In this post, we review Disney Villains After Hours, a ticketed event at Magic Kingdom that allows guests access to the park in the late night hours with lower crowds and special villains themed entertainment, food, and merchandise. We cover everything from purchasing tickets to ride overlays to entertainment and merchandise. Read on to learn all about Magic Kingdom Villains After Hours!
Basics of Disney Villains After Hours
We’ll start with the basics of the event before discussing how we spent the evening and then comparing this event to two similar events—Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Magic Kingdom After Hours.
What Is Magic Kingdom Villains After Hours?
Magic Kingdom Villains After Hours is a ticketed event held at Magic Kingdom on select dates that allows guests to access the park and select attractions “after hours”—that is, for three hours after the regular Magic Kingdom park hours. After park closing, access to the rides is limited to ticketed guests.
We’ve also reviewed Disney After Hours events at some of the other theme parks:
Unlike the other After Hours events, the Villains After Hours event has exclusive villains-centric entertainment, ride overlays, merchandise, and paid snacks.
Like Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, guests without a ticket are not allowed in the park during Villains After Hours. Disney doesn’t seem to actively kick them out (at least not at first), but they’ll need a Villains After Hours wristband to do pretty much anything other than shop on Main Street.
How Much Does Disney Villains After Hours Cost?
Tickets cost $154.43 per person (adults or child) when purchased in advance ($165.08 same-day). Tickets for Disney World annual passholders and Disney Vacation Club members are $122.48 per person when purchased in advance, day-of purchases are full day-of price. Villains After Hours tickets can be purchased online, at ticket booths, or through the concierge at your hotel.
You need special tickets for this event. Ordinary park tickets that get you in for the rest of the day will not allow you to stay for Villains After Hours.
Buying Villains After Hours Tickets
The easiest way to purchase Villains After Hours tickets is going to be via the Walt Disney World Resort website. I had my go-to agent, Lauren Quirk of Travel With Character, purchase my tickets for me. To date, I haven’t seen any discount offers besides the AP and DVC discounts, but you might want to check discount Disney World ticket brokers to see if any have popped up.
Villains After Hour Dates & Times
Villains After Hour dates are only announced a few weeks to months in advance and are usually one day a week. You can view the upcoming schedule here. Keep in mind the alternative Magic Kingdom After Hours also occurs select nights.
Villains After Hours starts at 9PM or 10PM, depending on the date, and lasts three hours. Villains After Hours guests can enter the park as early as 7PM.
Villains After Hours Included Snacks
Last thing before we get to the rides, entertainment, and Villains exclusives. During all After Hours events, guests have access to select free snack items, particularly popcorn, ice cream bars, and select bottled beverages from locations throughout the park. Just walk up to any open snack stand and make your request. Select larger food items may be available for purchase.
Villains After Hours Offerings
Villains After Hours is a relatively new event—only in its second year. This means the offerings still might be tweaked as they settle into what works and what doesn’t. To that end, make sure you check the event map when you arrive, as it will have the full listing of what’s available.
Here’s a gallery of the map from the night we visited:
Can I wear costumes to Villains After Hours?
Disney Villains After Hours is classified as a special event (like the holiday parties) for the park’s dress code and costume guidelines, and costumes are allowed. Adults will have a more leeway than during a typical day at the park, but you’ll still want to carefully read those guidelines.
Which Villains After Hours Rides Have Overlays?
Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain have villainous overlays. Pirates of the Caribbean has an overlay featuring a few character actors inside the ride. Space Mountain transforms to a fully in-the-dark experience with a villain-centric soundtrack.
Space Mountain is definitely worth a visit during the event regardless of the overlay. Pirates of the Caribbean can usually be fit in, but I don’t think the overlay elevates it to being a priority if it wouldn’t otherwise fit into your plans.
What Rides Are Open During Villains After Hours?
The map given out at the start of the night listed the following 20 rides (given in order of my priority, ignoring the overlays): Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, Astro Orbiter, Tomorrowland Speedway, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, PeopleMover, Prince Charming Regal Carrousel, Barnstormer, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Mad Tea Party, Dumbo, Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Under the Sea, and “it’s a small world.”
There were, additionally, three shows and a walkthrough attraction open: Enchanted Tiki Room, Country Bear Jamboree, PhilharMagic, Swiss Family Treehouse.
