7:45 is indeed your best bet.
Last December we had a 7:45 for R&C - keeping in mind that in December Illuminations is moved to 9:30 due to Candlelight Processional -
And we told them upon checking in that we wanted to wait for a seat on the terrace, and they said OK - but it will be up to 30 minutes- that was totally fine with us. It was actually about 15 minutes - and we had a PERFECT table.
Order the cheese and fruit tray, order drinks, take your time - make it a very leisurely meal, and you will NOT be disappointed with the experience.
our server knew that we were waiting on Illuminations, so she kept our water and soft drinks filled, and brought us an extra about 10 minutes for Illuminations started.
We saw Illuminations 3 times on that trip - and all three times we had 'reserved' seating LOL
We took the Undiscovered Future World tour, and as part of that they gave us assigned tickets to come back for reserved viewing directly in front of the Italy Pavilion.
The second time was at Rose & Crown - AMAZING
And we had reserved an Illuminations Cruise for our 2nd to last night - we shared it with another family - and invited my wife's cousin who works at WDW along as she had never been on an Illuminations Cruise. It was a BLAST - but it was SOOOOOO cold - we were all cuddled up under blankets it was so cold! We were numb by the end of Illuminations.
In order I would rank the viewing:
illuminations Cruise - you can't beat being ON the water to see the show.
Rose & Crown - next best thing to being on the water.
and In front of Italy - we had to stand the whole time - BUT it is a great place to watch from!
At Rose & Crown we DID have an interesting experience with a SNAKE on the terrace! It caused a bit of a commotion right in the middle of Illuminations
Looking back, it was so funny!!!!
