Carnation cafe parade taping

[Lovewinnie]

I have a 12:00 lunch booked at Carnation cafe on 11/15 which appears like this will be day of parade taping. Christmas parade at 11:30 and 3:30 that day. Bad idea to try and eat on Main Street at noon? The parade times were not set the day I made the reservation. Not sure how crazy it will be for the taping or if it would be a good place to sit back to watch the craziness while we eat? Thanks

 

[ParkHopper1]

Outdoor seating at Carnation Cafe during a parade is actually a great place to be. While it is not a good parade viewing vantage point, eating with the floats going by and parade music adds to the experience IMO. The dining area is fenced off from the general park patrons.

I would just make sure you leave AMPLE time to get though the parade crowd to make you reservation on time.

 

[mom2rtk]

You'll be fine. They do a good job of keeping the walkways open.

 

[Lovewinnie]

With the reservation at noon I think we would miss the parade. Not sure how the taping works but the parade is scheduled for 11:30. Would you recommend moving up the reservation? Or just avoid and eat lunch some where else that day?

 

[katyringo]

Sorry to hijack the thread..

I think you will be fine. They do a good job of moving people along between parade floats. I wouldn’t worry about missing the reservations.

Outdoor seating at Carnation Cafe during a parade is actually a great place to be. While it is not a good parade viewing vantage point, eating with the floats going by and parade music adds to the experience IMO. The dining area is fenced off from the general park patrons.

I would just make sure you leave AMPLE time to get though the parade crowd to make you reservation on time.

Is it hard to get out door seating requested? We have 530 reservations and I’m kinda hoping to be able to sit outside knowing the parade starts at 6..

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

Is it hard to get out door seating requested? We have 530 reservations and I’m kinda hoping to be able to sit outside knowing the parade starts at 6..

Ymmv. I have been at Carnation at times when they were allowing guests to choose indoor or outdoor seating, and I have been there at times when they have explicitly stated that guests would receive first available seat, no preferences taken into consideration. This was stated at check-in and having a dining reservation did not make a difference.

 

[goooof1]

Parade taping is VERY different from "watching the parade". While taping, the parade will not move steadily on the route. It will stop, wait, get instructions, re-do, start up again, stop...etc, etc.

 

[figment_jii]

I've also had the same experience as longtimedisneylurker; sometimes they'll take seating requests, other times it's whatever comes available next for your party size. The only thing you can do is ask at check-in and hope that they're taking requests (even then, they won't promise you that they'll be able to meet your request).

 

[sgerto]

Thanks for this post! After reading I went and made a 550p reservation for me and my wife on Wednesday 11/14. Hopefully we can get seated where we can watch the 6p parade during dinner.

 

[cmwade77]

Outdoor seating at Carnation Cafe during a parade is actually a great place to be. While it is not a good parade viewing vantage point, eating with the floats going by and parade music adds to the experience IMO. The dining area is fenced off from the general park patrons.

I would just make sure you leave AMPLE time to get though the parade crowd to make you reservation on time.

Actually, there are a couple of tables that offer decent parade viewing, as you end up being able to watch because of where the guest crossing area is. Not many of them, but I would say two or three tables.