VIP Tour - First time - Questions

[JeannieNM]

HI,
We are booking a VIP tour for one day. We would love input on how to best utilize the day without over doing it. We know not to do TS but also do not want to be low energy or hangry. We are 4 adults - 2 60s, 2 mid 20s. We have 3 day park hoppers with G+ so we will have two more partial days to do things that would not be efficient to do on the tour). We want to get the most out the day without it being a road race.

1) Do you have a guide you can recommend. (from past experience with other types of tours, the guide can make or break the experience)

2) Do you have a suggested list of rides or Itin that is realistic for one day? (our focus is rides that are not available to DLR that would have long waits if we do them on our own). Originally thought of skipping Star Wars as we have ridden ROTR and Falcon many times at DLR though now that DH is joining us, he has not been to DLR in 10 years so he should experience them. (is this enough information for the guide)?

3) Any tips about hidden gems, advance planning, or anything at all would be appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[Mamiamjo]

Not an answer but another question, when signing up for a VIP tour, do you need to have a park hopper ticket? Do you have to wait until after 2:00 to go to your second park?

 

[KerryCM]

Not an answer but another question, when signing up for a VIP tour, do you need to have a park hopper ticket? Do you have to wait until after 2:00 to go to your second park?

You need a park hopper, but you don’t have to wait until after 2

 

[Scarlet_J]

I would just pick 2 or 3 parks you want to hit and then a few key rides in each park. Then just go with your guides recommendations.

 

[holden]

We've done 2 VIP tours. You don't need to wait until 2 to hop.

I'm not sure if the guides can get you on every attraction now. When we went our guide couldn't get us on to ROTR because it had the virtual queue. What he did instead was get us a park reservation so we could book it at the 1pm drop. It worked.

We did not stop to eat. We grabbed snacks along the way (pretzels, etc.). Our guides also had food and water in the van.

Here's what we were able to do:

MK:
Haunted Mansion
Space Mountain (multiple times)
Splash Mountain
Big Thunder Mountain RR
Seven Dwarves
Peter Pan
Pirates

AK:
Flight of Passage

DHS:
Slinky Dog
Toy Story Midway Mania
Mickey & Minnie Runaway Railway
Tower of Terror
Rock n Rollercoaster
Millenium Falcon
Star Tours
Rise of the Resistance (because we got the virtual queue our guide was able to take us on as soon as we arrived)

We skipped EP and only rode FOP in AK.

Our first guide is now a Disney ambassador, so he's not a guide anymore. He was wonderful! Our second guide was also excellent. His name was Jimmy. I'd use him again.

The guides are good at figuring out which rides to do when. I'd give them your list and leave the planning to the guide.

Enjoy!

 

[KerryCM]

HI,
We are booking a VIP tour for one day. We would love input on how to best utilize the day without over doing it. We know not to do TS but also do not want to be low energy or hangry. We are 4 adults - 2 60s, 2 mid 20s. We have 3 day park hoppers with G+ so we will have two more partial days to do things that would not be efficient to do on the tour). We want to get the most out the day without it being a road race.

1) Do you have a guide you can recommend. (from past experience with other types of tours, the guide can make or break the experience)

2) Do you have a suggested list of rides or Itin that is realistic for one day? (our focus is rides that are not available to DLR that would have long waits if we do them on our own). Originally thought of skipping Star Wars as we have ridden ROTR and Falcon many times at DLR though now that DH is joining us, he has not been to DLR in 10 years so he should experience them. (is this enough information for the guide)?

3) Any tips about hidden gems, advance planning, or anything at all would be appreciated.

Thank you!

When we did our tour my son handed the guide the rides he wanted to get done in each park, his kids picked their favorites. The guide knew exactly the best way to navigate the park to accomplish things. The kids rode some rides multiple times too. We always ended near the back stage area where the van was parked. They accomplished so much in the time. They ate at a quick serve in Animal Kingdom and did mobile order. My husband and I left the tour after 5 hours , but they kept on going. They are doing it again the end of March.

