On one of my very first Disney trips, I had the great misfortune of meeting…Jafar. I say misfortune because I was four or five and I was TERRIFIED of him in the movie so seeing him up close and personal more or less scarred me for life. Since that point I was never really a fan of the villain’s but as I got older and less scared of characters, I wanted to meet a few. So when tickets for Villain’s Unleashed became available I jumped all over it! I didn’t hurt that the event was the day after my birthday so I decided to treat myself to a little fun with some Disney villains. The event itself is my very first hard ticket event at a Disney park so I didn’t really know what to expect. I had heard the horror stories about the event last year and while I had no real expectations I was a little bit nervous about what I was jumping into.
I kept an eye on the blogs to see which villains would be making an appearance that night and I was pleased with the list. I’m a hard core Princess and the Frog stan so Dr. Facillier was at the top of my list and of course bowler hat guy because I absolutely LOVE Meet the Robinsons. With this in mind I set out to Disney Hollywood Studios for the event on Saturday. I’m lucky I live very close to the park so my drive was short and sweet and I parked my car and headed to bag check. I didn’t have any issues with parking. On my walk up to the entrance I realized that people were actually dressing up for this and I saw some AMAZING costumes. I got through everything quickly grabbed my badge and headed to get a map. Even when I arrived I noticed there weren’t a ton of maps left but I got mine and headed off towards the sorcerer’s hat. I looked around it didn’t seem to be particularly busy but I wanted to be near to where the characters were meeting so after asking directions I headed to the back lot. That was the central hub of characters for the night and about every 60 feet there was a meet and greet. I looked at the times and I got in Bowler hat guy’s line.
He came out promptly at 8:30 and we were then informed that the characters would not be signing so when the meet started we flew through. I headed off to see Dr. Facillier and I had to wait a little bit because he had to go converse with his friends on the other side for a few minutes. Once he returned it took no time at all to get through the line, but I got to speak to him long enough for him to tell me I was pretty. I was VERY happy about that :P. It was then I decided to make the trek over to the Animation Courtyard to see about Maleficient- who is the snazzy new Angelina Jolie version now- and her wait was 3 hours long! So I skipped off to see about Captain Barbossa and after deciding I didn’t want to wait an hour for him I went to see about the evil queen. I hopped in her line and got to chat up Gaston while I waited. Cut to 25 minutes later and I had my photo and ran into Prince John and got a regal looking selfie. And Mr. Stromboli was ever the gentleman. And my last character of the night was Shan Yu himself and let me tell you he was so scary but awesome in person.
I was so pleased I managed 6 characters that evening and they might not have been everyone’s top picks but I was really happy with it. I’ve heard so many complaints about the event and I won’t say it wasn’t without its flaws. But it was what your made of it. I personally went into the event with the idea I wouldn’t get to do everything. I wanted to see the characters, so I skipped all the shows, and the merchandise. I had an amazing time that night and my hope is that Walt Disney World will have this event multiple times during the Halloween season next year. I can hope right but heres to a night of wicked wiles and villainy I had a blast!
