Get a sneak peek of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade the night before it actually happens! The day before Thanksgiving you can go to The Natural Museum of History in the Upper West Side, 79th Street and Columbus Avenue. Viewing around Columbus Avenue, 77th Street, Central Park South, and 81st Streets. You can get up close to the Macy’s floats that are going to be setting sail the next day!

Some advice people encourage is to go around three o’clock in the afternoon to make sure you get the whole experience. Make sure to have your ID on you so security can check you in. They also recommend going while it’s bright out so you can watch the floats get blown up. A heads up is that there may be a wait but the experience is worth the wait! Every year thousands of people have a blast and enjoy getting to see the floats they watch on TV every year.

You’ll be surprised by the immense size of the floats! The floats can be as big as 100 feet wide and tall! Some floats however must be sized down to fit through the Lincoln Tunnel. These floats can cost from $30,000-$100,000 and take four to nine months from visualization to actual assembly. The helium usage for these floats is also 400,000 to 700,000 cubic feet of helium used to inflate the balloons!

No matter who your favorite character is, all of these floats are sure to FILL YOU not with helium, but utter joy!