You can read more about the rides of Magic Kingdom here. If you’re traveling with a little one, you’ll also want to read about height requirements at Disney World and the best rides for toddlers at Magic Kingdom.
Finally, it’s worth noting that FastPass+ is neither active or necessary during After Hours. However, guests with Villains After Hours on their tickets generally are able to book FastPass+ reservations for the two or three hours between when they’re allowed in the park (7PM) and the start of the event.
Unlike other After Hours events or the holiday parties, there aren’t any character greetings at Villains After Hours.
Villains After Hours Entertainment
Villains After Hours has three exclusive pieces of entertainment. Altogether, you’ll see appearance from a wide range of villains, including Hades, the Queen of Hearts, the Evil Queen, Maleficent, Jafar, Gaston, Oogie Boogie, Cruella DeVil, and more! I’ll forego mentioning specific times because these do vary, so you’ll need to check the event map when you arrive.
Villains Unite the Night
The Villains Unite the Night show occurs at the Cinderella Castle stage and takes about 25 minutes. This is a sort of villains get together show, with dancers performing some pretty impressive routines, including with fire and swords, as part of the show.
There’s an unnamed DJ / Dance Party in front of the castle hub throughout the night, whenever the stage show isn’t going on.
The Villains’ Cursed Caravan is a closer to a cavalcade than a parade. It’s fun to see the villainous characters all in a row, and it culminates with the Maleficent dragon. The caravan doesn’t take the same route every time. The night we visited, it did a loop from Frontierland to the hub and back for the first caravan and then a normal from Frontierland down Main Street the second time.
The one thing I want to note about the entertainment is that if you’re trying to maximize your ride count, you generally want to watch the entertainment earlier. This allows you the later hours (and the very end of the night) for even shorter waits on rides.
One caveat is that if the caravan occurs at or near close, it will take about 15 minutes to get to Main Street. So we caught the 11:45PM caravan (our event ended at 12AM) at 12AM on Main Street. That means no getting on a ride right at 12AM, but that’s better than skipping two or three rides to catch the caravan earlier.
One piece of entertainment you can’t watch earlier is the Villains Farewell. This isn’t listed on the guide, but about 15 minutes after the event ends, a few villains gather above the Main Street Station and throw some jokes at the audience as they depart.
Villains After Hours Merchandise
Here’s a slideshow (click through using the arrows) of some of the merchandise that was available during the event.
Villains After Hours Paid Snacks
Disney Parks Blog has a foodie guide to the snacks available at the event. We tried one, the Poor Unfortunate Soul from Storybook Treats.
If you have to have a snack or two, I’d recommend trying to time them with your entertainment. Remember, you’re dealing with three hours here, even “just” 15 minutes to eat a snack isn’t a great use of time.
Villains After Hours Photo Ops
There are a few Photopass photographers around the park, some of whom offer event-exclusive Magic Shots. You may want to read more about Photopass and Memory Maker.
Our Villains After Hours Itinerary
This itinerary is very different from our Magic Kingdom After Hours itinerary, which featured a huge number of attractions. Because this event had the exclusive offerings, we were more concerned with those than with the rides.
We were actually in the park all day before this, including the Magic Kingdom Fireworks Dessert Party. Ticketed guests can enter the park as early as 7PM, and if they had any FastPass+ reservations during that time they could use those if they wanted.
Between 7:00 PM and the start of the event, you’ll need to get a wristband. While these can be found at the park entrance around 7PM, if you’re already inside the park you’ll need to ask a Cast Member for the nearest place to get one.
7:00PM — Event guests allowed in the park
8:55 — PeopleMover
9PM — Event Start (time varies by date)
9:10 — Briefly visit DJ / Dance Party
9:24 — Pirates of the Caribbean (4 min wait)
9:42 — Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (3 min wait)
10PM — Villains Unite the Night stage show (25 min, times vary)
10:33 — Under the Sea (2 min wait)
10:42 — Barnstormer (2 min wait)
10:58 — Space Mountain (6 min wait)
11:15 — Peter Pan’s Flight (5 min wait)
Snacks / Shopping
12:03AM — 11:45PM Cursed Caravan arrives on Main Street
12:15AM — Villains Farewell
At only seven rides, that’s a much more limited list than the 16 rides and one character greeting I accomplished during Magic Kingdom After Hours. If you look at that itinerary, it’s pretty easy to figure I could have just cut three rides to fit in the Villains Unite the Night show.
