New Villains After Hours at Magic Kingdom
Beginning this summer at Walt Disney World, the new Villains After Hours event will occur in Magic Kingdom. In this post, we’ll share the entertainment lineup, dates for the hard ticket party, and offer some thoughts, including how this compares to Villains Unleashed, a one-off special event at Disney’s Hollywood Studios a few years ago. (All but one of the photos in this post are from that event–I finally have an excuse to post them!)
First, the basics. Disney Villains After Hours will be held on select nights from June 6 through August 8, 2019. The event will offer a villains theme, with exclusive entertainment including an all-new stage show, food & beverage, merchandise, and more.
Disney Villains After Hours is being marketed as a summer twist on the normal After Hours at Magic Kingdom event. To us, it sounds more like a cross between After Hours and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, arguably bearing more in common with the latter. Given its summer timing, it’s probably occurring because it’s simply too early (even by Walt Disney World standards) to start an event with “Halloween” in the name in June…
For those who are unfamiliar with the ‘After Hours’ component, it’s a limited capacity event promising low wait times at over 20 attractions and experiences in Magic Kingdom (it’s also offered at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom).
Disney After Hours started a couple years ago and has grown in popularity since. The event allows entry at 7 p.m., which gives time to watch Happily Ever After before doing attractions. Unlimited ice cream, popcorn, and bottled beverages are also included in the cost of the event.
Rides open during Disney After Hours include Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, and more. Typically, wait times peak at 30 minutes for the most popular attractions, with many attractions being walk-ons during the party.
Presumably, you’re familiar with the popular hard ticket Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom. If not, we have a comprehensive 2019 Guide to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party that covers all of the basics, plus much more.
As for the unique offerings that Disney Villains After Hours brings to the table, here’s what we know so far based upon Disney’s official announcement…
There will be an all-new Disney Villains stage show called “Villains Unite the Night” featuring Hades and Meg from Hercules as they set the castle stage ablaze.
This will also include appearances by Jafar, The Queen, Dr. Facilier, Maleficent, and other villains.
Another intriguing piece of entertainment is that the Maleficent the Dragon float from Festival of Fantasy parade at Magic Kingdom will be “let loose” for the first time at night.
This Steampunk style float will breath fire as it creeps through the park in a one-of-a-kind experience for party guests. It’ll be interesting to what degree this float is actually free roaming. Probably not much at all, especially given the whole “breathing fire” thing and the incident last year.
As with Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, there will be a couple of attraction overlays. For the Disney Villains After Hours event, there will be villains-inspired additions to Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain.
Note that these are two of the three attractions that had Halloween overlays last year, with a different slate of attractions rumored to be receiving Halloween overlays. This makes sense now, as it would be a way to differentiate the two events.
Finally, there will be a variety of “wickedly good” special food & beverage offerings, including tasty desserts, drinks, and dishes inspired by The Queen, Cruella de Vil, Maleficent, Hades, Dr. Facilier, Emperor Zurg, and more.
Along with this, there will be new logo merchandise for Disney Villains After Hours, as well as items from a curated collection of the best Disney Villains merchandise available.
Disney Villains After Hours tickets cost $139 in advance or $144 on the event night (plus tax). Annual Passholder and Disney Vacation Club Members can save $30 per ticket. Tickets for Disney Villains After Hours event nights will go on sale April 29, 2019.
Alright, now for some commentary. My first thought upon seeing this announcement is that it’s very reminiscent of Villains Unleashed, an event that took place at Disney’s Hollywood Studios a few years ago. That one-night event featured a stage show hosted by Hades, included appearances by 50 villains (many rare), Oogie Boogie’s Freaky Funhouse Show, and the Villainy in the Sky Fireworks.
Depending upon who you ask, it was either an unmitigated disaster (pretty much everyone but me) or one of the zaniest and most envelope-pushing things (my take) Walt Disney World has done in recent memory. While billed as a one-night event, it was a test to see if themed nights like this would work, with other concepts planned for the future.
Before the night was even over, it was abundantly clear that Villains Unleashed was a train wreck, and definitely a one-and-done.
I distinctly remember watching Oogie Boogie’s Freaky Funhouse Show and thinking, “this is excellent, but I can’t believe they’re doing it!” as a constant stream of families fled towards the exits (that’s not an understatement).
It turns out that having a risqué stage show was the least of the problems for Villains Unleashed. While there were a ton of meet & greets, those offerings have a very low hourly capacity, and most guests who bought tickets were huge character fans.
Imagine an event where every single character meet & greet has lines on par with the Seven Dwarfs or Jack Skellington during the holiday parties, and you have a rough idea of how this went. Suffice to say, the Guest Relations line at the end of the night was quite long.
I wasn’t there to meet any characters, so that didn’t bother me–in fact, it helped. Crowds throughout the park were non-existent because most other guests were in those lines.
Personally, I found the production values on all of the entertainment to be top notch. While I can recognize that they went a bit too far with Oogie Boogie’s Freaky Funhouse Show, I enjoyed it.
Irrespective of individual experiences, I think it’s pretty undeniable that there were some good ideas behind Villains Unleashed.
Unfortunately, those ‘good idea nuggets’ were buried under an avalanche of poor planning, event execution, capacity issues, and pushing the envelope of what’s appropriate at a park with “Disney’s” in the name.
