We booked a Plaid! Need your thoughts please (itinerary)

We hit the top attractions at 4 parks in 8.25 hours. You're charged for a minimum of 7 hours, and then 15 minute increments after that. Don't forget to factor in tip - not required, but most people do tip.

Here is what we ended up fitting into our tour. We had 2 little kids in strollers, so that made us a little slower than a group of adults. The transportation between parks was very fast, about 15 minutes from inside Hollywood Studios to inside Animal Kingdom. Our schedule:

Magic Kingdom: Met guide at Town Square Theater at 10am. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (back entrance, bypassed Fastpass line), Space Mountain, Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Journey of the Little Mermaid, Meet Ariel, Haunted Mansion (another back entrance). Offered waters when we boarded the van to Epcot.

Epcot (offered drinks and snacks upon arrival): Soarin’, Test Track, Frozen Ever After, Meet Anna & Elsa (back entrance, bypassed Fastpass)

Hollywood Studios (offered drinks and snacks upon arrival): Slinky Dog Dash, Midway Mania, quick early dinner at ABC Commissary, Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster

Animal Kingdom (no drinks/snacks offered upon arrival): Na’vi River Journey, Flight of Passage (back entrance, bypassed Fastpass line), Expedition Everest. Guide checked us in at 6:15pm for priority seating at the Rivers of Light show.
 
It depends on the ride. Some of them (Space Ranger Spin, Haunted Mansion, Flight of Passage) have a special line that bypasses most of the Fastpass line. Most lines you just go on the Fastpass line.
I know Soarin' has a special entrance for VIPs, we used it when on the Undiscovered Future World tour several years ago.
 
Again just curious, can you do repeats on ride? Would you need to get off and go thru line again?
 
Again just curious, can you do repeats on ride? Would you need to get off and go thru line again?
My guess is you would probably have to get off and wait at least one ride cycle as they tend to queue people up for most attractions while you are riding, so you could potentially be breaking up families if they simply let you stay on.
 


Again just curious, can you do repeats on ride? Would you need to get off and go thru line again?
You can definitely do repeats on rides with a guide - some people do rides over and over again - but not sure if they make you get off between rides. My guess is they probably would make you get off.
 
You can definitely do repeats on rides with a guide - some people do rides over and over again - but not sure if they make you get off between rides. My guess is they probably would make you get off.
It would depend on the ride if the vehicle goes backstage then you can't stay on, but if it doesn't it would be up to the CM working if they make you get off or not. I've stayed on rides before to re-ride without being forced to get off.
 


You can definitely do repeats on rides with a guide - some people do rides over and over again - but not sure if they make you get off between rides. My guess is they probably would make you get off.

We repeated Space Mountain and FOP. For Space, our guide led us through a hallway to avoid going through the FP line a second time. At FOP, both times, we entered the FP entrance and then went through a door to bypass the line.
 
Last edited:
Thanks to those who answered my questions. I doubt I'll ever be able to book one, but it's nice to dream.

Find 9 friends who also want to take one and it becomes much more reasonable!!! :) If you have a full tour with 10 people, it usually costs less to do the tour vs. spend an extra night in a hotel room and pay for an extra day of tickets. It's $297/person if you go during a slow time of year and split across 10 people. That's pricey, but I would prefer to spend 4 days in the parks, one of which on a VIP tour, than spend 5 days in the parks with no VIP tour. It depends on how many people are sharing rooms and how much your rooms cost, but you get the idea.
 
Find 9 friends who also want to take one and it becomes much more reasonable!!! :) If you have a full tour with 10 people, it usually costs less to do the tour vs. spend an extra night in a hotel room and pay for an extra day of tickets. It's $297/person if you go during a slow time of year and split across 10 people. That's pricey, but I would prefer to spend 4 days in the parks, one of which on a VIP tour, than spend 5 days in the parks with no VIP tour. It depends on how many people are sharing rooms and how much your rooms cost, but you get the idea.

You have a very good plan. I'd rather use your math, than spent the money for a party or EMM. But I don't know 9 people who want to go to disney at the same time. Plus my disney trips are usually with grand kids these days and their piggie banks don't stretch that far.
 
I just booked a plaid tour for Sep 10. Wanted to lock in pricing and a tour to see SWGE. They arent sure yet how access to the rides will work for the tour. Actually its for me and my husband and am looking for 8 more to fill the tour. I had an initial idea (half AK and half HS) but after reading this thread think we should open it up also to MK and be more flexible letting the guide determine stuff, with maybe just a list of rides and characters to want to accomplish.
 
I just booked a plaid tour for Sep 10. Wanted to lock in pricing and a tour to see SWGE. They arent sure yet how access to the rides will work for the tour. Actually its for me and my husband and am looking for 8 more to fill the tour. I had an initial idea (half AK and half HS) but after reading this thread think we should open it up also to MK and be more flexible letting the guide determine stuff, with maybe just a list of rides and characters to want to accomplish.

