Review: Disney's Hollywood Studios Club Villain

Today on the blog we are in full review mode and taking a look back at our WDW trip in late March. On this trip we experienced a special ticketed event called Club Villain. This special event takes you up close and personal with the Disney Villains. Specifically, Cruella De Vile, The Evil Queen, Maleficent, and the Queen of Hearts. 

Your host for the evening is that ever evil Shadow Man, Dr. Facillier from the Princess and the Frog. His club manager, Kanzo keeps the party rolling all night and makes sure you are fully entertained. 

The club features a DJ spinning all the right tunes to put you in the mood and also a full bar with 4 specialty drinks themed after each queen of darkness. A gourmet buffet fit with voodoo sticky pig wings, chicken gumbo, cajun shrimp and grits, and beef tenderloin will certainly fill you up.

Shall we dive in to the review now that you are intrigued?

The party takes place inside of Sunset Showcase directly next door to Rock N Roller Coaster. You have to go through a huge gate to enter so you can easily miss it if the line for Rock N Roller Coaster is long. 

Upon entering you check in and are handed a invitation with your meet and greet time for each queen. It also lists your table number as well. Waiters are available outside for a champagne drink or for kids a small water. 

Once the party opens you are able to enter and find your table number. From here you can go get a drink at the bar, take pictures on the thrones of each queen, or belly up to the buffet and get your grub on! 

    

After everyone has entered you are then greeted by Dr. Facillier and his club manager Kanzo. They perform and welcome you to the dark side. Each queen of darkness is then introduced and makes her way to her throne. 

 

You are invited to eat, drink, be evil, and most importantly have fun! As your time approaches you can then get in line for the meet and greets with each queen. Up first for us was Maleficent and Cruella. 

 

Maleficent is my favorite queen of dark by far! I love her and we had such a good time meeting her. She spoke about making sure to watch out for needles they are very sharp and you can sleep for a long time. 

 

Cruella was very animated and loved having everyone here to see her. She said no matter what others said it was totally her party. She spoke to our princess about training her for dog napping. She said they could set up a lunch and discuss the proper ways to do so. 

 

After our first meet and greets we headed back to the bar for the signature cocktails of Ms. Maleficent and Cruella. Maleficent's drink was by far my favorite of the night. It reminded me of hawaiian punch. It was very light and delicious! I can't remember the name of it or what was in it, sorry! Cruella's drink was also quite good. It tasted like milk and was called the spotted dalmatian. 

 

Up next for meet and greets was the fabulous Queen of Hearts. She was probably our favorite character of the week. She was so funny and wonderful. She talked to us for quite a while and even left to go join the dance party for just a moment. Our little princess wanted to discuss with her the removing of heads if she should see fit. The Queen of Hearts loved this, but made sure to tell her she's only allowed to reward good behavior at Club Villain. She said when she gets older she would call her and enroll her in training. She was lovely and hilarious!! As you can judge by our photos.

The Evil Queen was probably the most unfriendly of all but she is supposed to be right? We told her we were the fairest of them all and she said maybe in our mirrors at home but definitely not to her mirror. We spent the least time with her as she just asked us for a photo and said off you go. 

   

We then took to the desert tables. There were 2 of them on either side of the room. You had to visit each table to find out what the specialty desert was. We enjoyed the chocolate mouse and puppy tart from Cruella, Maleficent was a chocolate with green icing cupcake, as well as this delicious green pudding that sparkled! The Queen of Hearts featured a heart red macaroon, and of course red velvet cupcakes. 

We finished up the party by dancing to some crazy good tunes!! And we spent some more time with Maleficent just because we could! All in all the party took about 2 hours from start to finish. 

We enjoyed our experience very much and felt like it was worth the splurge on this trip. It was nice to be indoors and be waited on as well as get away from the hustle and bustle of the parks. We never once felt rushed and were able to really relax and have fun at the party. The character experiences were amazing as well. They do not rush you and we never had to wait in line which was another great thing. The food was delicious as well as the drinks. It was great to have an unlimited, relaxing, and fun experience with the whole family. We would definitely recommend this special ticketed event to anyone who loves a good party but especially those that love the villains. 

Club Villain is currently available through May right now and may be extended. The price tag is $129 per person, no discount for children. Club Villain is recommended for ages 9 and up as it can be a bit scary for smaller children. All food, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages are included. There are photographers on site as well. 

Day 2 of WDW Trip: Reviewing Animal Kingdom

Day 2 of the Traveling Through Disney WDW trip took us over to Animal Kingdom to explore all that is nature and conservation. The park opened an hour early from 8-9am for extra magic hours. 

For those of you unfamiliar, you can find extra magic hours at one park each day and there are AM or PM magic hours. During these hours the park is only open to on resort guests. This gives them ample opportunity if they choose to take advantage of the park having less crowds and being able to ride the majority of the rides prior to the park opening up to everyone else. 

In the past, I have shied away from extra magic hours but on this trip I decided to test them out again and boy did it make a difference. Especially useful during last week when it was super packed and the crowds were overwhelming by noon each day. 

Now, let me preface this post by saying I'm a big lover of Animal Kingdom. It has become one of my families favorite parks over the years solely because it is the best park where we do not feel rushed and overly crowded. Animal Kingdom is a great place to have a slower paced day and also be able to still see and do everything in the park. 

