Our Night at Villains After Hours (And More Importantly, Is it Worth It?)

New for this summer, Disney added the Villains After Hours hard ticket event. Like the other After Hours events, this one takes place, you guessed it(!), after hours! Once the park closes down for the night, those with an event ticket get to stick around for three hours of extra ride time, free treats, and in the case of the Villains After Hours, some exclusive entertainment.

With ticket prices nearing $150/person including tax, the question that everyone has been asking is whether or not the Villains After Hours event is worth the price, especially when compared with Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. I’ll walk you through our night at Magic Kingdom and share our thoughts at the end! We already had a trip to Orlando planned for this summer but for the first time, we weren’t planning to go to any Disney parks. As soon as this event was announced, we knew we had to add it to our schedule and get a bit of time in our fave park!

Running nearly every Thursday night at Magic Kingdom this summer, the VAH event is technically from 10pm-1am but with your event ticket, you can actually get in at 7pm. We arrived right around 645pm and they were already letting people through the turnstiles to get their party wristband.

We headed straight for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad since it didn’t have a very long wait. If you plan ahead (we did not this time), you can make FP+ selections during the 7pm-10pm window which should help you get on a few extra rides!

As the sun was setting, we made our way over to the Haunted Mansion for a spin on a doom buggy. Surprisingly, there’s no overlays or villainous extras at the HM during the event so we wanted to do it before the After Hours fun officially started.

Unlike the Halloween Party with its own fireworks show, the After Hours events start after the park closes on a regular night- so you can watch Happily Ever After! Rather than stake out a spot on Main Street like we typically do, we caught the fireworks from Fantasyland after riding “it’s a small world” and Peter Pan. From here, you can see the big bursts behind the Fantasyland buildings as well as the ones that go off right by the castle- so literally something to see in every direction! And bonus, it’s not very crowded at all!

After the fireworks and a ride on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, it was time for the event to start!

At 10pm, the cast members start aggressively checking guests for their party wristband and informing those without wristbands that the park is closed and they need to head towards Main Street. It didn’t take long before the park crowds were noticeably lighter.

Since the Villains After Hours ticket includes unlimited (select) snacks and drinks, we made sure to take advantage! Starting at 10pm, carts were located throughout the park with Mickey Premium Ice Cream bars, Mickey Ice Cream Sandwiches, and strawberry popsicles, as well as bottled sodas and water.

After our snack break, we took a spin on the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel- still one of Ellie’s favorite rides- and absolutely no line!

And then made our way into Tomorrowland. During Villains After Hours, Space Mountain has a villainous overlay similar to the one from the Halloween party last year- all of the lights are turned off and there’s a new spooky soundtrack with sound clips from various villains. Since Ellie isn’t quite tall enough to ride, we headed to the People Mover while Jake took the rest of the kids on Space Mountain.

Clearly, Ellie was tired and she passed out on our first loop. Thankfully, when there’s no line, the CMs will typically let you stay on the ride as long as you want so we did three loops while we waited for the rest of the crew. We were hoping that the line for Space Mountain would be short since it was during the stage show, but it was still close to 40 minutes. I’ve heard that if you wait until even later in the event that it’s not quite as bad though.

The kids picked up some popcorn (also a free snack!) after their ride through space and it was the perfect late night snack!

We stopped for another round of Mickey ice cream bars and a quick PhotoPass picture on our way into the hub at around midnight. Unfortunately, at this point of the evening, the ice cream bars were fairly melty and didn’t last long after this picture was taken. I’m not sure if it was the ridiculously hot night or the fact that they were serving them out of ice bowls, but they were definitely not frozen treats.

Pirates of the Caribbean also had a villainous overlay so of course, we had to check that one out! Like the Halloween party overlay, there were two pirates in the queue interacting with guests and Captain Barbossa on a bridge in the ride. The addition of Captain Barbossa worked better than the Not So Scary version, so hopefully, they continue this one in the fall.

The party DJ did a great job pumping up the crowd and played some great music while we waited for the final showing of Villains Unite the Night, the all-new, event exclusive stage show.

With Hades and Meg headlining Villains Unite the Night and appearances from Jafar, The Queen, Dr. Facilier and Maleficent, the show is a must-do! The show runs at 11pm, 12am, and 1am- and yes, you read that right, the last show is when the event ends, so if you stick around for that one you won’t miss out on any ride time.

While Villains Unite the Night is not a fireworks show, there are still a few bursts so be prepared if you have kiddos that are afraid of fireworks.

This right here is the ENTIRE reason I bought tickets to this event! Ok, maybe not the entire reason, but a huge part of it! For the first time ever, the Maleficent float from the Festival of Fantasy parade is roaming the streets of Magic Kingdom. Now, she doesn’t technically “roam” but rather follows the parade route. At 104opm and 1145pm she goes from Frontierland to the Hub (and back) but at 120am, she makes her way from Frontierland all the way down Main Street! It was such a cool experience to see her breathing fire at night and a great way to push guests out of the park.

An empty Main Street at the end of the night. Late at night, after all the crowds have gone home is one one of my absolute favorite times to be in Magic Kingdom.

Our Final Thoughts on Villains After Hours

While we had a fun evening, it’s so hard to answer the question “Is it worth it?” because that’s totally subjective. For roughly $145 you get: three hours of open park time, three hours after the park closes, unlimited (select) snacks, event exclusive entertainment. If you compare that to the Halloween party that you can attend for as low as $79 (in August and September) and you get: three hours of open park time, five hours of party time, trick or treating, party exclusive entertainment including a fireworks show, full parade, and stage show, it’s hard to see how it’s a good value.

For our family, it was a great way to spend an evening in our favorite WDW park and we certainly enjoyed the night but it was REALLY expensive for all seven of us to attend. In the future, I would go again without the kids (even though they had no problems staying up that late- and after her People Mover nap Ellie stayed awake until we got back to the hotel at 3am) because it would help to keep the cost down a bit. If you have little ones that won’t stay awake through the event then it’s definitely not worth the ticket price to bring the whole family.

There were event exclusive snacks available for purchase (some are also available at Not So Scary) and we didn’t try any of them. We figured that for the price, we would just stick to the free snacks and that worked out perfectly. We also made sure to eat dinner before we arrived so that we didn’t waste any of our limited park time on meals. There’s also VAH merchandise available but surprisingly, no event pin!

In order to maximize your time in the park, make sure to arrive before 7pm to take advantage of a few hours in the park before the event officially starts. If you plan to watch the last showing of Villains Unite the Night at 1am, then you can catch Maleficent as she makes it to Main Street at about 135am. There were people taking pictures and hanging out on Main Street until right around 2am. If you stay that late, busses are the only transportation option as the monorail and ferry boats are done running for the night at that point– and if you stay super late, you’ll probably end up with a private bus… not that we would know anything about that…

Villains After Hours Ticket Info

• The event runs June: 6, 13, 20, 27  July: 1, 11, 18, 25  August: 1, 8 2019
• Advance purchase tickets are $139+tax for all ages and $144 on the day of the event. If you’re an annual passholder or DVC, advance purchase tickets are $109+tax
• You can either purchase tickets directly from Disney online or at any ticket window.
• Military tickets are available from Shades of Green for $142 including tax

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