Woke up Tuesday morning late thanks to the Halloween party the night before and got a wild hair. Called and made lunch reservations at Carthay Circle so I wouldn't completely obsess about how early to get to WoC or whether we'd get there in time for the blue fastpasses. We'd only done one sit down meal and were getting tired of counter service anyway.
When we called at 10:00 they had a spot for 11:50.
The show was at 8:15, with our tickets saying we had to be in the area by 8:00. We were back in the Paradise Pier area around 5:00 and CMs were already lined in pairs along the area. I ask a couple of guys where the preferred seating group lined up and they told us under King Triton at the Ariel Ride. I asked what time people tended to start queing up and dude says, "oh, with preferred seating you can wait until 8:00!" I tried not to look at him like he had two heads.
At 7:00 we came back around and the girl at the preferred area spot wasn't letting anyone in yet and there appeared to be almost no one waiting at the ropes, just a handful under Triton. Ariel was a walk-on, so we rode that and came back out to find the area had been opened.
We didn't know we could ask for the front viewing area and when they asked and we told them "Carthay", we were herded into the upper part along the rail, although within those few minutes, the rail along the front was already filled before we got there.
We plopped down, backs to the rail for an hour, and people watched, especially the girl who worked her way one foot step every two minutes to wriggle between me and the couple who had gotten there right ahead of us and were to our left on the rail. It was fun to watch her attempt at stealth.
I wanted a nice meal and less stress about lining up more than two hours early for a show, so the fact that you can't actually see the surface of the water from my height when the lower areas fill in wasn't a make or break problem, but it might be for people who shelled out the money just for the viewing.
The area to our right facing the water was already packing them in towards the back of the area when we walked up to the rail at 7:10
Our main mistake was focusing on the rail nearest the center that we could stake instead of spotting the light tower directly in front of us. The view was just okay.
I'm glad we got to see it. I loved the Brave and Pirates sections. But it's not something I'd do preferred seating again for, nor would I feel like I needed to spend hours to get the best view. I guess I'm more of a Fantasmic chick
). No one stopped us from crossing over to where we thought we'd have the best view. We were on the rail right on the center line if you look at the map in the OP. I have DS7, DS5 and DD3, so it is a MUST for us to be on a rail. We arrived 90 minutes before the show (this was Tuesday, Oct. 16 for an 8:15 showtime) and people were already being let in to the viewing area. After the show, when I asked DS7 if he liked it as much this time as he did last time (it was one of his favorites from our last trip), he said "no. It was better!" I guess viewing spot does make a difference!