They are also currently expanding Animal Kingdom to include a new land called "Pandora - The World of Avatar." Just like the movie, this new land will completely catapult you into the movie and feature Avatar based rides, restaurants, and more. I can't wait to see what they do with the new land. It's slated to open in 2017 right now so we will have to wait a while.

Pandora - The World of Avatar projection

Another change we noticed while at AK was they are hard at work on the new Rivers of Light nighttime show. We saw the lake being transformed into quite a large amphitheater right near the entrance to Expedition Everest. This new light and firework show will surely draw in the crowds to AK whereas this park normally closes at 6pm daily. Not any longer, AK is adding Rivers of Light on top of nighttime safaris over at Kilimanjaro Safaris. It is truly going to become a much busier and exciting park over the next year. Rivers of Light is expected to open in late Spring 2016. 

    

Now that we've discussed all that we saw going on in the parks let's talk about what the Traveling Through Disney team did on our day at the park. As I said, we took advantage of the EMH and headed straight for Expedition Everest. We ended up riding the backwards and forwards roller coaster twice before the wait time got to be a little too much for us. We enjoyed it immensely! 

  

After fun with ride photos we headed over to Dinoland USA and hit up another of our top rides called Dinosaur! We love this ride and did it twice as well before the lines got crazy. 

   

Can you tell we love the on ride photos yet? My little traveler is also a big fan of character meet and greets and AK does not disappoint. AK features some rare characters that you can only meet at AK so we took full advantage of these meet and greets. 

She met Flik, Pocahontas, Tarzan, and Baloo and King Louie on our first day at AK. We had an absolute blast!!

    

  

After dinner we had an amazing buffet meal inside the Animal Kingdom Lodge at Boma. They had such a great selection of food and don't even get me started on the deserts. It was so good I forgot to take photos haha! 

So that was our day 2! Comment below with your favorite things to do at Animal Kingdom, we'd love to hear from you!!

Walt Disney World Trip Day 1: EPCOT

If you've been reading the blog lately you know that the Traveling Through Disney family went on vacation last week to none other than WDW. We had a week filled with lots and lots of memories and had so much fun! We can't wait to do it again but it does feel nice to be back home and in the swing of the routine. 

This week I will highlight our trip and show you some of our favorite things we did while on vacation. 

Today we are starting out with Day 1 in the parks! We spent it at Epcot and it was a great start to our week. We could not have asked for better weather. It was supposed to storm in the afternoon but never did. 

To start out our day we had breakfast with the Princesses at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall located in Norway. We were on the Disney Dining Plan last week and took full advantage booking as many character meals as possible. The best thing about Akershus is you meet up to 5 Princesses for only 1 Table Service credit per person. 

Ariel and our Princess

My Little One with Aurora

Snow White and our Princess

We had a great meal complete with fruit, bagels, potato casserole, sausage, eggs, and bacon. We were super full!! Akershus does a great Princess Processional where all the kids get to walk around with the Princesses and wave to all the adults. It was a great time and my Princess enjoyed it immensely.

After breakfast we spent the majority of our day in Future World and hit up all the rides we could. I will not lie to you and say the park was empty. It was spring break after all and it was very crowded. However we got to do all of the rides we wanted and even met a cool character in between.

If you are a fan of Big Hero 6 you must make sure to hop on over to the Character Spot in Epcot to meet Baymax. He was so cute and cuddly. We enjoyed meeting him, he does not sign though so no autographs for him.


Our highlight ride of the day was Test Track, Soarin is closed until Summer 2016 unfortunately so we went to the next best thing. :)

We had a fastpass and thank goodness because the wait was 90 minutes!! Here's our fabulous shot below zooming around the track. We tried to make all of our photos as funny as possible. We had Memory Maker on this trip and took full advantage!


After all the riding we needed to rest our legs and found sanction in the World Showcase United Kingdom. There was an amazing band called the British Revolution playing so we sat back, had a few drinks, and listened to some great 80's music.

We had dinner reservations that night at Rose and Crown Pub which is known for their delicious Fish and Chips. Seriously, I spent 2 years dreaming about having them again and they did not disappoint! We also were seated on the patio and had front row viewing for the fireworks.



All in all it was a great first day! We had lots of laughs and enjoyed ourselves immensely. What's your favorite thing to do at Epcot? Comment below and let us know!!

Inside Out Characters Coming to Epcot!!

Beginning next month in April 2016 the Inside Out characters are invading Epcot's Character Spot! 

You can meet two of your favorite characters from the movie, Joy and Sadness are coming to Epcot for a magical meet and greet. 

The ever popular Epcot Character Spot has long been the meet and greet spot for the Fab 5. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and others have previously been in the character spot for one on one meet and greets with guests. 

Now in April, guests will journey directly into "Headquarters" and get an inside look at Joy and Sadness' workplace. 

Since debuting last year, Inside Out has become an instant Disney classic and favorite for all. Most recently, the film took home top honors at the Oscars winning Best Animated Feature Film. 

Disney has stated that they plan on sticking with Joy and Sadness meet and greets for the foreseeable future. No word yet on if this will be offered in the Fastpass options.