Parade viewing and maybe a FP?

[KrisM]

Where do you like to watch the MK parades? How early do we need to stake out a spot? I might try a FP for the electrical parade, but am not sure if the parade or Wishes is better for FP. Thoughts on that as well?

[123LuckyMom]

I had no idea they had FP for parades! We love the electrical parade and see it on multiple nights. On the night we watch Wishes, too, we like to stake out a spot by the big round planter in front of the castle (where the statue of Walt and Mickey is). The kids stand on the planter wall and can see Wishes and the fireworks totally unobstructed. The view of the parade is less good, though. On the next night, we stake out a spot in front of Pecos Bill in Frontier Land. The view of the parade is spectacular, but the fireworks are behind some trees and off center to the castle, and of course you can't see the projections on the castle at all.

We don't usually see the other MK parades unless we catch them as we're moving from ride to ride, but we always go to the parade at AK. We like to stake out a spot near the start point of the parade, but it's far easier to find a good spot at AK, we've found.

[ray7694]

We watched them from the top of the train station in the front of MK. We got there an hour before to get a front row spot.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I saw this on Travel and Leisure re. Wishes, in case it's of any interest:
"There are no places to watch the Wishes Nighttime Spectacular fireworks inside the Magic Kingdom from a waiter-service dining table. But California Grill, on the top floor of Disney’s Contemporary Resort next door, not only has an ideal panorama of them but also has an outdoor observation deck with the soundtrack piped in. Book weeks ahead and ask the phone agent to seat you at the correct time; they have each day’s park schedule handy. "

[KrisM]

Thank you.

They do have FP+, but it uses one of your 3 for the day. I don't know if it's worth it or not. I do think we'll watch the afternoon parade one day and the electrical parade and wishes another day. There are 2 electrical parades and I was thinking maybe the 2nd one and we'd just power through and be tired :)

[WatchingThemGrow]

I wonder if the NEW daytime parade (started a week ago?) will make things more crowded? We usually see them near the big boat and Liberty Tree Tavern, up by the corner.

[brittone2]

I'll share my experience. I had several issues with using FP for fireworks viewing and parades. Our first night we only arrived in time to grab food and use our FP for the MSEP. I think MSEP started at 7, and by 6ish when we entered the park people were lining up on the curb in quite a few places to stake out their spots. We were overwhelmed as we had dealt with bad weather, flight delays, and this was our first ever dNUKT trip, so a lot to process. We grabbed food, and then I think our FP said to report by 6:40? (I may not be remembering correctly). We showed up a few mins before that and the viewing area was already packed with a LOT of people. A LOT. So we still had a row of people sitting in front of us (no biggie but could have just staked out a spot on the sidewalk a few mins earlier and would have had a similar view). It also was pretty jam packed and elbow to elbow. Perhaps less so than in the regular crowd on the sidewalk, but still quite crowded. We could see the show in front of the castle pretty well. Oh, and the CMs were continually having to stop people without FPs from ducking under the ropes to hop in the FP viewing area, and they asked the people in the viewing area to redirect anyone who tried. Not much fun to have to police other people's actions, IMO. It also took several mins for them to scan us in with the ipad when we arrived. It kept freezing up, and the CM was trying to mask her frustration by singing and dancing, but her irritability was still kind of obvious. It seriously took several tries and maybe 3-4 mins (?) to scan us. Just kind of awkward.

We did not use FP for Wishes. We did do the dessert party one night and that was great. Much, much more my speed and I didn't mind the fireworks being off to the side from that angle vs. the viewing area. We also caught the fireworks one night from the ferry and then the TTC. The kids really enjoyed that too, which somewhat surprised me even though I had read that it can be an option in some cases (I would definitely not do that as your only viewing, but it was kind of cool to see them from a different perspective).

We used a FP for Illuminations, and IMO that was pretty much worthless. I kind of expected that, but did it anyway ;) Dumb move. Anyway, yet again they opened up the viewing area significantly before the "report by" time. We were there early, and there were still lots of people who had already entered and had claimed spots. There were a million other places we could have had a similar view.

