Macy's Unveils Five New Floats For Thanksgiving Day Parade
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Artists and engineers are putting the final touches on the 87th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Organizers unveiled five new giant floats Tuesday at the Macy's Parade Studio in Moonachie, N.J.
As CBS 2's Elise Finch reported, nearly 400 New Jersey students also got a special sneak peek at the floats.
"It makes me feel really special," said Alan Gottlieb of Little Ferry Memorial School.
"They do this for our entertainment, so the fact that they put so much time into it is really cool," added Paulina Subia, a Girl Scout from Union City.
Macy's Unveils Five New Floats For Thanksgiving Day Parade
The Sea World "Sea of Surprises" float has a whole school of fish wrapping through it.
"I love the details on the float," said Little Ferry Memorial School sixth grader Haley Ruiz.
Cirque du Soliel's flying ship called the Dreamseeker will enter this year's parade as one of the biggest floats. It is 52 feet long, 23 feet wide and 35 feet high, studio director John Piper told 1010 WINS' Steve Sandberg.
PHOTOS: Sneak Peek -- Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
As WCBS 880's Marla Diamond reported, 20 swinging Cirque Du Soleil acrobats will be on that float.
"They defy gravity. There are trampoline artists flying through the air," Piper said. "These floats are amazing this year, and so different."
The float was awe-striking for the youngsters.
"They are dressed as pirates and doing tricks," said Union City Girl Scout Tabatha Orenna.
"I'm a dancer, and I like doing tricks and stuff, and just to see them there is one of my dreams," added Weehawken Girl Scout Ambar Puello.
The wildly popular minions from "Despicable Me 2" will delight crowds from the new float, "Despicably Delicious," which features a bake shop theme.
"I like the minions because I got to take a picture, and this is like so fun because it's like right before you get to see it on Thanksgiving and there's like reporters and everything so it's so exciting," Cassandra Contilla, 9, told Diamond.
"I like the pirate ship float. It was really cool with all the acrobats," another student told Diamond.
"I actually really liked to ocean-themed one because it seems like it must've taken a lot of time," said a student at the parade studio.
Macy's Unveils Five New Floats For Thanksgiving Day Parade
Royal Caribbean's float features 3-D postcards in a revolving panorama and will set sail on Thanksgiving Day with Broadway star Kristen Chenoweth at the helm.
The Goo Goo Dolls will be on board the Enchanting World of Lindt Chocolate.
"The main part is to entertain, so every float has to do that at a minimum," parade director Amy Kule said. "We have long discussions on how we can do things bigger, different, I hasten to say better."
The floats will make their way from Moonachie to Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel, Diamond reported.
"We get them all packed up so they're no more than 8.5 feet wide, no more than 12.5 feet tall. We can actually take them through a toll booth," Piper said.
From lumber and foam to metal and paint the floats take up a lot of resources and time.
"Anywhere from three to nine months it will take to build a float, and it starts with sketches and then computer renderings, and a lot of working drawings and grafting and model building so that we know how to engineer it," Piper told Finch.
Spectators will also be treated to new balloons, including Finn and Jake of Cartoon Network's "Adventure Time" and Toothless, the star of the "How To Train Your Dragon" movies and television series.
Meanwhile, because of the time it takes to design and build each float, the Macy's Studio team is already working on floats for the parade next year.
1010 WINS is the official radio station of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Tune in Thanksgiving morning for full parade coverage and traffic updates to start your holiday.
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