Macy's inflatable Hello Kitty.

It’s early November, a great time to scope out a hotel room with a view of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – for next year.

Nearly a dozen midtown hotels are blessed with rooms that overlook New York’s 2011 parade of parades replete with floats, marching bands, balloons and Santa. But prime real estate – a room that plants you eye-to-eye with Snoopy, Spiderman and Kermit the Frog – gets snapped up months before the bands strike up. You can still get a room if you’re not too picky. But it will cost you.

Parade-view rooms are sold out at the Marriott Marquis, the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers and the Manhattan in Times Square (a special parade coordinator oversees reservations at the latter two properties). (more…)