Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade

The Main Street Electrical Parade was one of my favorite things we saw at Disneyland. More than anything else at the park, it feels like it belongs in a different era. I feel very lucky that it just happened to have returned for the summer we visited the park. This post will be about the parade as well as Main Street after dark. So let's start out with a boatload of train station pictures!

Iconic. (What else is there to say?!)

 The full-moon shots are probably cliche at this point, but I still like them.

I forgot to take a nighttime trip on the Railroad, but I rode pretty much everything else at night!

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Disneyland proudly presents our spectacular pageant of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electrosynthomagnetic musical sounds: The Main Street Electrical Parade!"

I had seen the Electrical Parade in 2014 at the Magic Kingdom, but I was more than excited to see it again.

50 years strong, and not a single burnt-out light bulb in sight! I appreciate the effort to add this "50 years" design to the opening float.

Although there are a lot of people lined up along the curb, there were only a couple of other people watching from the train station with me. It was really one of the best moments of the entire trip. Hearing the iconic fanfare on the Main Street that gives the parade its name, I did get chills.

Who doesn't love the Alice in Wonderland segment, with its whimsical spinning bugs?

Although all the lights go out on Main Street for the parade, the train station stays lit.

I seem to remember the Cinderella pumpkin coach having live horses before ... am I remembering things?

I lined this photo up with the castle for a unique shot down Main Street.

Despite these floats being nowhere near today's technology, I still love teh MSEP so much, if even just for the music!

"Heigh-ho!"

Some features of the parade have been damaged in the past few years, like the second half of the Pinnochio segment. 

But the important part, the giant smiling mouth, still lives on.

The most iconic float in the parade has to be Pete's Dragon. While the Magic Kingdom has a parade dragon who can breath fire, this is more charming in my opinion.

Elliott happily trundles towards Sleeping Beauty Castle once again, just as he has done thousands of times in the past.

The MSEP's finale was updated last year, reskinning the old "To Honor America" flag to now feature different princesses.

Although I am not a fan of this new finale compared to the old one that was stuck eternally in the Bicentennial, hopefully it shows Disney's long-term commitment to the Electrical Parade.

Looking back down Main Street from the Hub, I try to plan how to cross the parade route.

We'll finish up our look at Disneyland with some nighttime shots of Main Street.

I love how this "Disneyland~Emporium" sign is an original (or at least a similar sign) that was here upon the park's opening in 1955.

When we were being ushered out through one of the crowd flow corridors one night, I had to grab a picture of some dry-docked Jungle Cruise boats!

"Twinkle lights" make the Hub a special place after twilight.

By turning the shutter speed down, I captured a more moody Main Street than its flashy reality.

And that concludes our look at Disneyland! I will have a post on Magic Mountain and California Adventure eventually, but that's all I have planned for my Disneyland trip reports. Coming soon, I may also have a Disneyland miscellany post where I share the best pictures I didn't include. Thanks for reading!