Festival of Fantasy Parade with Preferred Viewing?

Hello All
We are nine days out for our trip! We are in the process of finalizing our touring plans and have a question about the Festival of Fantasy Parade (FFP?) with dining package at Tony’s…
We are currently booked for lunch at 11:30 at Tony’s with preferred seating for FFP for the 2:00 show. The day is Sunday September 22 and the CL is projected as a 3. My party is myself, DW, DD4 and DD1 (almost DD2). I don’t really want to use the dining plan table credit and think seeing the parade will not be all that difficult given the low crowds that day. I have also read that the preferred viewing area is very sunny and am worried about the family bursting into flames. One other complication is that we have a 11:45 FP for 7DMT that we really don’t want to miss. (DD4 loves it.). Any thoughts are appreciated! :grin:

(Btw, thank you to all the regular contributors and commenters we are really enjoying the forums.)

Have a great trip! We did the Tony’s Parade viewing package when we were there in March. Pros - we arrived at 3:05 for a 3 o’clock parade and got a seat right on the curb. Cons - it was in full sun - not so bad in March but maybe unpleasant in September. It was also a very heavy meal in the middle of the day - none of us were really in the mood for a three course heavy pasta meal, so it was kind of a waste in that sense.

On our other MK day we were able to get a good viewing spot right on Main Street by showing up around 2:30 - I took the kids to do a bit of shopping so they didn’t get antsy while my husband and the stroller saved the space.

If you are open to viewing the parade from other than Main Street, we arrived at Liberty Square about 15 minutes early to get front row spots.

Thank you for the replies!

erinkippen, how long did the meal take and did you have to wait after arriving for your reservation?

Jetblast, How were the crowds overall on that day?

Thanks again.

I did the Tony’s package for the MVMCP parade and have no regrets about that at all.

However, the parade is at night (so no sun) and it’s an amazingly good parade.

I booked the package for FOF this summer but cancelled at the last minute. A friend of mine was able to get me primo access nearby. But as I walked past the Tony’s viewing area, I did notice just how exposed it is to the sun.

I would say that we waited about 15 minutes, and the meal was maybe an hour? It was too long for my kids, who just wanted to be back outside seeing things, but it was our first day.

Crowd levels were low and I had my pick of location at 145pm. All of the spaces were filled in 10 minutes later.

At WDW now. Today plus the two previous days have had highs of 91 or 92, heat index of 99. It’s bad enough walking through sunny areas, but just standing in one place, waiting for the parade and then watching it?? Not my idea of how to watch the parade. You’re only 10 days from now.

I am having the exact same questions currently. We leave Thursday and were supposed to do this on 10/4, the high is 84 but the CL is only 1…I’ve heard not so great things about Tonys as well.

At the parks now. We saw the parade yesterday just walking up to the hub about five minutes ahead of parade time. We parked stroller behind some people sitting on curb and kids could see just fine. Very happy we didn’t do the dining package.

Frontierland is another great place to watch. You don’t need to arrive too early. And if you are early you can probably find some shady under Pecos bill.