Chapter 26
What Time is the 3 O’clock Parade?

(Originally posted August 5, 2012)

I’m really bad at Buzz Lightyear but really good at Toy Story Mania. I just have no concept of which little laser light belongs to me when I’m on Buzz, so I usually do terribly!

The line was pretty short at this time, so before long we got into our vehicle.

Once again, I did pretty terribly for 90% of the ride and Tracy was kicking my butt. Then in the last room, I apparently hit a big target and skyrocketed into the lead! She was mad… I always look the most ridiculous in the ride photo at least.

Our next goal was two-fold: we wanted to return to Main Street to get a good look around now that the crowds there had thinned out, and we wanted to ride a Main Street Vehicle, preferable the horse-drawn carriage. We made our way back toward the hub.

We stopped for some Photopass pictures.

The omnibus was going around the hub as we walked through.

We asked the driver where we had to go to catch a ride on it. She said they were just getting ready to start a performance of The Trolley Show, and then if we wanted to ride, we could catch the vehicles on Main Street about a half-hour later. We decided to wait around to watch the show, since we had never seen it before. More Photopass while we were waiting.

The Trolley Show is fun in principle, but a little ridiculous in execution. Since you’re only about three feet from the performers, it’s just so obvious that they are lip synching to a pre-recorded track. I think it would be great if they had some of their singing performers do the show, and if not, just have the dancers dance to the music in the background. As it is, it’s just a little awkward. I love the music for the show though.

After the show, we were walking down Main Street toward the front of the park taking pictures of random things and looking at the names on the windows. We tried to remember which cast members they were all in honor of.

Then we saw this nice Duffy display in one of the store windows.

Right as I was taking that last picture, a cast member came up behind us and engaged us in a little conversation. He had seen our anniversary pins and said “happy anniversary,” like so many of the other cast members had been doing all week. We thanked him, and he asked us how many years we were celebrating and where we were from. After a couple seconds, he asked if we were going to be staying in the park all day, to which we said that yes we were.

“That’s great,” he replied, “Are you going to watch our parade this afternoon?”

“Of course,” we said. Though we aren’t usually the type to line up for parades, we usually try to watch for them to go by and enjoy them from afar.

“What time is the three o’clock parade?” Tracy joked, knowing the cast members hear that question all the time.

“2:45 actually” he replied. We laughed to ourselves, thinking he was making a joke we didn’t quite understand. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something. At the start of the parade, we always find a family or two to ride in a car at the front and be our honorary Grand Marshals. Today, I knew I wanted to find a nice anniversary couple for that job. Would you be interested?”

Tracy and I exchanged bewildered glances, and then both said, “Yes, of course!! That would be awesome.”

“Great,” he replied. “Well why don’t we step inside and I’ll get some information from you.”

We walked into The Emporium with him, and he took down our names, phone number, where we were from, and gave us our instructions. We were to meet him in front of the Firehouse on Main Street at 2:45 to get all set up in the car we would be riding in at the front of the parade. Then after we got to the end of the route, there would be a special reserved section for us to watch the parade go by. If we had any questions, he said, just ask for him—his name was Brick.

We thanked Brick and went back out onto Main Street. We truly couldn’t believe our luck. This free trip was just getting better and better.

Continued in Next Post