 

[Mamiamjo]

Sounds great! If only it weren’t so expensive

 

[KerryCM]

Sounds great! If only it weren’t so expensive

I agree! My son paid for it, he can afford it and that is good for them. I was exhausted. Like he said, the kids got on all the rides they wanted and he could relax the rest of the trip

 

[JeannieNM]

Thank you all for the advice.
@holdenCM - did you do all that in 7 hours or did you add time? This gives me an idea of what is realistic in the time frame.

 

[SkyGuy]

We've done 2 VIP tours. You don't need to wait until 2 to hop.

I'm not sure if the guides can get you on every attraction now. When we went our guide couldn't get us on to ROTR because it had the virtual queue. What he did instead was get us a park reservation so we could book it at the 1pm drop. It worked.

We did not stop to eat. We grabbed snacks along the way (pretzels, etc.). Our guides also had food and water in the van.

Here's what we were able to do:

MK:
Haunted Mansion
Space Mountain (multiple times)
Splash Mountain
Big Thunder Mountain RR
Seven Dwarves
Peter Pan
Pirates

AK:
Flight of Passage

DHS:
Slinky Dog
Toy Story Midway Mania
Mickey & Minnie Runaway Railway
Tower of Terror
Rock n Rollercoaster
Millenium Falcon
Star Tours
Rise of the Resistance (because we got the virtual queue our guide was able to take us on as soon as we arrived)

We skipped EP and only rode FOP in AK.

Our first guide is now a Disney ambassador, so he's not a guide anymore. He was wonderful! Our second guide was also excellent. His name was Jimmy. I'd use him again.

The guides are good at figuring out which rides to do when. I'd give them your list and leave the planning to the guide.

Enjoy!

The guides can now get you on any rides - Remy and Rise only one time; the rest are as many times as you would like. I don’t know if they will treat Guardians like they did Rise when it first opened or not - maybe depends on the popularity and if they do VQ or not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. They are no longer supplying snacks or water. You are not allowed to eat or drink in the vans since you are currently still required to wear a mask on transportation. I’ve done several VIP Tours and greatly miss the College Program kids handing out treats and drinks and having the vehicle started, cooled, and waiting. I keep hoping that service returns, but I’m not holding my breath. We’ve done three since the parks reopened, and on two, the guide had water bottles for us when we got off one of the rides.

 

[JeannieNM]

@SkyGuy good to know about the food and snacks. I always keep some snacks in my back pack. I will make sure I am well stocked and we can buy water along the way. I am thinking of just adding time to our 7 hours so we can have a counter service lunch break, also think we want door to door service, a ride home after the fireworks maybe needed. Still sorting it all out. If the kids want to hang back and do more rides they can and us old guys can head home with the guide.

 

[alliecat523]

We had Homer as our guide. Loved him.

 

[tbre1982]

I did a vip tour this last week. Here is my review (cross posting) which may be helpful. Let me know if I can answer more specific ?s


VIP Tour review!

Tour date/hours: Friday 2/25/22, 10am-6pm (8hrs)

Who: 7 people: Me, my kids ages 6(son)+ 9(daughter), my parents, my high school bestie and her 6yo daughter

Parks/Rides tally: 3 parks, 19 rides

Guide: Teresa. She’s been a vip guide for 20 years and was a wealth of knowledge and amazingness. The 3 kids were obsessed with her and fought over who got to ride with her on each ride.

Cost: a lot. $575/hr x 8 hrs plus tip. It’s…not cheap. But I specifically picked up multiple extra shifts during the Omicron Surge to directly allow me to pay for this outside of my normal salary/budget.

Details: we booked an 830 breakfast at Hollywood and Vine and really filled up prior to meeting tour guide at 10am at the H&V podium. Our guide asked for our priorities then she came up with a plan to do it most efficiently. We did the following rides in this order:

HS 7 rides:
ROTR
Smugglers Run
Alien swirling saucers
TSMM x2 (a fav)
Slinky dog dash
MMRR

Quick Bathroom break. Then Boarded air conditioned van via back exit by TOT/RONC. On road ~1pm. They had three booster seats installed as we had requested and attendants folded up our strollers for us. Felt very vip !!

