If you haven’t experienced it already, Mickey’s Soundsational Parade is Disneyland’s newest parade and in my opinion, the best parade since the Lion King Parade back in the 1990s.  (And that’s saying a lot given the fact that I LOVED that parade and saw it hundreds of times.)

Mickey’s Soundsational Parade brings together three things Disney is known for: great live (and recorded) music, beloved characters, and beautiful floats.  I was luck enough to sit down with two of the parade’s creators, John Addis and Steve Davison, and learn about the creation of Soundsational.  I swear I could have interviewed them for hours.  Check out what they had to say about what went into creating the parade–you won’t be disappointed!

And boy, they weren’t kidding about the interactive nature of this parade.  I brought my three-year-old to see the parade last Tuesday and he had a truly magical moment with the Peter Pan unit of the parade.  Brandon had on his Peter Pan hat, Captain Hook shirt, and his long pirate sword.  He was at the ready to see his favorite guys.  As they came up the parade route, a pirate spotted Brandon and had a sword fight with him.  As the sword fight finished up, Mr. Smee spotted Brandon and came up to him to acknowledge him and then ran and got Peter Pan to see him.  Peter Pan got down with Brandon and gave him a touch on the nose, straightened his hat, and told him that he should use his sword to fight off Captain Hook.  Brandon couldn’t even speak…although he’s been talking about it every since.

Here’s a few pics of his experience.

I have seen the parade twice and I LOVE the music, the costumes, and the floats.  The floats were designed to look like the pages of children’s pop-up books with layers of color and lots of dimension.  I am also a huge fan of traditional parades, like this one, that feature a lot of classic characters.  For me, and many others, Disneyland is all about that Disney-real-life experience of seeing the characters.  In this parade, the character have jumped right out of their pop-up book stories–especially in the Mary Poppins and Peter Pan units.

Here are some Soundsational tips for the parade:

• As with all Disneyland parades, the first parade of the day steps off from “it’s a small world” and progresses through the park, down Main Street, around Town Square, and ends at the gate next to the Mad Hatter in Town Square.
• There really isn’t any one location where you should sit, as the parade moves continuously.  It is not a “show parade” that stops and performs a show.  
• The goal is to sit as close to the edge of the parade route as possible.  We watched the parade up by “it’s a small world” and opted to brave the sunny side of the route so that we didn’t have to line up an hour ahead of time.  We ended up finding a shadow to sit under and managed to not get to hot or sunburned.  A Cast Member was happy to show us exactly where and how close to the parade route we could sit and her recommendations were perfect.  It was amazing!  When in doubt ask a Cast Member for help.
• If your child really wants to see/interact with a particular character, try to encourage him or her to wear a t-shirt with the character on it or even a costume.  It works like a charm!
• The entire parade lasts about 15 minutes.
• The drums at the very beginning may be too much for children who are hyper sensitive to noise.

Congrats to John, Steve, and everyone who worked hard to bring this parade to life.  Thank you for the magic moments!  I am sure we’ll have many more during Soundsational’s run.