. I love the snails, turtles, bumble bees, etc. that spin around in circles throughout the Alice in Wonderland Unit. I had fun getting these shots of them spinning...

Alice and the Cheshire Cat (he goes dark except for his smile)

Ahhh...another Disney classic and perhaps the most "classic" fairytale of them all - Cinderella. What girl doesn't dream of being Cinderella - a rags to riches story? If you think about it, this is original princess who didn't start out as a princess, but became one, giving hope to millions of girls that they, too, could someday become royalty. Belle and Mulan followed many years later, but she was the original.

And what fairy tale is complete without Prince Charming?

Peter Pan, Hook and Smee follow behind Cinderella in a 2-boat unit. Sorry, no pictures of Smee.

Dopey leads another of my favorites - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs! I think Dopey was posing for this photo!

One of the first floats that come to mind when thinking of the Electrical Parade - Pete's Dragon. Elliott actually goes completely "invisible" when the audience yells a few words (can't remember what they are right now) at Pete's command.

The finale of the parade - same as it was back in 1996, pays tribute to America with the longest float in the parade.

And that's it! The fun started when we tried to get out of the park. We decided that it would be easier to follow the parade instead of going around by Roaring Rapids and Soaring over California. I don't think that's the case...right when you get to Sunshine Plaza at the end of the route, they start funneling everyone who is following the parade around the outside edge and it totally bottlenecks! I think it took us like 15 minutes to get out of the park! But, we made it just in time to enjoy the fireworks from the plaza area between the parks and we didn't have to wait in a huge line to get into Disneyland!

John and I try to go to Disneyland at least once a month, and we always have a good time, but for some reason, this time seemed to be one of the better ones - maybe due to the viewing of the parade that brought back memories from before high school (don't I sound so old!) of watching the farewell season of "Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade."