Reviews of Limited Time Magic – 2013 Celebration
Reviewed by ramonaromano Review Date: 11/08/2013
Rating: (0) Recommended
On October 5 went to downtown Disney. Took
boat over to Westside to check out the limited time magic chalk art festival. It was great!
Some drawing were 3-D, all were very colorful
and amazing. What a neat surprise. They were
all Disney characters on the sidewalks next to
House of Blues and on the wall by theater and
old AMC entrance. Luckily, I checked the
Internet before we left home or I never would
have found it since the event wasn't really
posted anywhere.
Pros:
—Cons:
—Reviewed by momof3inMadisonAL Review Date: 09/24/2013
Rating: (1) Recommended
Attended Unleash the Villains on Sept 13. I was excited for this event when I first heard of it last year - like so many other people. We usually go to WDW in Sept, so it fit in with our vacation plans. As I read other Disney websites, I started to wonder if we should go to another park that day and avoid LTM all togheter. (We got stuck in the mess that was Leap Day 2012.) But, in the end decided to just go to HS that morning and see what happened.
The crowds started to build that afternoon. i saw people lined up outside a store and asked what they were doing. I hadn't been able to find any merchandise earlier at other stores. Evidently, it was only at one store.
We had dinner at Brown Derby so at least we had that covered. Heard of people having to wait over an hour at CS restaurants. But by the time we got out of dinner, there was no "dance party". It was just a mob of people surrounding the hat. My husband tried to see where the villains were doing meet and greets and found the lines to be 4-5 across with little direction from CMs.
It really wasn't a family friendly event. There were villain fans and there were 20 somethings that were just there to "party". Not a place for my 4 young kids.
We had FPs to RR and ToT but could barely make it down Sunset Blvd. We decided to just cut our loses and get out of there. Didn't realize until later that people had been on buses for hours trying to get to HS that night. Disney clearly underestimated the popularity of this event. I don't know why I just don't learn my lesson and stay away from these events that don't have separate hard tickets....sigh.
Pros:
good ideaCons:
poor executionReviewed by there7777 Review Date: 09/17/2013
Rating: (1) Not Recommended
My daughter and I were so excited to plan and go to this event until we arrived at the event. I have never seen Disney so ill prepared for an event!!! The special merchandise for the event didn't event last a couple hours in to the event and you had to wait in line to get in to the store that had it!! There was so many people try to attend the event, it was difficult to move!!! It was a limited time magic event all right-The magic ended when we entered the front gate. It was a real disappointment for me!!!!
Pros:
Wonderful idea with villan eventCons:
disney unprepared for event on every aspectReviewed by jenbort Review Date: 01/23/2013
Rating: (1) Not Recommended
We arrived January 9th. I couldn't find anything on the blog about what the "magic" was that week so I was excited that it would be a surprise for us. We asked everyone, from the check-in desk to people at all the parks, and no one even knew what I was talking about. As far as I can tell there was no extra magic that week. We were really disappointed.
Pros:
NoneCons:
—Reviewed by Ohana Review Date: 01/22/2013
Rating: (1) Not Recommended
My girls were excited thinking they would have snow to play in. It was nothing but characters dressed up behind little snow and some snow blowing behind them. They were disappointed.
Pros:
NoneCons:
DisappointedReviewed by Lou28 Review Date: 01/16/2013
Rating: (2) Not Recommended
We went to the Bling in the New Year dance party at Rocket Tower Plaza. What a disappointing promotion. People were just crowding the stage trying to get a string of mardi gras type beads. When the characters (Chip, Dale and Stitch) came off stage to dance people just crowded around them. The dj didn't do much to encourage dancing. I've been to much better "dance parties" at HS EMH, MVMCP, MNSSHP and One More Disney Day. Also, the very next day the Times Guide had a Club 626 dance party listed in this same location, which made this promotion feel very un-special and underwhelming.
Pros:
Stitch in Elvis costume, beads?Cons:
no dancing, poor dj/musicReviewed by cgessner Review Date: 01/16/2013
Rating: (2) Not Recommended
The Limited Time Magic for Jan. 14 through 20th was nothing to brag about. We saw Chip, Dale, Donald, and Daisy with essentially Christmas garb on, with an inflated tree and VERY few flakes of fake snow in the Canada pavilion on the first day of this promo. If this is Disney's idea of a promotion, they need to go back to the drawing board. Disappointed.
Pros:
Character Meet and GreetCons:
Nothing specialReviewed by jjcscanlon Review Date: 08/10/2013
Rating: (3) Not Recommended
I think Limited Time Magic sounded good in theory, but is being poorly executed. We were in Disney for 9 days and the only "magic" they were promoting was a special Monsters Inc Sundae you could purchase at the Ice Cream Shop at Plaza Restaurant. I feel the "magic" should be more organic than paying for "extra" magic beyond the top dollar I'm already paying to be in the "everlasting" magic. In this case, you really had to go out of your to search down what the limited magic was. I still think Wishes is pretty magical - more so than some ice cream...and I didn't have to pay more for it.
Pros:
—Cons:
hype about nothingReviewed by slamborne Review Date: 01/17/2013
Rating: (6) Recommended
I didn't realize the set up was in front of Canada. I walked around the shops and "mountains" of Canada looking for snow when I spotted the set by the lagoon. It wasn't what I imagined, but I collect photos of the characters and Daisy did have on a dress that I had never seen before so I arrived about 10 minutes before they were due to come out and when we left, the line was rather long so it seems to be drawing a crowd. I just wouldn't make a special trip just for that.
Pros:
the chance to get a photo with a group of Disney charactersCons:
nothing to write home aboutReviewed by Tampa Mom Review Date: 09/15/2013
Rating: (7) Recommended
My family and I went to the Friday the Thirteenth Unleash the Villains event at the Hollywood Studios. It was a bit of a mixed bag.
The music from the stage set up in front of the Sorcerer Hat was fun, and the villain 'musicians' were a hoot. We decided not to fight the lines for the meet and greets, but there were quite a few villains out, which was good. And the fireworks were simply amazing. They were as good as the Magic Kingdom Halloween party.
However, there were problems with the event due to Disney seriously underestimating the attraction of a villain night. The event items, which were limited to a shirt and hat, vanished before we even saw them. Even cast members told us they were gone so fast they never saw what they looked like. But there was no event pin or any other item.
The crowd problems continued. Since it was not a hard ticket event, we expected that since the park was supposed to open until 1 AM, it would actually be open until 1 AM. But they started closing rides around 9 PM, and all the restaurants were open no later than 10PM. They set up ropes to limit where you could go, so the massive crowds were squashed into an ever-smaller area. Since they didn't expect so many people, there were no additional snack carts. Lines just to get a bottled drink were huge. Lines for beer or other alcoholic drinks were even longer, which in a way is good since it cut down on the drunks, but irritated many people.
I cannot confirm it, but the rumor was that they had to close admission, or limit it to only let people in as others left. I know for a fact that a friend of my husband was stuck on a Disney bus from her hotel for over two hours because traffic was so jammed. And I have never seen cast members standing in store doorways to limit how many people could come it. This happened at the Villains in Vogue store, and the candy store next door. Having to stand in line just to shop??? Around midnight we left, no longer able to stand the crush of bodies.
Despite all this, we had fun. My family came away exhausted but smiling. And the reason I said yes, I would recommend it is that hopefully now that Disney has proof that an event like this will be strongly attended, they will be better prepared. This event would have gone much better if they had taken the steps to deal with the situation beforehand.