The issue definitely wasn’t wait times, to be clear. While a few rides like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Peter Pan’s Flight were a little longer than I saw at Magic Kingdom After Hours, the bigger issue was just how we scheduled our night.
Instead of walking onto rides, we took time to watch the shows, eat some snacks, look at merchandise, and so on. After 11:15PM we didn’t ride anything, while at After Hours I rode six rides in the last 45 minutes, for example.
Villains After Hours, Magic Kingdom After Hours, and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party
I want to now compare Villains After Hours, Magic Kingdom After Hours, and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. I’m going to start with the hard facts before launching into a discussion about how you might think about the differences.
Here are the approx. advance purchase prices for the three events (they can vary):
Magic Kingdom After Hours — $137.39
Villains After Hours — $154.43
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party (adult) — $90.53 to $158.69
Here’s what you can expect as far as ride waits:
Magic Kingdom After Hours — Virtually no waits for all rides
Villains After Hours — No waits for most rides, ~15 minutes for popular attractions
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party — Low but still significant waits for rides (ride not recommended at the parties)
Here’s what you’ll get as far as entertainment:
Magic Kingdom After Hours — No exclusive entertainment
Villains After Hours — Exclusive stage show and Villains “Caravan” (not quite a parade)
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party — Multiple exclusive stage shows, exclusive parade, exclusive fireworks show
And here’s what you’ll see as far as characters:
Magic Kingdom After Hours — A few character greetings (not event exclusive) included
Villains After Hours — No character greetings
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party — 20+ exclusive character greetings
And finally, exclusive merchandise and snacks
Magic Kingdom After Hours — Free popcorn, bottled bevs, and ice cream novelties; no exclusive merchandise
Villains After Hours — Free popcorn, bottled bevs, and ice cream novelties plus exclusive paid snacks; exclusive merchandise
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party — Free small candy (trick or treating); exclusive paid snacks and merchandise
So in case you lost track during that list:
After Hours is all about getting on rides with short waits; there’s nothing exclusive about it and no entertainment
Villains After Hours is like After Hours, but with a few event exclusive touches, including entertainment
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party is all about it’s excellent exclusive entertainment and characters; rides are not a priority at the party
You can see from the prices that Disney thinks guests value the low waits of After Hours more than the exclusive entertainment of the Halloween party.
Now, while Villains After Hours is After Hours plus a little something extra, it’s still a bit curious to me that it costs more. The entertainment (the caravan and the stage show) are good but they’ll also eat away at the time you could be spending on rides.
Similarly, the merchandise and paid snacks are nice, but they’ll eat away at your wallet and the time you have at the event. Though ideally you eat during the entertainment and shop after the event ends.
If entertainment and paid exclusives aren’t worth as much as rides (compare After Hours and Halloween Party pricing), it’s a bit odd that Villains After Hours costs more than Magic Kingdom After Hours.
Put another way, if Villains After Hours is “between” After Hours and the Halloween Party in concept, why isn’t it priced between those?
Is Villains After Hours Worth It?
While I felt like the peak waits at Villains After Hours were a little more than those I saw at After Hours, that difference isn’t enough to make me distinguish the events.
So the real question is “is the extra $17ish worth the option to see this entertainment and have exclusive merchandise / paid snacks?”
If you’re really into villains, then it’s an easy yes. If you’re on the fence, then I’d say to pick the event that fits best into your trip.
Villains After Hours and Magic Kingdom After Hours are held on different days. Keep in mind what night you’ll want to be up until about 1AM. Is there a day you’re already at Magic Kingdom all day that you can just add the event to?
And if you already have a day at Magic Kingdom, isn’t Villains After Hours going to make more sense since at least you’re getting something exclusive?
For Magic Kingdom After Hours, we said that a full day at Magic Kingdom is a much better use of the money if you can fit it into your trip. If not, then After Hours is an efficient way to ride the rides of the park.
With that understood, if Villains After Hours makes the most sense in terms of scheduling or if you’re a big fan of villains, then go ahead and book it!
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