The nice thing is you can always cancel the tour pretty last-minute if they decide to not offer SWGE access with the tour. You can also go on different rides with the tour guide as long as they're pretty close to each other - we had some people go on Tower of Terror and then the guide brought some other people to Rock n Roller Coaster while the other people were waiting for TOT. That might be a little tough to plan out ahead, but we did it to save a little time when people were interested in different things.
 
How does it work if you have kids that want to meet characters that don’t have a FP line?



The nice thing is you can always cancel the tour pretty last-minute if they decide to not offer SWGE access with the tour. You can also go on different rides with the tour guide as long as they're pretty close to each other - we had some people go on Tower of Terror and then the guide brought some other people to Rock n Roller Coaster while the other people were waiting for TOT. That might be a little tough to plan out ahead, but we did it to save a little time when people were interested in different things.
 
How does it work if you have kids that want to meet characters that don’t have a FP line?

The only non-fast pass characters we requested to meet were Kylo Ren and Chewbacca. I discussed this beforehand with signature services so that our guide could schedule a time for us to meet them. If I remember correctly, we stood off to the side until the group before us was finished with their meet.
 
The only non-fast pass characters we requested to meet were Kylo Ren and Chewbacca. I discussed this beforehand with signature services so that our guide could schedule a time for us to meet them. If I remember correctly, we stood off to the side until the group before us was finished with their meet.

I asked if we could meet Merida the day of the tour and our guide said that they weren’t able to bypass that line. Perhaps if we had set something up in advance like rlk did, it could have worked, but then you’re restricted on timing and we didn’t have a solid itinerary in place when we booked everything.
 
We will be booking one too. Hubby HATES standing in lines. So this is the best option to get the big ones in. I pray that they include SWGE. That would be a huge let down.
 
I am also looking at a private VIP “plaid” tour for our Summer 2021 trip. I don’t have a set agenda, just a LONG list of rides we want to hit. Our party size is not yet confirmed but will be between 4-6 people only (4 adults, 2 teenagers). I was thinking of “going big” and booking 12 hours (9am-9pm) and only doing QS for food. I’m still up in the air on transportation because we will be staying at the Polynesian so I don’t want to waste time/$ but if it’s still possible to do all of our “must dos” and have the door to door service, I’m all for it. Here’s our list of preferred rides (in no specific order) - is this feasible?

Animal Kingdom:
FOP
Na’vi River Journey
DINOSAUR
Expedition Everest
Kali River Rapids*

Epcot:
Soarin
Test Track
Guardians Coaster
Ratatouille
Frozen Ever After*

Hollywood Studios:
Tower of Terror
Rockin Rollercoaster
Slinky Dog Dash
Millennium Falcon
Rise of the Resistance
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway*

Magic Kingdom:
Big Thunder Mountain
Space Mountain
Splash Mountain
TRON
7 Dwarfs Mine Train
Pirates of the Caribbean
Haunted Mansion
Jungle Cruise*
Peter Pan*

*These are our optional rides if there’s time
 
I just want to add that people without this VIP service do every ride in Disney during a day. Having this service and not even wanting to do everything makes me think its possible.

I personally would call to ask what they think about it.
 
Here's a hypothetical question: Would you rather
1) Do a VIP Tour
2) Do a combo of the AK night tour + the Ultimate Thrills tour, or
3) Stay at a Deluxe at Club Level and spend the $50 per person for the minimum the three days for three extra FPs.
My party of six might be able to do one of these. Because we're six, option #1, at roughly $3500 for 7 hours, is basically the same price as option #2, AK ($250x6) + Thrills ($350x6). The two tours have most of what we want on the VIP tour. The big minus is Meet & Greets we would add to the VIP for the convenience of easy princess access for DD, who would need costume changes in between. But option #2 includes a meal and Rivers of Light.
SWGE is a big unknown for working into the VIP tour, getting its own tour (with Savi's and Jedi Training included! :joker:) or being incorporated into Ultimate Thrills. (A girl can dream.)
The idea is that the tours, with either #1 or #2, would allow us to drop at least one day off our resort, our tickets, and dining expenses, subsidizing a third of the cost.
Option #3 is more about resort luxury and getting around needing more days to navigate FP rules about multiple parks and tiers, tiers, tiers that force line haters like us to either go to, say, Epcot two days or make a RD dash or get a PPO breakfast at the right restaurant.
Thoughts? Experiences?
Has anyone used a VIP tour to get a M&G with a harder to find character, like Marie, or is just for those who have regular stations?
 
Silly question, is the price for that ($425/hour) per person or per group? I could almost be convinced to swing it for a trip for just the two of us if it was per group.

Matt
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Top