Special viewing area for Illuminations - R&C?

[CindyIsMyFave]

Maybe I'm not searching correctly, but I don't seem to find a ton of New Year's Eve dining posts for EPCOT . . . .

We have 10 pm ressies for 2 on NYE at R&C. (NYE Illuminations starts at 11:40 pm).

I know we are not permitted to ask for/wait for a patio table, so we won't do that.

My question is - for those of you who've eaten there on a normal night (or a NYE!), what do they really do with the indoor guests for Illuminations?
Do they shove everyone onto the patio?
Or is there really a magical outside viewing area available only to R&C patrons? If the latter, do they monitor it so it's not filled up with regular guests camping out for Illuminations?

Thanks so much!

 

[Hopefully]

They don't shove anyone anywhere!
There is a resesrved patio accessible only to R & C guests. The CM's will escort you there. It is a nice spot to view Illuminations from
You will be standing.

 

[CindyIsMyFave]

Thanks.
Sorry if "shove" was a poor choice - just meant it loosely.

And I've read some random stories on here about patrons crowding onto the patio and thereby annoying the seated patio diners.
And I'd also read stories about patrons being "promised" to be taken out to the special viewing area and then no one took them.
And finally, I'd read stories about other random guests being in the viewing area and CMs not saying anything. None were NYE related stories, so I figured things could only be worse that night, not better.

 

[figment_jii]

As the PP said, there is a special viewing area to the left (when looking at WS lagoon) of R&C. You need to tell your server you want to go out there. If it's getting close to the time of the show and the server doesn't do anything, you should ask again - it is very possible that they've forgotten. There is a CM at the entrance and they only let in R&C patrons, but I am sure there have been aberrations when non-patrons were accidentally let in. I would guess that on NYE they would be especially strict. With regards to the patio, they do not want the indoor patrons crowding onto the patio.

Here is the view from the viewing area:

 

[TiggerTrigger]

Never done R&C on NYE, but we had a bad R&C Illuminations experience. When we went last year, you could ask to wait to be seated outside and I think max wait time for it was 1hr, but I guess that's changed. In any event, my family was cold so we opted to dine inside since everyone told us we'd be escorted to some special R&C viewing area outside before Illuminations started. Our server even promised, but it never happened. The place was half empty that night (not sure how that's possible since adrs were impossible for the entire 180 days leading up to the trip). In any event, we made a mad dash out to the patio after we heard that first boom and watched from several open tables on the patio. In fact, we didn't see a single table escorted out to watch Illuminations. I know our server was ticked that we bolted out to watch it, but she failed to honor her promise to get us to the viewing area in time and she still got a 20% tip. I'm the only person I know of that's had such an Illuminations disaster, but I put the story out there just so others can take an even more proactive approach to ensure their servers get them out in time to catch the full show.