Did it in December. It was great! Highlight of our trip! Hope to do it again, next time! Best possible viewing for Wishes, as well as for the Electric Light Water Pageant! Fabulous character interaction!! Full review on earlier post called "anyone done a grand gathering event yet?"
There were 20 numbered rows (10 on each side, aisle down the middle) with up to four adults, or 5 if there were kids, in each row, but I don't think they used all the rows. I think our pirate had the front 2 rows for his gear (prizes, microphone, etc.) Forty people per boat sounds about right. There was room for a few more, but they didn't put people from different groups on the same row, so there were some empty seats. For example, we had 20 people (including 3 kids and 2 babies) and were assigned rows 17, 18, 19, and 20, so all our seats were full. But the people with only 8 in their group (3 of them kids) were assigned 2 rows and had spaces left on their rows, but they don't put different groups together, so they only had to sit with their own group. Kinda nice, I thought, that you only sat with family, not strangers. Although, the cruise was very fun and we wouldn't have minded sharing rows with anyone. We were yelling out trivia answers, arggghhh-ing, and having a jolly good time!
There are 2 boats that go out at the same time, though, so if your group is bigger than 40 or so, you can get on both boats. These seem to be popular, though, so if you've got a lot, I'd definitely call at the 90 day window to make sure you get all of you in!
HTH
Katie
