New Year's Eve at Disney

[kennysmom]

We're going to be at staying at Disney's Wilderness Lodge and planned to have New Year's Eve dinner there as well. I really didn't want to go any where near the parks that night with the crowds...wondering if you can see the MK fireworks from the dock or the beach for this special occasion...

[Cheshire Figment]

Basically no. If you are on the WL beach your view it toward Bay Lake. If you look at a map (or better, a satellite view) you will see the MK is to your left and behind you. And there is a goof chance that there will be blockage from WL itself.

[wmah]

I wouldn't know what the view would be like there but from someone that went to a new years eve night 2 years ago I arrived before 10am. I heard they reached capacity by around 12pm that day. So anyone that sees this post has that to go by. Get there early if you want to be in the magic kingdom that night. And if you want to be on main street be there by 8pm. By 9pm it was already gridlock on main street. The 2 of us took advantage at this time and rode on rides and settled for a spot across from a small world. And everywhere in the park you could see the sky's light up. It was worth going that night and it was fun even with the light drizzle all day.

Can't you stand outside the gates that night and have just as good a time as if being in the park?

[Geoff_M]

Originally Posted by Cheshire Figment

Basically no. If you are on the WL beach your view it toward Bay Lake. If you look at a map (or better, a satellite view) you will see the MK is to your left and behind you. And there is a goof chance that there will be blockage from WL itself.

Actually, you can see a good deal of the MK fireworks from the WL beach/dock area. We watched Wishes from there in 2007 and enjoyed it. True, the lower shells are blocked by trees, but you can see the higher ones OK. No music, however.

To the OP, based on what you're saying I'd recommend you do the same "reverse psychology" strategy we did one NYE. We went to AK on NYE because it closes early and we thought it wouldn't be crowded because of that... we were right. While they closed MK that day just after 10 AM, AK's crowd was very light. We went back our hotel (off-site) watch the ball drop on TV, and then hit the lights and went to bed. We thought that on Jan 1 most people would want to sleep in, so we opted to make sure that we were at MK when it opened. We were right, the place had no crowd at all for the first couple of hours and then people started pouring in in the afternoon. We were able to ride tons of stuff in the AM while others snoozed.

[disprincessatheart]

If it were me, I'd go to the Poly beach to watch the fireworks. Then you get the view straight on, but you're not in the major park crowds (though I'm sure the poly beach will be busy). If you have a car, just drive over, if you don't take the boat from WL to MK and take the monorail or another boat over to Poly. Going back on Disney transportation will be slow going, but I think this is the best way to really experience the NYE fireworks for you.