WOC--Picnic or Premium Dining?

[Lissame]

I am still in a huge dilemma about which one to do.

I have reservations for the premium dining, but if I can get as decent a viewing spot with the picnic, then I would much rather do that and save the $100+.

For those of you who have done either or both, what would you recommend?

I apologize if this has been discussed to death, point me in the right direction if it has.

 

[Eeee-va]

I have only done the regular dining, not the picnic. We got a good spot and it was lovely to have a lot of room (most of the other sections didn't seem to have that luxury). You also know WHERE you will be, whereas with a picnic you could feasibly maybe end up in a wet zone or somewhere that isn't a prime viewing location.

But that said, I think overall you'd be more likely to get a good spot with a picnic package and getting in line BEFORE the time on your FP, than you would to get a good spot if you got the dining package and showed up near the end of the time on your FP. Your goal is to get as close to the railing (or a rope walkway or wall) as possible, so there are no heads in front of you.

If you'll be crushed if you don't get a good spot then the dining package might be a better idea. Also, currently the dining package is in an area that isn't very full at all, so at least on Friday 6/11, kids were able to run around in the area a bit.

Conversely, if you don't mind packing ponchos just in case and are willing to get to your designated section before the time on the FP, then you might want to go for the picnic. If you eat at Ariel's or even WCT, you will get more food than if you got the picnic meal, so you aren't getting equivalent meals for a lower price. Wwe ate on the cheap (I think I just had a bag of Fritos and some grapes) on Friday and then at WCT for the WoC dining, and I had room for some popcorn after! If you have the picnic for a "meal," you might need a snack later so that might negate a bit of the savings.

But overall, I think the picnic is probably a better deal. I'm not at all sorry we did our dining package, and it does feel a bit more "exclusive," but there's a pretty significant price difference. (We had 3 adults all on our own, so it wasn't a $100+ price difference; it came out to about a $25 difference for each of us, so that was spread across three incomes. )

 

[mvf-m11c]

I did the dining at AG on Saturday and it was a good view at tier 4 on the left side of the viewing area. It was a great experience to do the dining package and I should have done the picnic package when I was there, even I don't know where they would be viewing the show, but when I did the dining package, I had seen some guests on the my right side of the viewing area and saw they had the picnic bags and I thought that was there viewing area for the picnic, but I could be wrong.

Just like what Eeee-va said in the pp, when you get your FP, you should line up early at the blockade so you can get in line when the CMs escort you to the viewing area and you could get a good viewing spot right next to the railings or the center stage walkway is a nice spot to see the show.

The dining experience at AG, was good and the food was fine, but I wish they could have made the entrees that we had ordered a lot better, but overall the dessert was the best part for me.

I would have chosen the picnic because it was half the price of the dining package and possibly a good viewing area like the dining package. But if you don't order it online, you have to wait at WCT left side while we saw some people waiting in line.

 

[oc_tony]

My family and I did the picnic option, but not the table service option. For more info, here is a link to my DIS blog post about our picnic experience.

 

[lcasa]

My family and I did the picnic option, but not the table service option. For more info, here is a link to my DIS blog post about our picnic experience.

Great post! We'll be trying 2 of the Asian and 2 Chicken picnics Friday night. I ordered them around noon and by 5 when I showed my son they were sold out.

Does anyone know what the handicap section(s) are like? My mom is in a wheelchair.

 

[Eeee-va]

Does anyone know what the handicap section(s) are like? My mom is in a wheelchair.

I thought it was said that people in wheelchairs would be let in first and that there was no reserved wheelchair area? I don't know if that's still the case or not. In theory they might be able to put wheelchairs by benches so that families can sit together but I don't know if that's true.

 

[ironlou]

I was thinking this too.

We will be in DL starting next Monday but we leave this Saturday. Wednesday we have dinner reservations at Ariels and yesterday I decided to book a picnic for fun. Hope both turn out great seating err standing. Especially for my kids.

 

[Queenbillabong]

My family and I did the picnic option, but not the table service option. For more info, here is a link to my DIS blog post about our picnic experience.

Great report - I think it's helped me decide we will do the picnic for more of a late lunch with our group of 5 It looks like a great deal to me!

 

[Lissame]

Well, last night we decided to purchase the picnics for the first night of our trip (June 29). We'll leave ourselves plenty of time to line up early. I'll keep our reservations for the premium dining for Friday just in case some of the kids in our party can't see. I have a feeling we're going to be happy enough with our spots to cancel the Friday reservations, but it's always nice to have them

Thanks for everyone's input! It's not really the cost that's such a big issue, but if I can get just as good/the same experience with an inexpensive option I'd rather spend the money elsewhere!

