The walking path is not lighted at night and is very near the canal. I would NOT try walking it at night. I think you would have a better chance of seeing the DTD fireworks from the South Point area of OKW than you would from the trail anyway because of trees etc. Depending on where you are at in OKW, you can see the higher Illuminations charges from parts of OKW. Frankly, we LOVE to go into Epcot for NYE!! We usually get there around mid afternoon and have a dinner reservation for around 6-7. Then we cruise World Showcase until it's time for Illuminations. The only time it was too crowded to see easily from all parts of the promenade was in 1999/2000 when it was wall to wall people! We have been there for NYE twice since then with no problems at all. It's our favorite thing to do!