Over the weekend we visited the Magic Kingdom as a family. After riding Splash Mountain, Callum and I were walking toward Liberty Square when we noticed that the Main Street Electrical Parade was about to start. Apparently, this particular parade is going to be closing at Disney World on October 9th of this year, with the various floats and costumes being moved to Anaheim so that they can feature the parade at Disneyland, which is where the parade originally took place. Since it’s about to become a part of history here in Orlando, I figured we may as well watch it one last time.

Considering we decided to watch the parade right before it started, we managed to find a really good spot. There are walkways across Main Street that are blocked off during the parade. The Disney cast members don’t let you hang around behind the rope on these walkways – you can’t block the path, as it is used throughout the parade to allow people to cross. But Callum and I found a spot outside of Splash Mountain in front of some garbage cans, still behind the white line but right up close to the roped off area. So basically we were front row. However, as we were a little further back from the street than normal, I managed to get some decent photographs of the various Electrical Parade floats – my camera (in this case, my iPhone) was able to take in a bit more of the floats than you normally would be able to if you were up close to the parade.

These phone-taken pictures aren’t professional by any means, but I was glad to be able to take a few photos while I was still able to do so, before the parade leaves Disney World and makes its way over to Disneyland.

Tinker Bell’s balloon

Alice on the mushroom

The caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland on his mushroom

Captain Hook’s pirate ship

Pinocchio

Pete’s Dragon

The America float, the final float in the parade

This evening we checked out the Star Wars Launch Bay at Disney World’s Hollywood Studios. We got pictures taken with Kilo Ren and Chewbacca, and checked out the various models of ships and equipment from the various Star Wars movies that they had on display. I didn’t go to the movie beforehand – Yvonne mentioned it’s just a bunch of clips from the Star Wars movies.

Some people feel that the Launch Bay isn’t as impressive as it could be – it’s more of a mini-museum that doesn’t offer guests as much interaction with the Star Wars universe as a full attraction might. However, I’m pretty sure that the Launch Bay is a temporary installment to keep guests interested while the real Star Wars land is being constructed elsewhere in Hollywood Studios. For what it is, I thought the Launch Bay was pretty good. We rushed through it this time as we had FastPasses for Midway Mania, so I’ll probably go back to check out more of the models another evening.

While at the Launch Bay you’ll find a few unruly Jawas roaming the premises, making illicit trades with guests. If you bring a trinket from home to the park you can attempt to trade it with them for droid parts. Here’s me trading a Batman eraser with one of the Jawas; he’s checking out my potential trade while I keep an eye out for the authorities. He went for it, so I’m now an R2-D2 head richer. Afterward I asked him if next time I saw him he’d let me drive the sandcrawler. I don’t think he went for it.