After Hours - Heroes Assemble - my experience

[Jkpark]

HI everyone. I just wanted to share for anyone who may be going tonight.

We arrived at the gates right around 6. Several lanes were open for party guests only. The line was very slow moving as (1) they were exchanging you a hard ticket (even though also FP were already gone and none available during the party), and they were putting a bracelet on each guest. You then moved through a line and received a lanyard, a event schedule and a pack of trading cards.

The party officially starts at 9. This means no merchandise or party food was available between 6-9. They weren't allowing you to line up for characters until 8:45. We used this time to eat and the kids single rider on Goofy's Sky School. In hindsight - we should have been doing the scavenger hunt during this time.

Iron Man was by far the longest line. We staggered lines so the kids could get a few pics. I loitered near Loki (directly under Goofy's Sky School and next to the pavilion where Thor would be. I was first in line and my friend was about 10 people deep for Thor. Then under the Swings, my husband waited about 20 people back for Dr. Strange. Iron Man was on the stage across from Monsters. The line was long and he took many breaks - sometimes after 1-2 guests. It reminded me of when Baymax would have technical difficulties. We later met Groot outside of Guardians across from Starlord and Gamora. Other characters were Black Panther (in Redwood Creek Challenge), Captain Marvel (by what was Flynn's Arcade), Spiderman (where Racers FP are distributed), Hawkeye and Black Widow together outside of Wine Country Trattoria, Captain America was out (but I'm not sure where). There were several other photo opps without characters also. I might be forgetting some.

Once the park was emptied, lines for attractions were non existent. Guardians was probably the longest and they were on and off in 20 minutes. TSMM, Incredicoaster were both walk on. RSR was maybe 10 minutes - probably more like 5.

In addition to actual marvel characters, Disney characters were dressed. My favorite were Chip and Dale as Thor and Loki.

The merchandise was limited to a tee shirt and cup - no pins, so we skipped that.

We also didn't try any of the special food as that wasn't a priority for us.

The party seemed really short - 4 hours - to try to see characters, ride some things and just experience the environment. Fun music was playing everywhere. The costumes on guests were incredible - except for my friend's soon who Thor referred to as "no effort whatsoever".

The cost was worth it as we hadn't been to the parks since July and met up with close friends who live in San Diego. My 11 year old is also REALLY into Marvel so she loved the characters. My 13 year old preferred riding Incredicoaster over and over and over.

It also made me excited to have Oogie Boogie Bash. I think this wasn't an event that sold very well - but you forget how much better DCA can absorb crowds.

That is all I can think of to share right now - but let me know if you have any questions.

 

[ImDMous]

We were there also. We got there around 8:30 after driving up after work from San Diego, checking into Red Lion and getting our costumes on, then taking the Toy Story shuttle over. The line to get in was pretty short for us and didn't take more than 5 minutes.
Since we were a bit behind most others, character lines were already long even though they hadn't come out yet.
We went around Hollywood area, checked out who was where, all the lines were at least 45 minutes so we passed.
We headed over the other side of the park and were walking past Black Widow/Hawkeye's line when they were just setting up, so we got int it. We were just at the first turn, maybe 25 people in front of us. So we hung out for a while, talked to people around us, etc. They didn't actually come out for pictures until around 9:30, ours was taken at 10.
We grabbed a few of the Infinity Stone churros as we walked around Paradise Pier, the mind stone (lemon) was my favorite.
We went to check out the Iron Man line, the CM at the end said it was 2 hours and they would keep the line open until 1am.
We went over to see who was around Grizzly area and found Black Panther so did that, line was about half an hour.
We headed back over to Iron Man about 12:40 and got in line.
At this time, he was not taking frequent breaks, I think he took 3 while we were there.
They closed his line at 1am. We got our pictures at about 1:50, just barely enough time to catch the last Toy Story shuttle at 2.

Overall, we had fun and loved seeing everyone's costumes and hanging out with like-minded fans. It wasn't nearly enough time to do everything we wanted. There was tons of food we wanted to try, didn't even get to start the scavenger hunt, didn't go on any rides. If you want character photos, you will spend all night in line and you won't get them all so choose your priorities.
The WOC fountains were all red, white and blue and looked great with the Wheel. There was a DJ in the park with some fog machines that was fun.
There was also a costume parade if you were dressed up and wanted to participate. I don't think too many people did because it would take away from the short time you had to do everything else.

 

[B3rlingirl]

Thanks for those great trip (or better party) reports. I really enjoyed reading them!
Sounds like both of you had a great night...

I think you should really decide before you go what you wanna try to accomplish (meet and greets/ phots, food, rides, any other entertainment) as it sounds even doing 2 is ambitious...
I guess that would be my problem... I would wanna do everything probably and in the end not really enjoy anything properly because I would rush it...( so I would really need to prepare it well and make a gameplan so I can be more relaxed in the end...)
but it sounds pretty tempting to try out a party one day...