Ditto Fantasmic. My kids like fireworks and don't love a lot of the big thrill rides, which is why had used a few FPs on fireworks/parades (for ex, at HS my kids didn't want to ride the rollercoaster or ToT). For Fantasmic, we entered in the FP lane **before the "report by" time, and other people were entering the regular line right along with us. There was no separate seating area, other than for those folks with a dinner package. There was absolutely NO advantage to our FP. What annoys me about that is that had we understood how that worked, we would have skipped using the FP and would have just shown up earlier. Fortunately it seemed to me that most seats at F! are pretty good. We weren't in the center but I didn't feel that was really a disadvantage. However, I do feel like several of these incidences were frustrating as it was almost like a false sense of security...if we go and arrive 5-10 mins before our FP time, that will be fine. In reality, for all of these events that had opened the FP access way earlier than we expected.

So IME, they opened the viewing area well before the scheduled time. If I was going to have to enter the viewing area early, I might as well have staked out a spot on the sidewalk, kwim? It may be different now.

YMMV as things may be different than they were in early Feb, and maybe they've refined things. My POV is that if they are going to open teh viewing area at 6:20 or 6:30, I would have liked to know that vs. showing up "early" and still being "late" in terms of our arrival in relationship to the rest of the crowd. Stupidly I thought if we arrived at 6:30 or so to get in at 6:40 we would be good. I didn't expect the viewing area to already be rather full. And we encountered that several times, so it wasn't a one-off.

[KrisM]

Thanks!
We do have a FP for Illuminations :). Our flight gets in at 2:15, so we are going to do a FP for Soarin and Iluminations and get dinner. Not sure what else we'd use it on that night, so I'll keep it, but get there early!

I thought about the Wishes Dessert party, but wasn't sure we could do that and the parade in the same night and they are so late, I don't want them on different nights. Wishes is 10pm when we are there and the MESP is 9 and 11.

I do wonder if it'll be more crowded with the new parade.

[egoldber]

Personally, I would not waste a FP at the MK on the parade. We did the dessert party that brittone2 did and were also able to see the EP ahead of time.

But honestly, I have never waited for a "spot" for the parade or Wishes, just always found a spot when we could. Most of the parade has tall floats, so you can see from almost characters from anywhere. And Wishes IMO can be seen from a lot of places.

We always walk into Fantasmic at the last minute and just sit wherever there is room. I have no patience for sitting and waiting. :o

[kristac]

We used a FP+ for Electric Light Parade when we were there 2 weeks ago- ended up front row right in front of the castle. Could not ask for a better spot. We ended up watching Wishes from back by Little Mermaid. From a fireworks perspective it was a great view and 0 crowd. Not sure if we missed a big front show.

We did the dinner package at Hollywood and Vine for Fantasmic. Honestly it was a LOT of $$ and my kiddos ate next to nothing. But we had a very booked night (Dinner, Jedi Training, Fantasmic back to back) and would not have had seats for Fantasmic otherwise (They were calling standing room only as we were walking over but we had seats since we had the dinner passes.) If there are 2 shows that night I would just try for the second show.

[keh602]

We love love love the Wishes Dessert party. If Tinkerbell flies, she lands right above you. :)

We've always gone when the parade happens at 9 and 11pm, and if we stay till 11, we can have our pick of viewing areas. My favorite is right up front by the barber shop, which is also right by where the floats come out. We've had lots of character interaction there, and since it's right at the front of the park, it puts us in a good position to make a quick exit afterwards. That might be something to consider if you're going at a time when they run 2 parades per night -- and are night owls.

[BayGirl2]

We enjoyed the dessert party at MK too. The light show on the castle before the fireworks start is really cool and IMO not worth missing by watching from behind or outside the park.

[KrisM]

Wishing I had booked the Dessert Party! I feel like I looked into it and didn't call on it, but now I see it's online. I will keep checking periodically, but right now there are no spots on any day we will be at WDW.

[KrisM]

How about the dessert party at Epcot? Is it worth it instead of a Fast pass? That one has spots the night we are there.