The Main Street hub area in front of Cinderella Castle is starting to take shape as the new area in front of Casey’s Corner is now open to guests. Plaza Gardens West was opened on February 25th for guests to walk through at their leisure. Astro turf has been laid in the area and we found several guests using the fake grass to lay on and take a break from their vacation day. Our own children, Carson and Courtney, also found the new area to be a fun place to run and play as well during the day.

The new area consists of two sub areas: one area with astro turf laid to allow guests to lounge at their leisure during the day as well as serving as a Fast Pass area for Wishes at night and the other displaying a new Plaza Gardens water fountain. February 27th will be the first day the area will be used as a FastPass viewing area for the Wishes fireworks show. Additional walkways have also been opened for guests to allow for greater crowd movement throughout the day. These new walkways will also help with crowds wanting to move through the area during nighttime parades, Celebrate the Magic castle show, and Wishes. The walkways have a white-ish color standing in stark contrast to the dark gray cement of Main Street and its sidewalks.

Here’s a video walk through of the new area, just before the 7:00 PM Main Street Electric Parade:

This is the first area of the hub construction to open to guests. In the following weeks as we pass into March 2015, Plaza Gardens East should open to guests. This area, in front of the Plaza Restaurant, will be a mirror image of its West partner and will serve as a second FastPass area for Wishes viewing. Walkways will also help with crowd flow during the nighttime events in the hub as well.

The West area is a great location to view Wishes from, but not the most ideal to photograph it from due to all the light poles and CMs with light sabers walking around. To give you an idea of how Wishes looks from the front left corner of the FP West area:

The Rose Garden, set to be the former Wishes FP viewing area, will be the next area of the hub to undergo construction. No word at this point what the changes will be for this area, but it’s not likely to be a FP in the future.

The circle part of the hub, where the Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse partner statue is located, is still under construction. It appears dirt work is still progressing with hard surface work to begin soon. Once completed, the area behind the partner statue (between the statue and the castle) will serve as the future FP viewing area for the Main Street Electric Parade. The area in front of the partner statue will then serve as a reserved area for guests with disabilities.

We’ll keep updating with new pics as more areas of the hub are completed!