It’s been a month or so since the dining packages have restarted, and was wondering if we needed to check in early to make sure we got F! seating (preferably for the first show) for a 3pm reservation at River Belle Terrace. It’s on a Thursday (August 11th) that’s currently listed as an 8 out of 10 day. I suspect we’ll be fine, but any information would be helpful. Thanks!
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Your dining package will tell you when to return. You should arrive early if you want a great spot, maybe an hour before the show starts. Some people will show up even earlier. Just depends on how willing you are to wait and how good a view you want.
Edit: or are you saying you don’t have a dining package and want to get a walk up one the day of? If that’s what you’re saying, I would head there early in the day to ask.
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I probably phrased it badly. We already have the 3pm reservation for Thursday, August 11th, but I know we need to show up that day and declare we’re doing the standard package for F! But do we need to show up and declare before the 3pm time to make sure we get a spot at the first show so we can catch the Disneyland Forever fireworks from the same spot afterwards?
It’s also quite possible that I’m overthinking this (can you really overthink Disney trip planning, though?) and the second show would be okay (though it might make rope drop the next day at DCA a bit sleepy) since we also reserved Plaza Inn on Sunday the 14th for MSEP and can presumably watch the Disneyland Forever fireworks from the same spot. (Or maybe not; reviews say that’s some distance from locations with a good view.)
Thanks for your info!
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I thought the dining package specified which of the two shows you have reserved seating for? I have only done the sack lunch though, not the dinner, so I could be wrong.
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P.S. This is a good question and I hope someone knows more than I do and sees this!
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I have the same question and we’re going the week before you so I can let you know how it works out. We have a 6:30pm reservation though and I think we want the second show. According to this article, it says to check in when they open so I guess that’s what we’ll try to do:
Because availability is limited, having a dining reservation does NOT guarantee availability for the Standard Fantasmic! Dining Package. So, regardless of what time your reservation is to dine, you’ll want to check in at the restaurant podium when it opens (generally 11am but check the mobile app for most accurate times) to make a note on your reservation that you want the dining package.
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So reading that article it looks like you cannot reserve the F! Package in advance. You have to book a reservation at RBT and then tell them at the restaurant you want to upgrade your reservation to the dining package on the day of and space is limited. That’s not how they do it in WDW or how they did it last time I was in DL and did it.
That said I would plan on stopping by the restaurant when they open to tell them you want to upgrade to the F! package.
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Thanks everyone for the info! I was planning not to get to the park until early afternoon, but I’ll see if we can do breakfast and laundry quickly and get there earlier. Four weeks away now…
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Update! So yesterday was our RBT reservation. We had a 6:25pm reservation and went to the host stand earlier in the day to let them know we wanted to do the Fantasmic package (like the article above said to do). We got there around 11:30am and the CM there said to just tell them when we went to check in because if she put it in the system then, it’d probably get deleted. She also said we’d have no problem getting it. We checked in around 6:30 (in person, I forgot to do it on the app), told the hostess we wanted to do the Fantasmic package so she added it, and she said both shows were still available so as long as they were when we sat down, we could let our server know which one we wanted. We did get to pick and ended up doing the first one. We were done by 7:40ish and had plenty of time to get to the reserved seating area for the 9pm show. Oh and that article said you could order from the regular menu or the Fantasmic menu, so I asked our server just to see, and he said he could ask if that was allowed but usually it’s only for allergy/dietary accommodations.
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Thanks for this report back. How was the viewing section once you were there? This seems like a slightly underadvertised way to get Fantasmic Dining (we have been checking for both Hungry Bear & Blue Bayou and coming up with nothing) & so wondering if the section seemed at all roomier/less people because it wasn’t in such high demand?
I’m not really sure how full our section ended up, but we got there around 8:05 and were in the 3rd-ish row of people. We were close to others but not on top of anyone else so we had some breathing room. The section to the left of us (I assume that’s Blue Bayou?) was told by CMs that everyone needed to move forward to allow more people in, so it seemed like they were more crowded than we were. We also sat closer to the center so there may have been more room on the right side (at least there was when we first sat down).
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This is great intel. Yes, to the left of the River Belle section has been the Blue Bayou front & centered. And the dining package has been almost impossible to come by. But even though River Belle’s not the ambiance of Blue Bayou that we wanted, the package may be right up our alley (since we haven’t had much luck with the Hungry Bear either).
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