D23 Member Preview: Heroes & Villains: The Art of the Disney Costume Exhibit at South Carolina State Museum

Date of Visit: April 30, 2025

I am always checking the D23 events, but it rarely works out to be something we can go to since they are not anywhere near us. Thus, I was pretty excited to see an event that not only worked out at a time we had no other plans, but was also only three hours away.

We “checked in” (post about that adventure to come later…) at our hotel across the street and walked over to the museum getting there around 3:45pm. While the D23 Member Preview of the “Heroes & Villains: The Art of the Disney Costume” exhibit at the South Carolina State Museum event started at 4pm, they were already allowing people to check in and handing out the credentials, so we could go in and enjoy the museum before the after hours exhibit preview.

We were able to explore most of the museum in the time we had before the preview at 5:30pm (another separate post to come for the museum), although we definitely did it quick and would have spent much longer reading more of the signs and such if it had been a normal museum visit.

The first part of the exhibit is focused on Cinderella costumes. The different Cinderella costumes included ones from the 2015 movie, Into the Woods, Roger and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, and the Once Upon a Time TV show. There is also a room off of this area showing a short film, which we skipped at first and stopped in to watch before exiting the exhibit.

After the Cinderella area, you enter the main part of the exhibit, which is broken into Heroes on one side and Villains on the other. It was a really nice layout with a pathway of figures on each side leading to the Space Between before breaking off with more Villains to one side and more Heroes to the other.

My favorite in the pathway area was Scott Calvin (Santa Claus from The Santa Clause 3).

Mik’s favorite was Nizam from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

He also really liked Jafar from Aladdin (2019).

At the end of the pathway, we when to the left to the Villains area. In this area, my favorite was the Sanderson Sisters costumes from Hocus Pocus 2.

The Into the Woods characters being posed as a scene was also interesting.

As we exited the Villains area and headed over to the Heroes, we checked out the costumes in the Space Between, which included characters that were sometimes villains and sometimes heroes. Mik’s favorite here was Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates Of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

Over on the Heroes side was a somewhat interesting interactive Magic Mirror. For this, you stand on a spot and a costume appears “on” you in the mirror. It sort of worked, but was hard to really see yourself and more was just seeing the various costumes illuminated on the mirror. Certainly did not line up right for Mik sitting, but was not much better for those standing (or at least not if short like me).

My favorite on the Heroes side was Ben Gates from National Treasure. Mik wasn’t impressed as it was just plain street clothes. He would have preferred it to be the costume when Ben Gates was dressed up and stole the Declaration of Independence.

We both liked the scene pose for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice costumes scene.

Of course, I also liked the Mary Poppins Returns costumes.

The most impressive part of the whole is probably the Beast and Gaston.

The sketches on the wall showing the costume design from the original Mary Poppins (and some other movies) was also interesting.

After the exhibit, we had to wait for the presentation at 7pm in the theater. The presentation gave a good overview of the exhibit and the Walt Disney Achrives costume collection and preservation in general. It kind of would have been nice if this had been before the exhibit preview, though, as they talked about things to check out on the detail of some of the costumes that would have been nice to know before hand. We could have gone beak to the exhibit after the presentation if we had wanted, but instead we went down to the reception because we were were hungry and thirsty and Mik was done after having to wait so long between being done seeing the exhibit and the presentation already.

As we headed down to the reception, Mik loved that the elevator doors featured the exhibit poster, which we reminds me I keep saving elevator photos in a folder to do a series of posts on our favorite elevator finds. Maybe this year I'll actually start posting about the elevators.

Overall we enjoyed our visit to the South Carolina State Museum and the “Heroes & Villains: The Art of the Disney Costume” exhibit. It was fun to see some favorite character costumes up close, learn more about the costume design, and see the details that you otherwise would not see.

Destination Info:

“Heroes & Villains: The Art of the Disney Costume” at South Carolina State Museum

301 Gervais Street

Columbia, SC 29201

Orlando Auto Museum at Dezerland Park

Date of Visit: December 13, 2023

Trying to find things to do in Orlando that wasn't theme parks or mini golf and interested Mik, we found the Orlando Auto Museum. Mik still wasn't sure if he wanted to go, but after Dad and I accidentally ended up at Dezerland to play mini golf in the same complex (an old mall mostly now occupied by the auto museum) and saw a QR code for 25% off the auto museum, we were able to convince him to go later in our trip.