AK (2 rides)
Navi River
FOP

We entered/exited AK right by a back service entrance near Navi and did not Have to go through security again. To save time we just left the strollers in the van here since there was minimal walking.

MK (10 rides)
Parked in a lot in the Tomorrowland backstage area. Arrived ~230. Again did not have to go through security. Once parked our tour guide got eveyone a bottle of water and treat of their choice (Mickey bar, Mickey ice cream sandwich or strawberry bar). We then made a counterclockwise loop of park and hit:
Jungle cruise
Magic carpets
BTMRR
<bathroom break>
Peter Pan
It’s a small world
Carousel
SDMT
Winnie the Pooh x2 (my son’s fav)
Tomorrowland speedway
We then had a 615 dinner at BOG which was awesome to sit and relax and eat after our long day

So in summary: we did 19 rides 3 parks in 8 hours with 3 strollers and two grandparents. Needless to say….We did not move fast, BUT we were still able to get in a huge number of rides. And this was a day all 3 parks were “SOLD OUT” of park reservations — ie high crowds. So … I imagine if u went on a lower crowd day, unencumbered by strollers, you could easily do even more rides.

Things I think we did right:
-we had the huge breakfast before the tour which allowed us to get through the 8 hours without stopping for lunch; I packed a lot of snacks but honestly aside from the ice cream treats and a cold lemonade no one really ate much until the tour was over. Highly recommend not using valuable tour time to eat
-We met the guide at the park and did not use valuable tour time for transportation to the park
-We did intentionally skip a few headliners due to ride length or focusing on rides that eveyone could ride (we skipped splash at MK because it’s 20 mins long and we have another MK day booked. Skipped TOT and RNRC at HS because the kids were scared of TOT and only one was tall enough for RNRC).
-skipped Epcot due to it being fairly easy to navigate without a vip guide and not wanting to waste more time park hopping

Things I might do differently next time:
-Try to time the tour to end with the fireworks. Apparently they will get you a priority viewing spot

 

[SkyGuy]

We had Homer as our guide. Loved him.

We Homer!

 

[MIinNJ]

We are also doing a tour soon and I really appreciate these tips. Other than creating a list of rides, is there anything else we should prepare ahead of time?

 

[porpentina]

I'm doing a VIP tour next week with a group of strangers from my company. If a member of the group doesn't like thrill rides, is there any ability to split up? I'm assuming that's too much for the guide to manage, but wondered if we might be able to send some team members on Space Mountain and others on Buzz Lightyear, for example, if there's a nearby tamer ride.

 

[holden]

Thank you all for the advice.
@holdenCM - did you do all that in 7 hours or did you add time? This gives me an idea of what is realistic in the time frame.

We only did 7 hours.

 

[Sea of Progress]

We have our first VIP tour at the end of the month! I think I once heard that you bypass the stretching room of the Haunted Mansion if taking a VIP tour, does anyone know if that's true?

 

[holden]

We have our first VIP tour at the end of the month! I think I once heard that you bypass the stretching room of the Haunted Mansion if taking a VIP tour, does anyone know if that's true?

Yes. We skipped the stretching room on both of our tours.

 

[JeannieNM]

I am trying to come up with a booking strategy. We can do 60 +1 but I live on the west coast so 7 am is 4 am my time. I can do it but I am going to a wedding the night before and who knows what time I will get to sleep. LOL I am thinking of having the concierge make the booking. Is that wise? or should I keep control of the situation?

We are now thinking of doing 2 days of VIP and changing to the Dolphin which is very reasonable. I am just not sure if I want to do 2 days B2B or do 1 VIP day, one chill day with just wondering the parks at night, day 3 VIP tour. We will be there 4 nights with day 1 and 5 travel days and not parks. Or just stick to 1 VIP day. I know this is total first world problem but I am great at researching and horrible at decisions.

Input is welcome and appreciated.