A Handy Parade: Mobile’s New Year’s Eve Parade

View from my balcony.

While there were other options in Mobile, I wanted a downtown hotel – and landed at the Hampton Inn & Suites – a wee-bit expensive for what it was, but it was directly on the parade route, and it came with balconies directly overlooking the street.

It turns out I made a bad choice – I asked for, and received, a room on the top floor. While this was theoretically a good idea (I had spectacular views of the surrounding towers), practically it meant that I was way too high for the parade.

I hold none of that against the hotel, as it was my own request that landed me on the 7th floor. Instead I ended up watching the parade from The Traveling PhD’s suite on the 5th floor, which was also pretty high – probably the best floors to watch the parade would have been the second or third floors, possibly the fourth.

The parade on New Year’s Eve started at 7:30 and was, relatively speaking, short – once it reached our balcony, it took less than 40 minutes for the entire parade to pass by.