PLEASURE ISLAND – The big, raucous yet friendly crowds were drawing praise from members of at least two Mardi Gras krewes following a weekend of revelry on Pleasure Island.

Gloria Bridges of the Treasures of the Isle krewe was a little hoarse Wednesday morning, but that didn’t dampen her enthusiasm following one of the island’s most successful Mardi Gras weekends ever.

“I think it was probably the best parade we’ve had,” Bridges said. “I think the crowds were record-breaking crowds from what I can tell. Beautiful day, beautiful weather. I love the family-oriented Mardi Gras down here. Lots of great kids to throw things to. When you throw to the crowd down here, they all say thank you.”

Kris Jones of the Mystics of Pleasure was also basking in the afterglow of not only a successful Fat Tuesday, but a successful weekends. Made so successful, he said, by the crowds.

“I would like ot express a huge thanks to all the people who came out on Fat Tuesday for the City of Orange Beach parade,” Jones said. “The crowd was phenomenal. I don’t know if it was the biggest, but it was the loudest.”

“Audience participation was unbelievable. It was better than its ever been. There was a good mix of old and young folks, everybody was screaming. It was great.”

After all, Jones asked, what’s a parade without spectators?

“The folks along the street make it a party,”he said. “If it wasn’t for the spectators it would just be a bunch of idiots riding on trailers.”

The theme of big crowds carried over to The Wharf where a new event received a warm welcome during all-day festivies on Monday.

“Unbelievable turnout,” Jones said. “There were a lot of people there. It was a huge crowd and great for its first year. It turned out to be great.”

For Bridges, the Treasures krewe of 65 was too many for its two floats, so they added a trailer to get all the members in the procession.

“We had two floats and we had more people than we had places for them to ride,” she said. “We were ‘Putting on the Ritz.’ We had all our people dressed in tuxedo shirts. It was just a sight to see.

“We could’ve had more throws. We didn’t run out, nobody ran out. We threw them all the way. But we could’ve had more because the crowd was bigger.”

For Jones and the Mystics of Pleasure, their sights to see are built for night time. Unfortunately, the rainy, stormy weather forced the krewe’s parade to postpone Saturday night for a Sunday afternoon date.

“Our floats are made to go at night,” Jones said. “They look a lot better in the dark. We were disappointed we didn’t get to show all of our feathers. But we had a good time. We had a real good time.”

Again, Jones had praise for the big crowd for Sunday’s event, but said the krewe will continue to plan future night parades and hold Sunday as a rain date.

The krewe’s ball went off as planned Saturday night at the Perdido Beach Resort.

“We had the biggest ball on Saturday that night we’ve ever had, the most people in attendance,” he said. “We had 800 and it was a hoot. If they didn’t have fun, it was their own fault.”