"Unleash the Villains" mayhem - Disney Parks Blog up if you want to comment

[tlenzendorf]

After reading all of this the thing the strikes me the most is how awful this must have been for the castmembers. To be stuck out in that with unclear instructions, mobs of angry people, and no choice but to stand there and try to make it all work must have been horrendous.

You can't really blame them for that mess. I'm sure none of them made the decisions on how to run this party, or how many people to let in. They were just stuck trying to make sense out of someone elses poorly thought out plan.

I have neighbours who just took their kids for their first Disney trip ever this week. I've spent months helping them plan and telling them how wonderful Disney is. I desperately hope they were nowhere near this mess or I guarantee you they'll never go back.

You are right. We saw cast members moving crowds who were just dancing and having a great time. The CMs with the terrible attitudes were the ones not working, drinking and swearing and partying it up at the Tune Inn.

We stopped at GR about them. My boyfriend told the CM what you said. If this was our first trip and this was the experience we would never be back.

 

[4kids4karen]

I am not going to read 10+ pages and I may be repeating what others have said, but we are in Tampa so a lot of our FB friends went and are posting how disorganized it was and how disappointed they were. Even those that made it into the part say they were disappointed, the ones tuck in traffic... well I guess they can't judge the show.

 

[seashellmama]

We are (essentially) first-time family vacationers (Disneyland veterans, though) here this week. We heard about the party, decided we'd try to go... with no real notion that going would be challenging- we went to MK during the day, left around 5pm, came back to AKL to swim for a bit and see how we felt. Around 8 we went to the buses (my 11yo wisely suggested we go to DHS and eat there, because if we ate first we'd probably just feel full and tired and not want to go... she wasn't sure she wanted to go *anyway*, because she doesn't like crowds or loud events much, so her suggestion was a way to work through her own misgivings)- there was a crowd at the bus stops looking cranky, but a HS bus came almost immediately! A CM got out and told us that the traffic was *terrible*, the ride would be very long, and then the driver got out and gave a detailed lecture about the 1.5hour+ the drive to DHS would take, that traffic was gridlocked, police were trying to direct traffic, that yes we would get into the park once we got there, probably, but it was going to require HUGE amounts of patience, and if you didn't have a LOT of patience then please do not get on his bus. Poor guy looked exhausted.

We went back into the lodge and got a nice dinner at Mara, promising my 8yo that we'd go check the news about the event after we ate and if it seemed at *all* promising, then I'd take just her and leave the 11yo (8yo deals with crowds and noise better ), but when we went up and asked it around 9:30 the very sad bell desk guy ("ALL my coworkers are there, and I didn't get to go") said that word was it was still awful, there were gate closures and etc. So, meh. Mostly I feel satisfied that we were alert enough to not get caught in the middle of it, and glad we didn't make the decision at MK to head directly to DHS with no break (we would likely have gotten in and then been very frustrated with the crowd levels- we're really not long line for characters or wait-for-hours-for-shows people).

Lots of grumbly people in the AKL lobby. Saw one mom complaining about a very rude bus driver who rerouted (or got rerouted) without telling the passengers, and was short with them when confronted about it, the whole thing making her miss her Boma reservation (I think- I didn't catch all the details)- I don't think they were even trying to go to the Villains event. The desk guy was sympathetic to the bus driver ("frustration coming out on one of his worst work nights ever"), but also to the guest, and gave her a $100 credit to pay for a meal at Mara (only place open by then) and whatever else she could charge.

We will try to be extra nice to the bus drivers today. We've got noon ADR for Akershus and FP+ for Illuminations, so it'll be an Epcot day for us.

 

[4kids4karen]

without a doubt Disney resort guests should be ENTILTED MUCH>>>>>thank you..ENTILTED MUCH WOULD BE IF I SAID IT SHOULD BE ONLY FOR DELUXE OR VILLA GUESTS....

 

[4kids4karen]

You forgot just a private party only for locals.

Yes, it should only be open to full-time Florida residents! Forget the people on vacation, they should move to Florida if they truly wanted to attend.

 

[STACEY1378]

We started our journey at 8 from our hotel BC. Waited 1hr to finally board a boat. Arrived and it was chaos. There was no direction or crowd control. My DH and I had our 2 DD's. The lines for anything were outrageous. We did get to see Fantasmamic and Muppets. Then encountered a very intoxicated group. One even was in my DD's face. A CM was standing right there just watching with a defeated look on her face. We left right after that.