 

[lcasa]

We went last night - picked up the picnic meals at around 6 - no line at all. I upgraded mine to have a beer for $4.08. Wine was slightly more. I enjoyed the Asian - the salmon was tasty, the orange cake-ish desert delicious, and the noodle salad unusual but good. The spring roll was ok - very carrot-ty. My 13 year old son didn't care as much for any of it except the salmon. My folks had the chicken and thought it was ok, although it would have been better warm. They liked the apple pie.

Make sure you let them know you've got the reserved picnic area - it helped to have the bag out and visible. Once they take your ticket you've got no other proof! The first CM sent us down to the non-meal handicap area which was much further away - a 2nd saw the bag and corrected our path. There was a ton of space where we were - 4 benches which each sat about 4 people plus space between for wheelchairs and space behind for standing. Close to dead center, 3 or so tiers back - so a good viewing angle to see the breadth of the show, although I'd like to try closer next time to see the fountains at water level. We went in as soon as it opened - about 7:20 or so - and got a bench so that was much more comfortable for the long wait. But we did stand for the show (except my mother in the wheelchair of course). We wouldn't have been in much worse shape in that section showing up at 8:30 really - maybe 2 more heads in front of us.
They're definitely still working out the crowd control kinks!
Oh - and the show was very impressive - and long (about 30 min +/-)

 

[loliepop]

Wait there is a reserved picnic area? I was under the impression picnic received the same random fastpass's from the machines?

 

[lcasa]

We had the blue area, just like some fast passes - but our passes said 'reserved dining' - and at least for handicap it definitely was different - much closer than regular blue handicap.

Make sure you keep asking the CM's for the picnic area - it was chaotic and obviously quite a few still didn't know what was what.

 

[TinkLynne]

We just returned from our vacation to Disneyland in which we had a TOTALLY AWESOME BLAST & we miss it terribly We did the WOC on our last day & we had preferred dining @ Ariel's Grotto for a 6:10 reservation for the 9:00 showing. Ariel's was awesome! Hubby & son got some kind of steak with yummy cheesy like potatoes & daughter and I got the spicy like pasta dish with sausage and yummy shaved mozzarella on top-YUMMO! We had the little appetizer platter before our meal & it included a little salad like mixture....I think like grilled squash & zucchini which was good & some other things..........They bring this hard like bread but it is VERY good! Little chewy but VERY good! It comes with whipped like butter & little pesto I think like dipping sauce & another kind too. Then they brought out the dessert tray with an array of desserts like a chocolate little lava cake and a white chocolate film strip for World of Color. It was very good & my family and I enjoyed it!! When you pay for your meal, you get a ticket that tells you to when to return and then they will seat you for the viewing. Now............that part wasn't completely worth paying the extra for the dining but we enjoyed the meal & it was a nice family meal to celebrate our last night @ Disney. However, I think if we did it again, we would opt for the picnic option maybe because I think there was many viewing areas closer that people had that didn't have "preferred dining" but a fast pass just like the ride fast passes that you get. Now they say the line for that is horrid....long and people pushy...etc. I don't know about that but.............something was a bit sketchy about the viewing options for paying 150.00 approximately for a meal, you would have thought to be a bit closer for the viewing. I mean where we were, wasn't bad but paying for the meal, it could have been better. The show was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT WAS JUST BEAUTIFUL So, it is really up to you as to whether you want a nice expensive dinner for your family, or if you want to opt for a picnic type meal, which by the way, people right across from us were enjoying & we paid 150.00 approximately and they paid for a picnic meal and were in the same viewing vicinity. I think they need to work on this feature and offer people paying the extra money a little better viewing than people paying for a picnic meal, personally that is my feelings..............but however you decide to do it............THE WORLD OF COLOR IS A NOT TO MISS PART OF YOUR VACATION EXPERIENCE! IT WAS TRULY MAGICAL ENJOY, whatever you decide to do!

 

[Mister Toad]

I have reserved dining for early august, looking forward to seeing the show though, sounds like the viewing area is pretty good.

 

[ChickenCarlos]

so im still confused. When you get the picnic option, they give you a fastpass, or do they just give you a bag and you have to tell people you got the picnic/??? can anybody explain in full detail what the picnic option is, and what they did to get to the correct viewing area, and would they do it again, or would they opt for the more expensive preferred dining option next time.???

 

[Onigun]

Premium Dining! I loved it the last time I visited the park. I was on vacation so why not splurge a little?

