The departing of the ships. It’s the Rose Festival's final ritual for a number of fans who watched Monday morning from the banks of the Willamette River.

“This is part of the Rose Festival to us,” said fleet fan Ron Palmer from Cottage Grove.

As the last few boats nudge under Portland’s bridges, festival organizers looked back at the week's successes.

“We got off to an incredible start in fact down at waterfront village we were up 25 percent the first weekend,” said Jeff Curtis, Executive Director of the Portland Rose Festival.

Video Highlights: 2007 Rose Festival

The second weekend was a different story. Thousands of parade watchers braved a rainy Saturday parade but it was clear to organizers that attendance was down.

Luckily, the festival purchased rain insurance to offset any financial losses from a soggy parade. Final attendance numbers were not in yet.

The big surprise of the 2007 Rose Festival was the fury over the practice of duct-taping parade spots. A few days before the grand floral parade City Commissioner Randy Leonard proposed a next-year ban on marking spectator spots along the parade route.

Your View: Ban tape-marking?

“I think the parade was actually better for it,” Leonard said, standing behind his decision. Leonard said this issue generated by far the most public feedback he’s ever received on proposed legislation. Ninety percent of that feedback was positive, he said.

The fact that people also used spray paint to claim public property along the parade route proved why this kind of behavior should be curbed, he said. “My responsibility is to make sure Portland is safe and accessible to all citizens.”

The festival wishes Leonard would've waited until after the parade to stir that debate.

“Yeah, completely off guard,” explained Curtis. In the end, however, he said he and his staff were happy to have pulled off a huge 100th anniversary party with no major hitches.

“It was our centennial celebration; one of the biggest and best festivals we've produced.”