A friend who is taking once in a lifetime trip to WDW with 3 young kids asked me the question below. Anyone know the answer?
She has tickets to the garden viewing area dessert party, but wants to watch the 9:15 pm parade. The dessert party tix say to be there at 8:45 pm for the 10:15 pm fireworks. I told her she likely won’t arrive to the dessert party until 9:50ish. She said she is ok with missing the desserts as long as they get to enter the garden viewing area.
Will she be able to get into the garden viewing area if she doesn’t show up for the dessert party until 9:50/10:00?
I don’t think the cut off to get credentials would be before 10 but there is the combo of paying for a spot only and taking a chance that they will be squeezed in on the side (both the before and after party guests will be there first)?
They will be watching the parade in the hub area?
Have you read reports of any party being over sold and the hub area being as crowded as a regular night?
This points out in my mind the biggest difference between Terrance and Garden views. Think of the Terrace as reserved seating (after you check-in and select your seats) and think of the Garden as festival seating.
Plus there’s the fact that the parade steps off in Frontierland at 9:15, but won’t reach the Hub that quickly, even if it’s right on time. We checked in for the Terrace party and then went and rode some rides and came back just before 10:00… the parade was still in the hub at that time.
It will be very difficult to get across the hub to the garden viewing area during the parade if they watch the whole thing in Frontierland… they will have to be on the non-water side of the parade route, and then really walk with purpose behind the parade crowd to overtake the parade before it reaches the bridge. That’s still iffy… we were at the step off point right when it started and didn’t watch most of it, and we still barely made it before they cut us off.