Our favorite date night at Walt Disney World is doing ‘dinner and a fireworks show’ outside Magic Kingdom. We’ve done this more times than I can count, sometimes as part of a multi-stop monorail crawl and other times all from one spot by eating at one of the best restaurants for Happily Ever After views.
Up until recently, our #1 way to do this was by staying at Bay Lake Tower. We’d typically have dinner at Steakhouse 71 or Contempo Cafe, walk back to our room, and then take the elevator up to Top of the World Lounge for an up-close view of Happily Ever After. Bonus points if this was followed up with a nightcap of the Seven Layer Cake.
Some of our best memories of watching the Magic Kingdom fireworks are actually from Bay Lake Tower. Almost 15 years ago when BLT was brand-new, we stayed in a Grand Villa for New Year’s Eve and watched the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks on both December 30th and 31st from the viewing deck. Due to the off-center location and the wider perimeter bursts, it felt like we were truly immersed in the pyro. That’s an experience we likely won’t soon top, but we do have a new favorite resort view at Walt Disney World!
To the surprise of no one who has stayed there, our new #1 pick is the new Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Resort.
Located on the shores of Seven Seas Lagoon, the new Island Tower is essentially between the existing Great Ceremonial House at the Poly and the Grand Floridian, and right next door to Disney’s Wedding Pavilion. It added 260 guest rooms to the Polynesian, in a variety of room and view types, including stunning ones of Magic Kingdom.
Most notably, the Island Tower is 10 stories tall, making it one of the tallest structures in the Seven Seas Lagoon skyline, behind only Bay Lake Tower and the A-frame of Disney’s Contemporary Resort, which are 15 stories each.
Unlike those resorts, Island Tower inexplicably does not have a rooftop restaurant or lounge.
I will never understand this decision. One of the biggest ‘infrastructure’ problems at the Poly is fireworks viewing. This has been an issue for the last several years, and one that has only gotten worse even as Walt Disney World has cracked down on access to the beach and resort as a whole. The problem is that the Poly is ‘porous,’ so there will always be visitors watching from the beach. It’s unavoidable.
Adding the Island Tower further burdens the already overburdened infrastructure of the resort with another 260 guest rooms, which are both higher capacity and occupancy than the existing resort. Having a rooftop deck would’ve helped solve that issue when it comes to fireworks viewing from the Polynesian, maybe even offloading some of the existing stress on the beach.
Even if that weren’t an issue, why leave money on the table? Topolino’s Terrace at Disney’s Riviera Resort is a hugely popular character dining experience at breakfast and a Signature Restaurant at dinner. It’s one of the highest-demand Advance Dining Reservations for both meals, and seems like a license to print money.
There are several little short-sighted decisions that Walt Disney World has made in the post-reopening era, and value-engineering the Island Tower to be as inexpensive as possible to construct is right up there with building CommuniCore Hall as opposed to the multi-level festival center with its own rooftop deck. Surely those dessert parties, dinner packages and everything else would pay for the added upfront infrastructure costs many times over in the decades to come?! But I digress.
This isn’t the place to once again air my grievances with the Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. Instead, it’s to praise the feature I love most about the ugly brown box: the terrace gardens.
Disney Vacation Club Members and guests staying at the Island Tower can enjoy exclusive access to four tropical terrace gardens. So not exactly free, but “free” since it’s included with a stay at the Island Tower. And a feature worth emphasizing because DVC could’ve allocated this prime real estate to pricey Grand Villas or some other monetized space.
Each terrace garden features vibrant artwork, lush foliage, and uniquely themed seating areas. The distinctively designed hideaways offer families a serene locale to gather and take in the views during their stay. These oases amidst the Island Tower offer lovely escapes and breathtaking views.
There are two terrace gardens on each side of the building, meaning half of them offer views of Disney’s Oak Trail and Magnolia Golf Courses, and a bunch of road construction as part of the Floridian Way widening and Polynesian entrance re-routing project. This construction view is neither breathtaking nor serene.
The other two terraces are where this feature shines. These feature formidable views of the Seven Seas Lagoon, making the terrace gardens a spectacular place for viewing Magic Kingdom fireworks.
Here’s where each of the terrace gardens are found within the Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort:
- 3rd Floor: Bamboo Terrace Garden
- 4th Floor: Lava Rock Terrace Garden
- 5th Floor: Wave Break Terrace Garden
- 6th Floor: Lagoon Reef Terrace Garden
The views from the odd-numbered terrace gardens are of Seven Seas Lagoon and Magic Kingdom. The even-numbered terrace gardens are the golf courses and construction. For obvious reasons, we’ll focus our attention on the former duo of viewing decks.
The terrace gardens are for the exclusive use of guests who are staying in the Island Tower.
Even if you are a Disney Vacation Member who owns at the Polynesian Villas and are staying at the Poly DVC longhouses in Moorea, Tokelau or Pago Pago, you still will not have access!
This is because, unlike most other Walt Disney World resorts, you need to scan your MagicBand or Key to the World card in order to use the elevators before selecting the floor. It works similarly to most Club Levels, in that only registered guests of the Island Tower can access guest floors.
My potentially unpopular opinion is that this restricted access is a good thing.
I would note that there’s also keycard access on the doors to the terrace gardens themselves, but the times I’ve stayed at Island Tower thus far, this has not been activated. Frankly, I wish it were.
On one of the nights when I was watching the fireworks from the terrace garden, a drunken gaggle of guests occupying the front row seats was loudly boasting about how they weren’t actually staying at the resort. (They obviously knew this wasn’t going to endear them to anyone else; it was almost as if they were seeking a confrontation, which they never got.)
