Unleash the Villains

Friday the 13th, there was a Limited Time Magic event at Hollywood Studios called Unleash the Villains. Disney has been advertising this event ever since the Limited Time Magic campaign was announced. As soon as it was announced, I knew it was going to be a disaster and I was right. I don't know who was in charge of planning this event but they couldn't have done a worse job if they tried. It was by far the worst Limited Time Magic event that I attended.

I arrived at Hollywood Studios somewhere between 3:30 and 4:00. I took a few pictures, looked at the Villains area, and had a pretzel. A while later, I saw a lady wearing a Maleficent ears headband and I had to have it. I asked her where she got it and she told me it was at Villains in Vogue. I went there and it was a madhouse. I finally got inside, couldn't find the Maleficent ears, asked where they were, and they were sold out. I was so disappointed. Maleficent is my favorite villain and the ears were amazing. I really hope they bring them back.

I headed over to the villains area and met up with Jess, her boyfriend Pete, and a few other people. None of us had any idea which villains would be at each location. So, we all split up, and we planned on moving to the line of whoever got Oogie Boogie because that's who we all wanted to meet. Now, normally I would never go join people in line, but this was such a horribly organized event that it was our only shot of meeting Oogie Boogie.


So, we were all on lines around 6:00 and the villains were due to start meeting at 8:30. The queues were full long before 8:30. In fact, the entire area, including all the steps were full of people. There was a real lack of CM's in the area and it felt unsafe. I sat on the ground until some CM's came around and told us we weren't allowed to sit. I have no idea why though. The people sitting were all in the queue and had been there for almost two hours at that point. Finally, somewhere around 8:00 we were all told what characters we were getting. The line I was in was getting Jafar and Oogie Boogie. We were told three times that we would be getting Oogie Boogie first. The characters came out about twenty minutes late and the first character we got was Jafar. There were a group of people in front of us who were standing to the side so I asked them if they were waiting for Oogie Boogie and they told me yes. So, I, along with the other eight people I was waiting with decided that we were going to wait too since we were told that Oogie Boogie would be first. A CM came over and was trying to force us all to meet Jafar but we were not budging. I decided to speak up and told her that we were told three times that Oogie Boogie would be first and that we were going to wait for him. The CM then starts to yell at me, came over to me, and reached out her hand to grab me. I think she realized what she was doing at the last second and didn't touch me.

Finally, an amazing CM named Teresa came over and organized everything. She separated the queue into two lines; one for Jafar and one for Oogie Boogie. I thanked her for doing that and told her that we all appreciate it. She also made sure that we got autograph cards since they were almost out of them and we had been waiting. Oogie Boogie came out about thirty minutes later. When it was almost my turn to meet him, the CM that yelled at me came over and apologized. It felt like a sincere apology and I told her that I appreciated it.





After we met Oogie Boogie, we went to check out the Bowler Hat Guy/Maleficent line. I could not believe how long it was. It went from their location, near Gertie's head, all the way around to American Idol.
The X is about where their area was and the purple line was the length of the line. It was unreal.


We decided to get on the Evil Queen/Shan Yu line to meet Shan Yu. I don't even know how long we were on that line but it was a while. Thankfully, we were all able to meet Shan Yu.

They had these around the area.


I took pictures of the Evil Queen and Jafar while waiting for Shan Yu.






We then decided to try our luck at the Bowler Hat Guy/Maleficent line. While we were in line, I went and got an autograph card at the dance party. They also handed out free bottles of water to those of us waiting. We waited in the line for about an hour and a half when a CM comes up to tell us that they are closing the line up front and we're not going to be able to meet them. I told her that I thought it was pretty crappy of them to let us stand here for an hour and a half and then close the line and they should have closed it earlier. She told me something about how it's so hard to judge how long the wait will be. You know, because this was the first time ever that characters were out doing meet and greets. I told her that it was unacceptable to let us wait here for an hour and a half just to be told that we can't meet the characters. She basically told me "Too bad, you're not meeting them, and it's not my fault." But don't worry, we got cards with the contact information for Guest Services so we can complain or request a picture of any villain that was there. I will be using the contact information but it won't be to ask for a picture.

Oh, I was able to see the Villainy in the Sky fireworks while I was waiting on the Bowler Hat Guy/Maleficent line.











After we were kicked out of line, we went and waited by the door near the Great Movie Ride to try to see some of the villains as they went to and from the stage.












These are the autograph cards that were handed out. Sorry for the bad quality but they're from my phone because I never took pictures of them with my camera.







Overall, it was the worst Limited Time Magic event that I have attended. I waited on lines for six hours and met two characters. I was actually shocked at how poorly planned it was. There were so many people crammed into such a small area for meet and greets and there was absolutely no crowd control. After we met Oogie Boogie, we had to work our way through people that were standing on the steps to get out of there. It was unsafe and the steps should have been roped off. You were also only allowed one picture per character, so I didn't get any pictures of them posing for me. I understood the rule since there were a lot of people. However, the meet and greets were extremely rushed. Most of the fun of meeting characters is interacting with them and they weren't having any of that. I heard several CM's just yelling at people, "Let's go!", "Hurry up!" The poor planning is what really ruined this event. I was also shocked that they only had regular character attendants trying to manage everything. Management should be appalled by the way things were handled.