The museum starts with rooms by the decades ('20s, '30s, and '40s).

The '40s room was actually boats. Mik really liked the models and this room is a good example of how many of the rooms had things on display on the walls that were relevant to the room's theme.

One of the most unique cars on display was the longest limo.

There were several rooms of cars from different countries. This rooms did not really interest us mainly because there was very little signage telling you anything about them.

Mik enjoyed the Bat Cave room with the Batman vehicles.

Our favorite area was probably the Cars of the Stars as it contained vehicles from various movies. My favorite was Inspector Gadget.

Mik liked the Spider-man one.

But his favorite was probably the Indiana Jones display.

The other room Mik really enjoyed was the Military Pavilion, especially since he had worn his camo that day.

The Bond Museum was also impressive with vehicles organized chronologically by movie. There was also an area with a lot of different memorabilia related to Bond.

Overall the Orlando Auto Museum was an enjoyable experience and easy to roll through. There were definitely a lot of different vehicles to look at and we easily spent several hours going through it. However, I really did not like that there was very little signage to tell you anything about the vehicles. It felt like there was just as much signage by the few vehicles they have on display in the areas outside the museum, which Dad and I walked around after mini golfing there a few days before, as there is in the museum where there is a lot more on display.

Destination Info:
Orlando Auto Museum

5250 International Drive

Orlando Florida 32819

International Spy Museum

Date of Visit: March 9, 2020

Visiting the International Spy Museum has been on our list to do since it moved to its new location  in our quadrant. All these years living here, we never visited the old location because I always thought we had done it sort of recently one of the years we visited DC when Mom went for a work trip. Turns out that Mik doesn't remember going, but Dad and I do so I guess we went a lot longer ago than I thought (probably 2006 when I was at American University and they visited for Rodeo Weekend).

The day we went ended up being one of the first good weather days of spring and one of the last chances for us to go do something in DC for awhile since everything shutdown by the next week and my trip to look at options for us to move to a new state seems to have turned into I've moved.

Getting to the museum can be difficult/confusing, especially in a wheelchair, the way it is located in L'Enfant Plaza. Their website appears to have good detailed directions for the metro exit, although not sure how well they work out since we walked from home and even if we used metro these directions require escalators. They do have a good suggestion that if you need to use the elevator to exit the station that you can then take the free Southwest Shuttle, which stops near that exit of L'Enfant Plaza and the museum.

The way that was the shortest for us to walk there was to end up coming from the south near The Wharf, which meant going up a big hill. I had been this way before on my own and knew there was a reason I needed to remember if I ever took Mik this way. I thought it was just about it being steep, but it was actually that you have to remember to cross over to the middle when you get to the top as the sidewalk on the side is not really meant for walking and thus we had to back up to get back to the crosswalk when we realized it was too narrow to go that way.

The museum visit starts with everyone taking elevators up to the 5th floor. They direct wheelchairs straight ahead instead of entering the queue for the elevator. I guess it makes sense compared to having to wind through the queue, but really it feels unnecessary to end up then skipping to the front of the line when the elevators are part of the normal museum experience.

You exit the elevators into the Briefing Center. Here you get your cover, which you can then use at various kiosks throughout the museum to have a spy experience. In theory, this sounded interesting, but we ended up skipping almost all of them because Mik didn't have the patience to wait 15 minutes for a screen to open up to use at most of the spots.

After a Briefing Film, you enter the exhibits. The first area had some interesting displays that showed videos featuring stories about some spies in history. This ended up being one of our favorite parts of the museum.

Mik, in particular, enjoyed the area in the back that had a film called "Agents & Handlers," which had a nice bench style seating with an area for him to roll up next to nicely.

The one interactive thing we were able to do without waiting too long for a turn was the Decision Room. This was an interesting reenactment of analyzing intel to find a terrorist leader.

There was some interesting things in the Covert Action area. Mik tried out the Spy Catcher, which was a button that you pushed to "catch" the people trying to discreetly crawl in the ducts above.

We both also ended up with the same thing when we spun the Covert Action Wheel of Fortune.