I’m not saying this because I’m some “let them eat cake” Walt Disney World elitist. To the contrary, our stays at Island Tower will be few and far between; we won’t be able to access the terrace gardens when staying at All Star Sports or anywhere else, which we do far more often than the Poly.
However, I can recognize that as a practical reality, prime fireworks viewing in these spaces is a scarce resource that should be treated like it is–as an amenity for registered guests who are staying in the Island Tower. If there’s still excess capacity with the keycard system (there isn’t!), expand the eligibility pool to all guests staying at the Polynesian Villas or even on the hotel side.
Expensive hotels ration and reserve amenities for registered guests pretty much everywhere. I’m not sure why this concept is controversial among Walt Disney World fans. People paying Poly prices/points should have priority over visitors.
As mentioned above, the Bamboo Terrace Garden and Wave Break Terrace Garden have views of the Seven Seas Lagoon. Beyond ‘aerial’ views of the Polynesian longhouses, you can see the Disney’s Contemporary and Grand Floridian Resorts, as well as Magic Kingdom, including Cinderella Castle, Space Mountain, and TRON Lightcycle Run.
Most importantly, you can watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks from up here! That means either Happily Ever After or, better yet, the fireworks during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, both of which feature partial perimeter bursts.
While you’re waiting, you can catch the Electrical Water Pageant. It’s actually a lot of fun to see the barges make their way from the Poly to Grand Floridian, Wilderness Lodge, and back towards the Contemporary.
Between the Bamboo Terrace Garden and Wave Break Terrace Garden, the latter has the better view.
This is obviously subjective, but it’s the higher of the two and it’s more centered and it’s angled more towards Magic Kingdom thanks to the curvature of the building.
My room during was right across from the Bamboo Terrace, but I walked up to the Wave Break Terrace Garden because the view was superior. There are convenient stairwells and also, obviously, the elevators.
I would also argue that the Island Tower offers the best theme park view of any monorail loop resort. Bay Lake Tower does have the closest and most elevated view, but it also has more visual blight than the other resorts.
Between you and the park is a huge parking lot, bus drop-off area, and road. The perspective is also far off-center, as the Contemporary is located mostly to the east of Magic Kingdom and overlooks Tomorrowland.
By contrast, the Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort is to the southwest of Magic Kingdom. This means the view is more centered, which is nice when it comes to fireworks. It’s farther away than the Contemporary, but the Seven Seas Lagoon is in the foreground instead of a parking lot.
The view from the Island Tower is like a lovely layer cake with water, other resorts, boats, and electrical pageants all in the foreground. Almost as good as the delicious kind of layer cake served at Top of the World!
During the daytime, the terrace gardens are surprisingly serene. Not that I was expecting them to be overcrowded, but I’ve spent a lot of time working on my laptop in the Wave Break Terrace Garden–probably close to 20 hours over the course of several days–and there were other people in there for a grand total of no more than one (1) hour during that time, in total.
The other ~19 hours, I was the only person in there. I would routinely enjoy my coffee here between 5 and 6 am before heading to Magic Kingdom for Early Entry, then return to work from 10 or 11 am through 5 pm.
The terraces wouldn’t see much traffic until around 3 or 4 pm, at which point there were a lot of pop-ins (presumably guests checking in) to admire the view and quickly snap photos. But most were in and out in a hurry.
Evenings are a different, even before fireworks time. From around 6 pm to 8 pm, there are usually guests in there. About 30 minutes before the fireworks, the space starts filling up.
If you want a front row view, you should probably err on the side of caution and arrive 45 minutes in advance. Perhaps an hour for the MNSSHP and MVMCP fireworks, and maybe even longer for New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July. Those are just guesses, though. I’ve only watched Happily Ever After from here (so far).
That’s not strictly necessary–you might be fine with far less time. I’ve only watched the fireworks from up here a few times–a very low sample size–and would say that most guests arrived 5-10 minutes before showtime.
Suffice to say, I absolutely love these terrace gardens. For all of the complaining I’ve done about the Island Tower, I have nothing but effusive praise for the terrace gardens. They are something special, and I’m glad Walt Disney World included these in the design, as they are a wonderful feature in an otherwise amenity-lacking tower.
I would go as far as to say that I prefer the terrace gardens to a rooftop restaurant or lounge. That comes down to the practical reality of access; I’ve already spent more time in these terraces than Topolino’s Terrace or Top of the World, which comes down to the ease of access and freedom to come and go whenever.
They’re also covered, meaning I can work on a laptop in terraces no matter the weather. It was actually quite serene and calming to watch an afternoon thunderstorm roll in and out from here, although I did have to move away from the front row to avoid the rain.
These terrace gardens are without a doubt one of my new favorite spots in all of Walt Disney World, and I figured they deserved an “appreciation” post given how much criticism I’ve had for the Island Tower as a whole. In fact, I’ve spent more waking time in them than the guest rooms in the Island Tower!
To that point, I wouldn’t even consider paying more cash or points for a room with a view at the Island Tower, as the terrace gardens are a much better balcony–and for free! It’s honestly shocking that Disney allocated this space not to rooms they could sell, but to a free feature that would actively undercut the “need” for guests to book higher-priced theme park view rooms. I cannot wait to head back here late at night or early in the morning and enjoy a cup of coffee and watch Magic Kingdom wake up or go to sleep, as the case may be.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of the terrace gardens at the Island Tower? Have you already enjoyed these spaces for fireworks viewing or midday lounging? Does the presence of this “free” feature make you less inclined to book a theme park view room? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!