 

[delmar411]

We started our journey at 8 from our hotel BC. Waited 1hr to finally board a boat. Arrived and it was chaos. There was no direction or crowd control. My DH and I had our 2 DD's. The lines for anything were outrageous. We did get to see Fantasmamic and Muppets. Then encountered a very intoxicated group. One even was in my DD's face. A CM was standing right there just watching with a defeated look on her face. We left right after that.

There were tons of drunks everywhere. My DH has infinite patience so he swapped places with me for the fireworks since there was a very tall drunk guy wobbling back and forth in front of me and he kept stepping backwards into me.

They should have cut off the alcohol or something due to the crowds.

I'm sorry your DD had to deal with the drunks.

 

[cgattis]

The website has one t-shirt. They do such a good job with the hard ticket events, but this flat out sucked.

Haven't read all 10 pages yet, but have to jump in here. Probably will get blasted too, but here goes...if you think you were disappointed in this free event, you should've been at the Villain Bash after the TOT 10-miler last year. That was a hard ticket and it was executed just about the same (other than the traffic nightmare), except we got NO fireworks. Race started at 10--and so did the party. So all the people who weren't running (or with runners) who were allowed to buy tix were in the park lining up for villains while we ran 10 miles. So for us average runners (mid-pack), by the time we got to the party, all the villain lines were 40 minutes plus. CMs couldn't tell you who was where, and it was character roulette as well. Lines for TSMM were still over an hour. Had to split up our family just to make sure we got our kids must-do villains (Vader and Maleficient), and still only got to ride ST, TOT (just half of us), and finally TSM with a 20 minute wait at 3 am. So, no they don't always do a good job with the hard tickets. And that makes it even more heinous that they had such a snafu yesterday--they had already seen what a mass of humanity came out for hard-ticketed villains and how badly they handled it!! So, I had to disagree with you to agree with you. Pretty slick, huh?? . Big hug to everyone who wasted hours in a car or bus last night. Yuk.

 

[circus4u]

2 1/2 he's by bus from Pop. Arrived at 10 pm. Used the restroom, walked around the lake, got something to drink, and left. Too many people, no crowd control, too many drunks. Never again!

 

[yulilin3]

After reading all of this the thing the strikes me the most is how awful this must have been for the castmembers. To be stuck out in that with unclear instructions, mobs of angry people, and no choice but to stand there and try to make it all work must have been horrendous.
You can't really blame them for that mess. I'm sure none of them made the decisions on how to run this party, or how many people to let in. They were just stuck trying to make sense out of someone elses poorly thought out plan.

I have neighbours who just took their kids for their first Disney trip ever this week. I've spent months helping them plan and telling them how wonderful Disney is. I desperately hope they were nowhere near this mess or I guarantee you they'll never go back.

The park was definetaly under staffed. We finally made it into the parking lot at DHS at 6:30pm, it tooks us 45 minutes for something that usually takes 5min. and there were only 2 CM working the Parking Lot...Ate at Commisary and they had 5 CM and about 5 managers helping out, all in all, at that time, it was around 8:30pm it went pretty smoothly. While waiting to get into the parking lot I saw CM walking out on the main road, wearing their costumes trying to get to the park for their shifts...

Makes one wonder if the planners/imagineers ever go to these events to see how well (or in this case how poorly) they planned things.

Just to let you know, one of the CM handing out the cards to email Disney about getting a picture an autograph of the Villains was Dan Cockerell, Vice-President of DHS. He was walking around Echo Lake and we were just waiting for fireworks and he approached us and told us "If there's a Villain that you wanted to meet and couldn't just email us and we'll get you their autograph card" kn owing who he was I just asked if they weren't expecting this many people, he didn't really answer directly, just something like, Everyone loves the Villains....no kidding, people have been dreaming about a 5th Villain dedicated park for years now.

 

[JDUCKY]

Just to let you know, one of the CM handing out the cards to email Disney about getting a picture an autograph of the Villains was Dan Cockerell, Vice-President of DHS. He was walking around Echo Lake and we were just waiting for fireworks and he approached us and told us "If there's a Villain that you wanted to meet and couldn't just email us and we'll get you their autograph card" kn owing who he was I just asked if they weren't expecting this many people, he didn't really answer directly, just something like, Everyone loves the Villains....no kidding, people have been dreaming about a 5th Villain dedicated park for years now.

Oh I wish we'd run into him! So many questions/suggestions we had!

 

[Mom2Stitch]

WOW....just wow. When I first heard about this event I was bummed because my vacation doesn't start until next week. After reading this horror story I'm very thankful to not have been a part of that.

Years ago (I really feel like an old woman when I start like) there were villains out more often for meet and greets. Favorite memories for my son are of Jafar and Cruella. Disney has made the villains hard to find characters so events like this are going to turn out huge numbers. IMO, villains are a part of the "story" and should be included every day.

