Universal Studios Hollywood enjoyed a prominent place atop The City of Los Angeles' "Endless Entertainment" float, with the Universal globe rotating atop a pedestal inspired by Hollywood's Chinese Theater.
And SeaWorld celebrated its upcoming 50th anniversary year with a "Sea of Surprises" float, which won the Presidents' Trophy for "most effective floral use and presentation."
Local law enforcement officials surrounded the SeaWorld float, due to threats from anti-animal captivity groups. But, of course, no protestors showed up, just as no one showed up to protest the other "controversial" float in the parade, the AIDS Healthcare float that celebrated the wedding of two men, which took place atop the float during the parade*. Seriously, journalists need to stop writing stories about "planned protests." Anyone can "plan" a protest. But unless people can actually put feet on the street and show up with big numbers, they're not worth a story. (*Update: Looks like a dozen or so people did show up for staged photo-op arrest at the beginning of the parade. But nothing that affected the actual parade itself. See comments for more.)
For what it is worth, SeaWorld's getting off to a great start in its anniversary year. The Orlando Sentinel reported that SeaWorld Orlando enjoyed its second-busiest day ever on Monday. All of the Orlando parks have been packed all week, with hours-long waits for even "average" attractions.
Have you been in the parks this week, in Orlando, Southern California, or elsewhere around the world? Please tell us in the comments about your visit.
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"For our first big news of 2014, ThemeParkInsider will now join our crusade in the shutdown of SeaWorld. For the first time in 14 years, site host Robert Niles protested the inclusion of the new SeaWorld float by not covering it as he had done previously. He smartly restricted himself by only showing released publicity photos of Universal Studios Hollywood's and SeaWorld's floats, the latter of which clearly has no backbone and actually had to call the police to escort the float and fight their battles for them. Inspired by Robert's "nut up or shut up" message about protesting, we will continue our boycott of the parks. In fact, it seems to be working. Despite having the second highest attendance date in the history of the park, it was just that, the second! Clearly, people have learned since *last* year had the highest date. You heard it here first folks. Swim strong."
Yeah, some of us clearly have way too much time on our hands. In all seriousness, I actually heard that 19 people were arrested in conjunction with the protest, which is fine by me. 19 less people in line for Antarctica. :)
PS: I can make a killing off the above domain name, but I'll refrain.
If you can't bring more protestors than the dozens of "The End is Near" "Jesus is Coming to Judge You" people who trail the parade every single year, then I'd say that your protest didn't work.
No one outside the tiny PETA community cares about Blackfish. Sorry.
Remember, owning a cat or a dog is still still "keeping a wild animal prisoner", bunch of hypocrites.
I've gone to see the Rose Parade once in person despite living in the area my entire life. It is definitely fun and something anyone interested in the parade should experience at least once in their lives, but now that I've experienced that I'll enjoy it from my nice soft couch in my pajamas with the freshly made cup of coffee and omelet while listing to the TV crews tell my exactly what kinds of flowers were used.
I also volunteered to help decorate some floats a few years back. Now THAT is a really fun experience if you can swing it (and if you can secure the right type of job. Some are definitely better than others).
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