My friend and I ate there last Monday. Our dinner reservation was at 6:15pm. Once we finished dinner (we did not rush) we walked over to the preferred area. We ended up on the stairs right behind the "wet" area. There were only 4 other people on the stairs, so it was not crowded and we had a great view. I think we only waited about 15 minutes before the WoC began.
It worked out really well for us but it might be much more crowded on a weekend night, of course. We had a small issue with dinner, as there was confusion as to which waiter had our table, so we didn't get water/bread for almost half an hour. After speaking to the manager, she waited on our table the rest of our meal and it all worked out fine (I am not so quick to make a fuss, but my friend used to wait tables and she does not put up with that kind of stuff lol).