My suspicion and hope is that Walt Disney World’s entertainment and events teams learned from what worked and didn’t with Villains Unleashed. Ideally, they are cherry-picking the best ideas from that for Disney Villains After Hours and pairing it with shades of the Halloween Party and regular After Hours events. Basically, I would expect the material at Disney Villains After Hours to be totally fresh, but with a familiar tone and vibe.
As for whether Disney After Hours is worth the money, or is another hard ticket cash grab remains to be seen. The price is definitely steep, but so too are the normal After Hours and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party tickets. The former was going to happen during this timeframe regardless, so if anything, Walt Disney World putting in the effort to enhance that ‘paid EMH’ event with new entertainment seems like a small victory. The proliferation of these events throughout the year at Magic Kingdom, and the corresponding decrease in daily operating hours, does remain very concerning.
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Your Thoughts
Are you excited for Disney Villains After Hours? Will you be attending the event? Do you agree or disagree with our perspective on this? Did you attend Villains Unleashed? 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!
Will there still be fireworks, etc. at the end of the night?
Any idea what time on April 29 the tickets will go on sale?
Does anyone know if i can attend villian party with only that ticket ? Im coming for 3 days starting that evening and was hoping to buy the villian ticket and a 2 day hopper for Friday and Saturday
Yes you can. You will be let in at 7pm with just the event ticket
I love special ticketed events, and sometimes would gladly skip a crowded day at the park for sleeping in late, resort relaxing, pool or water park time, dining and then hit the parks later for a party or event that is less crowded and I’ll get more for my money. I mean, we have annual passes so it’s not like each park day is costing me extra so Indont really have to sacrifice the park day for an event but I love that generally, the crowds are lower. Although the Halloween party does get pretty busy. Especially for the shows/parades and popular characters. (Still haven’t met Jack and sally… was totally prepared last year and they moved their meet and greet location the day we went to the party and I didn’t know and then the line was crazy long) I’ve often complained that there weren’t enough villain meet and greets during the Halloween season/parties and that it could really be ramped up and have been waiting and waiting and waiting for a villain event to come back so I’m pretty thrilled.
It seems that Disney spends more time trying to figure out “special events” to make more money, than they do on making everyone’s vacation Magical. The Greed is apparent. When you spend all that money on your Disney vacation only to spend more to see characters that should be in the parks it’s a major turn-off. It seem like you buy your tickets, but then the parks close early for special ticketed events that are a additional expense, just to enjoy what your tickets should cover in the first place. Not sure how long the greed will continue before they realize people can’t afford to enjoy Disney
I’m glad they’re doing more with the villains – they’re a largely untapped resource. I told my son about the Club Villain thing from a few years back and he was hoping they’d have a similar offering soon. We’ll see if we can swing a trip this summer.
For the most part, I avoid these types of ‘extras’. I pay enough for visiting without addding the extra expense of party’s. I remember after I booked my first trip I found out there would be 3 Halloween Parties and MK would be closing at 7 those nights. I was pretty upset that the CM didn’t inform me of this when I booked. This was before I realized this was the ‘norm’. I’ll probably cave at some point tho. I did the Christmas Party, I’m just not into Halloween.
Robin,
IMO, the Halloween party is simply awesome. Great fireworks, treats, shows… I know that you said you are not into Halloween but the parade alone is worth the price of admission… my opinion only.
DC
The Halloween party is definitely the better of the two parties. You don’t really have to be in to Halloween to enjoy it. Some people love the magic of Christmas and combining that with Disney is just extra magical. But the entertainment at the Halloween party blows Christmas out of the water.
A few years ago we attended a dinner called Club Villian. I was hoping that this was the return of that event. Dinner, dancing, personal meet and greet, and an open bar. We had a great time and would pay the ticket price again.
Tom, any word on why Disney did not continue this?
THANKS, DC
You mentioned something about a decrease in daily operating hours? Are hours changing? How so?
whenever they have an event like this, the park has to close early for day guests. that means likely 6 or 7pm. i remember when magic kingdom was consistently open until 10pm, and if there were evening magic hours, that went until 1am some nights. the days of those are long gone because they’ve figured out people will shell out more money for a few parks hours than it costs to actually get in on a full day ticket. now, my question is why in the world people think that makes sense. throw in one little “extra” and people line up. the parties i understand, especially if you get a less expensive night. but paying more than what it costs to get in the park for a full day?
Hahah I completely agree! I contemplated it for a minute, and then thought, why?! I can get the park hopper and go somewhere else until that park closes, and it will most likely be quiet everywhere else because of the other people flocking to the event. I live in California, and who knows when my family and I will be back to WDW. So I can understand wanting to get the most out of our trip no matter what the cost, but I’d rather get the dining ticket instead, or get a hotel upgrade!
I’m looking at park hours for some of those nights, and they have them set until 10pm. It says MK regular hours are from 9am – 10pm, and then the After Hours event is from 9pm – midnight.
So, I don’t think regular ticket goers will be inconvenienced as much as on party nights for MNSSHP or MVMCP.
But attending magic kingdom on a party day and then hopping out once the party crowd starts arriving is amazing. People without park hoppers avoid MK that day and the crowds are generally lower.
The park is closing at 10:00. DAH Villians starts at 10:00 and ends at 1:00.
how about instead they just build a 5th gate and make it the long prayed for Villians Kingdom…
i know, i know
Right?!!! If only dreams came true â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸
I need a maleficent castle!!!
Yes!!!!! I need a maleficent castle too