 

[lcasa]

so im still confused. When you get the picnic option, they give you a fastpass, or do they just give you a bag and you have to tell people you got the picnic/??? can anybody explain in full detail what the picnic option is, and what they did to get to the correct viewing area, and would they do it again, or would they opt for the more expensive preferred dining option next time.???

Ok - when you get the picnic option you get a fastpass for one of the colored areas ( mine was blue - think that's standard ) and it also says 'reserved dining' or something similar on it. Each picnic meal comes with a nice WOC bag ( like a reusable grocery bag). I lined up at 7:15 (passes said 7:30-8:30 for line up) and they started letting us in. It was very confused - had to ask multiple CMs for the blue picnic area. They took our passes when we went in throught the barriers - so it was then that the picnic bag became our positive ID noticed by CMs that we had should have the better viewing area within the blue zone - which is very big. At least on Friday the CMs still seem to be learning how to deal with the whole viewing system. I think the trick is to keep asking. I'm not sure how the folks with the pricier dining options prove they should have a better area once that pass has been taken! Maybe your receipt?

The picnics are $14.99 ( 12.99 with an AP ) and you buy them on-line up to 30 days in advance if you want a guaranteed pass for the 9pm show. They sell to walk-ups for later viewings. You pick up the meal between 2 and 8pm. There are reviews of the food all over this board by now with pictures. It's not fine dining but I felt it was a very good value. Here's a link to the ticket page - scroll to Special Offers and you can find the picnic meals - there's a pop up with descriptions of the 4 choices:
http://disneyland.disney.go.com/disneyland/en_US/reserve/ticketListing?name=TicketListingPage
I would definitely do this again - especially based on the reviews on the boards of the more expensive dining choices.

 

[Mary09]

We've got four nights in the parks in 2 weeks and I've ordered picnics for the first night, figuring if it's something we want to do on successive nights we can either buy them on-site unreserved or reserve them online for the nights we have enough warning. Maybe I should order more now. I'm not sure if WOC is going to be something we'll want to see over and over. We do love Fantasmic and I'm not sure if you can even do both in a night. I need to go check showtimes...

Ok, it looks like they're nearly the same showtimes- 9 and 10:15 for WOC vs. 9:05 and 10:30 for F! I'm not so sure we'll want to try to make both in a night, given we've got four nights. Isn't there going to be a stampede of people trying just that?

 

[Eeee-va]

We've got four nights in the parks in 2 weeks and I've ordered picnics for the first night, figuring if it's something we want to do on successive nights we can either buy them on-site unreserved or reserve them online for the nights we have enough warning. Maybe I should order more now. I'm not sure if WOC is going to be something we'll want to see over and over. We do love Fantasmic and I'm not sure if you can even do both in a night. I need to go check showtimes...

Ok, it looks like they're nearly the same showtimes- 9 and 10:15 for WOC vs. 9:05 and 10:30 for F! I'm not so sure we'll want to try to make both in a night, given we've got four nights. Isn't there going to be a stampede of people trying just that?

I would not try two in one night (since you don't have to!). It could work OK if you're night owls and hear there is an 11:30 showing for WoC (and WANT to do the 9 PM Fantasmic!).

Without doing the 11:30 WoC, while it might technically be possible (9 PM WoC, 10:30 F!), you would most likely get a poor view for Fantasmic! If you were to do it, I'd get out of WoC as quickly as possible (which might involve missing the small show after the main show), rush over to Disneyland during fireworks, and then take the train from Main Street to New Orleans Square. At least, I've heard of some people having some success doing that from the old Electrical Parade to Fantasmic!. We waited out the crowds going from WoC to Disneyland, so I don't know how quickly you could make it from DCA to Disneyland park.

I don't know if it would even be possible to go from the 9 PM Fantasmic! to the 10:15 WoC since you'd be going against some massive crowds with only something like 48 minutes. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't even make it to the WoC area until 10 PM, and I'm not sure there are any tricks to getting a great view for WoC late (like there are for Fantasmic!). In fact, IF DCA closes at 10, then you'd also have the stress of making sure to get there before the park closes too. In other words, I wouldn't try it for anything, unless you're going for it on a dare.

Have a great trip!

 

[TravelNicholas]

We had dinner at Ariel's Grotto on Monday June 21 for my daughter's birthday and received passes for the preferred viewing area for WOC at 9 PM. The dinner was not inexpensive (and the service lacking IMO) but the food was fantastic and we were very happy with our viewing area for WOC. We had a lot of room and were front and center for the show. I'd definitely do it again!

Note - too - that all 3 nights we were there, a 3rd showing of WOC was added for 11:15 PM.