After the Covert Action area, the exhibits continue by going down to the 4th floor. The elevator is well-labelled for whether you're headed to the rest of the exhibits or using it for when you're done to get back to the first level.

We found the George Washington and American Revolution exhibit area interesting except Mik was disappointed that the area around George was unlevel and he couldn't really get to the interactive "Find the Formula" part.

Our favorite part of the whole museum was the Cold War Berlin area. It really reminded me of the Warsaw Rising Museum and the sewer part, which after I went to last year with grandpa mostly using a wheelchair is finally on Mik's list of things he wants to do.

Overall we enjoyed the International Spy Museum. However, it was annoying that we couldn't experience the interactive Undercover Mission part without waiting at least 10 minutes in each area and it was definitely a light crowd day, so I can't imagine how it works out as worthwhile for anyone when they actually have groups and such in there. Glad we finally got there, but certainly if we're going to pay for a museum we'd rather go to the National Building Museum (we actually pay to be members even though we end up going once a year at most...) or even the Museum of the Bible (not necessarily worth going again, but certainly worth visiting once).

Destination Info:
International Spy Museum
700 L'Enfant Plaza SW
Washington, DC 20024

Petersen Auto Museum

Date of Visit: November 6, 2019

For our Panama Canal Cruise, it ended up being fewer flights as well as cheaper to fly direct into LA, rent a car, and stay a night between LA and San Diego than fly into San Diego and spend two nights there. It also allowed us to have time to do something in LA the day we arrived. Originally, we considered doing one of the presidential libraries, but when I stumbled upon the Petersen Auto Museum that became Mik's pick for the trip.

We started our tour on the top floor and worked our way back down. On the top floor Mik enjoyed taking a photo of Dad and in the 1910 Ford Model T Speedster.

Mik's favorite car was the Speed Racer prototype.

He also enjoyed seeing the other movie and TV cars such as this police cruiser from Robocop.

Mik's favorite exhibit was "Winning Numbers: The First, the Fastest, the Famous."

We also found the "Legends of Los Angeles: Southern California Race Cars and Their Builders" an interesting exhibit.

Most of the exhibits were spacious with plenty of room to navigate around. The only exhibit that we ran into problems with was in the "Hollywood Dream Machines: Vehicles of Science Fiction and Fantasy" exhibit. Although he could see everything, some of the items in that exhibit were put rather close together and Mik couldn't roll through all the pathways to view them from the best angles.

Destination Info:
Petersen Auto Museum
6060 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

National Gallery of Art - East Building: The Life of Animals in Japanese Art

Date of Visit: June 7, 2019

As it started to approach summer, we had decided to forget about trying to check out any new exhibits until it cools off again in the fall. However, Mik is very into Japanese anything, so when I found out about "The Life of Animals in Japanese Art" at the National Gallery of Art, he very much wanted to check it out. Since the exhibit is only open until August 18, we decided it was better to go this week while there was still some not too hot and humid weather days (oh, how we miss when you couldn't say it was hot if it wasn't at least 100).

I originally meant to take the huge elevator down to the Concourse level to see the exhibit, but the way the security area was set up it looks it didn't appear to be accessible from the ground level. Thus, we ended up using the Tower 2 elevator from which you exit right into the middle of the exhibit. Turns out that have been the right elevator choice as the regular entrance from the concourse level has steps, so you have to use one of the two Tower 2 elevators to get into exhibit. We like the odd shape of the one form the lobby, but it is somewhat small and if you want more typical elevator, there is one to be found by going into the exhibit to the left.

When we got off the elevator, we choose to go right. It was pretty clear that we were doing the exhibit backwards, but I thought it was just because we entered in the middle and it would have been somewhat backwards one way or the other. However, when we got back around, we discovered that if you left from the elevator and go into "World of Leisure," you are soon at the beginning of the exhibit and could do it more in order. It really didn't make much of a difference, but it was kind of amusing to go through an area almost entirely before figuring out what the area's theme was and sometimes that wasn't until we were exiting into the next area.

Overall we both enjoyed this exhibit. The different helmets were our favorite part. Mik also really liked what he called the big bowls (i.e. chargers) and the mini octopus.

Destination Info:
National Gallery of Art - East Building
4th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC