Cal Poly’s 2025 Rose Parade float takes 6-hour trip from Pomona to Pasadena

A large crowd of alumni, students and volunteers gathered Thursday, Dec. 19, to catch a glimpse of the Cal Poly Universities’ float before its long ride to the 2025 Rose Parade.

After a few words of praise and encouragement from student leadership, alumni and the college the float was christened with a champagne bottle to resounding cheers. Students then descended upon the float, making sure every wire and animatronic was secured before the pilgrimage from Cal Poly Pomona to Pasadena.

While paradegoers delight in the magic of the floats and the imagination it takes to design and build them, the journey the floats take to get to the annual Rose Parade may not be top of mind for most.

With the metal foundation in place and ready for its floral covering, the Cal Poly float set out about 9 p.m. Thursday for the 28.8-mile voyage from the Cal Poly Rose Float Lab in Pomona to the Rose Parade Float Pavilion in Pasadena.

A big-rig tow from KKW Trucking pulled the float down surface streets at a top speed of about 10 mph as the Cal Poly team scouted the road for obstacles. The float — which measures 55 feet long and 21 feet high — navigated well-known thoroughfares such as Arrow Highway in San Dimas and San Gabriel Boulevard in San Gabriel on its way to Pasadena.

The annual trip that typically takes about six hours ended at 3:32 a.m. Friday, the team posted on social media.

As the only fully student-constructed float in the 136th Rose Parade, the Cal Poly submission, “Nessie’s Lakeside Laughs,” features the Loch Ness monster and friends.

“It’s a large float. It’s big, a lot of the mechanisms are complicated, and we just really tried to push the envelope with where we were going,” said Collin Marfia, a first-year graduate student and the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo float president.

Each year, the float-building process begins before the current one debuts on the parade route.

Teams of students are being formed now for next season, as they await the 2026 theme. Students will dismantle the 2025 float in January after the parade, saving parts for next year. This coming summer, a team of more than 40 students is expected to begin building the 2026 float.

The 2025 float is the 76th built by students at Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and features hydraulic power to move Nessie’s neck and other electrical components that power a spinning, smiling cow and sliding penguin friends. According to Marfia, the float also had to be flexible and collapse to fit the 210 Freeway underpass at the parade’s conclusion.

Brooke Handschin, a senior and the Cal Poly Pomona float president who drove the 2024 float, said Thursday she was looking forward to another trip down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

“My favorite memory from (the 2024 parade) was turning the corner on the parade route,” Handschin said. “I couldn’t really see the Cal Poly stands because I was on the other side of the float … I could hear them the second we came around that corner and they were just screaming. It was instant tears for all of us in the float.”

As the float worked its way toward Pasadena late Thursday and early Friday with the help of a police escort, it faced and overcame everything from steep hills in Walnut to narrow residential streets in El Monte.

Scouts for the float constantly monitored for new or unexpected conditions such as tree branches that needed to be moved out of the way.

Friday morning, the float was expected to be stationed at Rosemont Pavilion in Pasadena to await scores of volunteers who will use more than 37,000 seeds, petals, stems and more to adorn Nessie and the vast lake she calls home.

Interested volunteers can contact each float builder to learn more about decorating opportunities.

Nessie is expected to make her grand entrance as entry No. 63 in the parade, which begins at 8 a.m. New Year’s Day. Tickets can be purchased online at tournamentofroses.com, and the parade is aired each year on most major networks.

After the float is decorated but before they introduce it to the world on Jan. 1, Cal Poly students have another task — keeping Nessie and friends safe the night before the parade.

Each year, the team of students who operate the floats spend the night bunked in their creations, ready to respond quickly to Rose Parade officials who might need floats moved after they’re queued for the event.

Handschin said the overnight crew of four brings blankets and sleeps in the seats they use to operate the float.

“It’s not the most restful sleep ever,” she said, “but it is worth it for the experience we get to have.”