Oh my goodness..so I'm going to have to stake out a spot for the parade and show more then an hour before!? I was thinking 1 hour would be ok but holy moly. I don't mind waiting but this is making me nervous now
This was just my personal experience, so take it as you will, however this past sunday (9/20):
For the first Hocus Pocus show, we just happened to be walking by and heard it starting, so stopped to watch for a minute to see if we'd be interested in trying to watch it later. We ended up staying for the whole show. We were off the to right side of the castle, and we could see everything. We moved forward a bit as other people left, but for the most part stayed where we had stopped. Like I said, we stopped at the same time it started, so no wait.
For the 2nd parade, we walked around frontierland and sat down on a bench around 11. We were on the left hand side of the street when walking in from the hub area. We only sat when we did because we were tired, not because it was the only spot left or anything. When it came time for horseman, we stood up and walked to the rope, behind one row of seated people. They were allowed to remain seated the whole time, so we basically had a front row view. While more people did fill around us as the start got closer, it was by no means a crowded area. So again, great view with little wait.
For the fireworks, we were inside the princess meet building when they started. Not even in the room yet, but next in line to go in. Met Cindy and Rapunzel, then left the building and walked out into the path, stopping in a spot right between the castle and BOG. Again, uncrowded and a great (better than main street, in our opinion) view. This was also no wait at all, as we walked up after they had started.
We aren't the stake out a spot for hours type. Any wait longer than 20 minutes feels wasteful to us, especially at a limited time event like this. We figured we'd try to see all the shows, but not at the expense of anything else. So, no pre-planning, no giving up party time, and still saw everything.
That said, Jack and Sally were not an option for us. The wait was just too long and slow. But that was an easy call for us to make. DB didn't care if we met them or not, and though I do love NBC, I've met Jack previously at the halloween party at
Disneyland.