Would love to see this get more organized and become a hard ticket event, minus the alcohol. I enjoy a frozen alcoholic concoction from time to time, but I feel that at an event where there will be little ones, it should be limited.

 

[mesaboy2]

Cast members and family have all the right to be there on the passer since it was not a hard ticket event

I think I said exactly that.

 

[delmar411]

The park was definetaly under staffed. We finally made it into the parking lot at DHS at 6:30pm, it tooks us 45 minutes for something that usually takes 5min. and there were only 2 CM working the Parking Lot...Ate at Commisary and they had 5 CM and about 5 managers helping out, all in all, at that time, it was around 8:30pm it went pretty smoothly. While waiting to get into the parking lot I saw CM walking out on the main road, wearing their costumes trying to get to the park for their shifts...

Just to let you know, one of the CM handing out the cards to email Disney about getting a picture an autograph of the Villains was Dan Cockerell, Vice-President of DHS. He was walking around Echo Lake and we were just waiting for fireworks and he approached us and told us "If there's a Villain that you wanted to meet and couldn't just email us and we'll get you their autograph card" kn owing who he was I just asked if they weren't expecting this many people, he didn't really answer directly, just something like, Everyone loves the Villains....no kidding, people have been dreaming about a 5th Villain dedicated park for years now.

If you have that email address can you message it to me? We missed out on half the M&Gs and would love to at least get the autograph card, hopefully they'll email a pic too.

 

[GrimGrinningGhost01]

A wife's friend worked the event. She said they had to pull CMs from other venue at last second due to traffic making them late. I did notice that just one of Hades minions was at the beginning of the dance party (Pain I think, not Panic).

Still not an excuse to not tell a CM working the lines 'This is Jafar/Oogie Boogie line' etc. Instead of...'Stand here!'

I would have GLADLY paid for this if it was a hard ticket event prior to this debacle. Instead for 5 hrs we waited in traffic for an hr, ate Disney Pizza (blech....ALL crust), bought some poison Apple ears for my wifes 'picture' with the evil queen (I DID manage to grab a set of new Mansion pins), and wait in the WRONG picture line for almost 3 hrs because CMs had no idea how to make a que line. I have often joked I should offer up a mandatory class for tourists at airports teaching how to properly make a line, walk on a walkalator, and get on and of an elevator......maybe I should offer that up at traditions?

 

[GrimGrinningGhost01]

I think I may be most upset due to the fact this whole entire debacle is making me feel and sound like a grumpy old man! I am not a complainer. I am not the type to go to guest services to moan about how long lines were or how my whole experience was ruined because it was soooo hot or whatever people due at GS.

 

[ashleyrm]

I think I may be most upset due to the fact this whole entire debacle is making me feel and sound like a grumpy old man! I am not a complainer. I am not the type to go to guest services to moan about how long lines were or how my whole experience was ruined because it was soooo hot or whatever people due at GS.

So does that make you GrumpyGrinningGhost? lol. Seriously, I am the same way. I try to take what comes and not complain, but this was pretty poorly managed and if it had a significant negative impact on your Disney experience, I would say you have a right to be upset and to complain.

 

[delmar411]

I think I may be most upset due to the fact this whole entire debacle is making me feel and sound like a grumpy old man! I am not a complainer. I am not the type to go to guest services to moan about how long lines were or how my whole experience was ruined because it was soooo hot or whatever people due at GS.

I don't normally do that either but I did pitch a fit about the tshirt not being available hours before the thing even started. They fixed my problem the best they could but that should have been a foreshadowing of what was to come. LOL

It's not the lines I mind, we do SWW every year so I can handle those. It's the mass disorganization and lack of crowd control that upsets me. Plus (I feel like an old bitty saying this), the drunks were annoying, especially since so many were CMs. I enjoy a drink every once in a while but I hate being around drunks in tight spaces.

And this is an event my DH has been looking forward to all year and he was so disappointed. That's probably what upset me the most. He was so excited to get to do all the M&G but he didn't even get to half. I can let a lot roll off my back but he had to make a special request to be off yesterday and then this is what happened.

Ah well, it is over and done with and I have some great pics to show for our effort. After drinking some more water I should feel better later today and at least we can look back and say we were there!

 

[yulilin3]

If you have that email address can you message it to me? We missed out on half the M&Gs and would love to at least get the autograph card, hopefully they'll email a pic too.

It's just the general guest email: wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com

 

[delmar411]

It's just the general guest email: wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com

Thanks!