Fantasmic Dinning in the past 30 days or so???

[Disney_Barbie]

Hi All!
I was wondering if anyone has done the fantasmic dinner package lately (like REALLY recently, say for the past month or so). We did it a few years ago, but I read on an other site some really bad things about it nowadays. I read that there is no longer a special entrance, that you now need to wait in line with every one else & once you get to the front of the line you will be guided to a special section. However, once you wait in this line you have missed your window of checking in 30+ mins early (or however much early they tell you to check in) and that after that amount of time they start giving away the reserved section to everyone else. Can anyone confrim that this is / is not true? I'm hoping it was just an exageration or perhaps one faux-pa that just ended up happening for 1 night.
The last time we did the Fantasmic dinner package, they kept the section reserved all night, so literally we were all stretched out with tons of room and people were all crammed right on the other side of the rope. I thought that was a bit extream, I mean once we got to be like 10 mins before the show or whatever, I would have been fine with haveing non-package people come sit next to us. But, the reason we get the fantasmic dinner package is because we can't sit still just waiting for 1-2hours. We like to stroll in 30-45 mins (or whatever it is) before the show but still being able to sit (not standing-room-only) But if we still have to show up 1-2 hrs early, it's not worth it to me. Can anyone confirm if this other sites' poster was just exagerating???

[Stu29573]

When I was concerned about how early I had to make my ressies in order to get the package, the dining CM I was talking to actually discouraged me from doing the package. She said that there is really no advantage to it anymore, and I would do just as well (if not better) to show up early and wait with everyone else. As that fit in with my schedule a little better, that's what I decided to do. I leave in three weeks, so we'll see how it goes...

[ljv1975]

A friend of mine was at Disney last week and it is true that there is no longer a special entrance. You wait in the regular line, and at the top they split into two lines - those with the dining pass and those without. The CM told her that they open the reserved section 45 minutes prior to the show, so you would have to stand in line for a while to be sure you reached the section within that time frame.

She asked the CM why they changed it and they said a lot of people were abusing the special entrance saying that they had lost their pass, etc. so they decided to do away with it. Just one more example of how a few people trying to cheat the system causes everyone to suffer. :( I wish they would have started doing wristbands or a hand stamp or something. It would be much harder to "lose" a wristband.

We have decided not to do the dining package this year. Since we have two small kids, (4 and 1) DH will wait in the line while I take them to see Playhouse Disney or something. Then we'll have to meet up inside the amphitheater. The kids will sit on our laps, so DH will only have to save one seat for me. I hope that doesn't count as line jumping or anything, but our kids would never wait in line that long just to sit in the theater for longer to wait for the show to start. That was the number 1 reason we liked getting the package. Oh well.