Anyone do a VIP private tour since the parks reopened?

[fancymouse]

Do they still use the MinnieVans ?
And what is the guest limit ? 8 per group or how many fit in the Van ?

They use private vehicles (not Minnie Vans) and up to 10 people are included in your tour.

 

[holden]

Not sure if this was mentioned before...

I booked a VIP tour today. CM said if we want to get a boarding pass for ROTR, we have to have a park pass for DHS that day. I think it was mentioned that tour guides cannot get you on ROTR. You have to go through the normal boarding pass selection. Just wanted to pass that on.

 

[BarlowFamily]

We would love to book a VIP tour at WDW when we finally get the west Coast grandparents to join us for a trip there! I'm consistently planning this future trip. I saw an Instagram influencer just got back from WDW. Her trip sounded too good to be true. They hired a tour guide for $150 an hour and were still able to skip the lines/use the Fast Pass queues. She did say it was an outside company, not the Disney VIP tours. How are these outside companies able to "skip the lines"?? Sounds too good to be true.

 

[holden]

We would love to book a VIP tour at WDW when we finally get the west Coast grandparents to join us for a trip there! I'm consistently planning this future trip. I saw an Instagram influencer just got back from WDW. Her trip sounded too good to be true. They hired a tour guide for $150 an hour and were still able to skip the lines/use the Fast Pass queues. She did say it was an outside company, not the Disney VIP tours. How are these outside companies able to "skip the lines"?? Sounds too good to be true.

I have seen companies online that do this. They must use deceptive practices though. Perhaps they have access to DAS passes or something similar? Whatever it is, they do not use the proper channels.

Would you be ok with that?

The official Disney VIP tour is awesome and worth every penny IMHO. We did one Nov. 2019 and will do it again when we go this summer. Everything was first class, and we had an awesome time.

 

[_19disnA]

If something sounds 'too good to be true' it probably is. I would be very cautious of signing up with any non-Disney group who claims to have VIP/insider access. Clearly Disney is VERY protective about how they run their parks and it wouldn't surprise me to see it is either some sort of scam or they can't actually deliver what they claim. I would also suspect Disney would ask such individuals to leave if they found out they were doing something outside of the Disney rules like running a side business claiming VIP access and trying to profit by selling Disney access. Outsiders running those tours clearly will NOT be authorized to behind the scenes areas or places not open to the public.

 

[fancymouse]

Outside tour guides don’t have access to anything you don’t. Most likely they just know how to use MDE to grab FPs more effectively than an average user might. They are definitely not giving you on demand FP lane access like a Disney VIP tour. I wouldn’t pay for an outside guide. If you can afford the Disney tours they are well worth it.

We would love to book a VIP tour at WDW when we finally get the west Coast grandparents to join us for a trip there! I'm consistently planning this future trip. I saw an Instagram influencer just got back from WDW. Her trip sounded too good to be true. They hired a tour guide for $150 an hour and were still able to skip the lines/use the Fast Pass queues. She did say it was an outside company, not the Disney VIP tours. How are these outside companies able to "skip the lines"?? Sounds too good to be true.

 

[F.R.I.D.A.Y.]

We would love to book a VIP tour at WDW when we finally get the west Coast grandparents to join us for a trip there! I'm consistently planning this future trip. I saw an Instagram influencer just got back from WDW. Her trip sounded too good to be true. They hired a tour guide for $150 an hour and were still able to skip the lines/use the Fast Pass queues. She did say it was an outside company, not the Disney VIP tours. How are these outside companies able to "skip the lines"?? Sounds too good to be true.

I have seen companies online that do this. They must use deceptive practices though. Perhaps they have access to DAS passes or something similar? Whatever it is, they do not use the proper channels.

Basically this. There are a number of ways that they obtain the access to attractions that they have, but pretty much all of them involve some level of deception. Right now they are likely using either DAS or Rider Swap. Back before FP+ was suspended, one of the main ways they would run their tours was to obtain large amounts of FPs for the most popular attractions using tickets linked to MDE accounts they managed and then have their guests use those, either transferring the FPs directly to their guests' accounts when that was still an option, or by carrying extra tickets that these FPs were linked to once they couldn't transfer them any longer. Some would also print off their own fraudulent but very real looking paper FPs that many CMs couldn't distinguish from legitimate ones, when those were still in use. Others managed to get their hands on "No Strings" booklets or would directly pay off CMs at attractions to let them in the queue.

If something sounds 'too good to be true' it probably is. I would be very cautious of signing up with any non-Disney group who claims to have VIP/insider access. Clearly Disney is VERY protective about how they run their parks and it wouldn't surprise me to see it is either some sort of scam or they can't actually deliver what they claim. I would also suspect Disney would ask such individuals to leave if they found out they were doing something outside of the Disney rules like running a side business claiming VIP access and trying to profit by selling Disney access. Outsiders running those tours clearly will NOT be authorized to behind the scenes areas or places not open to the public.

Yup. What the outside tour companies do is against Disney's property rules. While they won't take their guests into backstage areas, they do break the rules against unauthorized commercial activities and the sale of goods and services by outside parties on property. If caught operating one of their 3rd party tours, the "guide" would likely be trespassed from property. Many of these companies tell guests that they have an agreement and partnership with WDW to be allowed to operate and get FP access, but none of them do.

 

[BarlowFamily]

@holden @_19disnA @fancymouse @F.R.I.D.A.Y. Thank you for your responses. I'm absolutely not okay with going with a company using deceptive practices. I'd rather one day with an official VIP tour than four days of unofficial tours that are clearly breaking Disney's rules.

 

[fancymouse]

This is the great thing about Disney’s tours. They are so efficient and you can get so much done that, for us at least, we can make our trip shorter (and therefore saving money on hotel and tickets). We did a tour once that was basically all the “big rides” in the four parks. This allowed us to focus our other days on rides we didn’t do and when FPs were around we saved them for things we missed or a ride we wanted to do again. It just took the stress out of trying to get FPs for FoP or 7DMT. Also, if the semi-private tours come back they are also a great option. They have a pre-set schedule, but are less expensive. When it’s just my husband and I, we do these as they are much more cost effective than a private tour.

@holden @_19disnA @fancymouse @F.R.I.D.A.Y. Thank you for your responses. I'm absolutely not okay with going with a company using deceptive practices. I'd rather one day with an official VIP tour than four days of unofficial tours that are clearly breaking Disney's rules.

 

[moliuchick]

This is the great thing about Disney’s tours. They are so efficient and you can get so much done that, for us at least, we can make our trip shorter (and therefore saving money on hotel and tickets). We did a tour once that was basically all the “big rides” in the four parks. This allowed us to focus our other days on rides we didn’t do and when FPs were around we saved them for things we missed or a ride we wanted to do again. It just took the stress out of trying to get FPs for FoP or 7DMT. Also, if the semi-private tours come back they are also a great option. They have a pre-set schedule, but are less expensive. When it’s just my husband and I, we do these as they are much more cost effective than a private tour.

If I only have tickets for 4 days to enter into one park only on each day, will the private tour be able to get us in to 4 different parks in one day? And how many hours do I need in a day for the private tour? I would like to hear about your recommendations. Thank you!

 

[sophy1996]

I'm thinking about booking a VIP tour, but I was wondering about tipping. Is the guide allowed to accept tips?

 

[fancymouse]

If I only have tickets for 4 days to enter into one park only on each day, will the private tour be able to get us in to 4 different parks in one day? And how many hours do I need in a day for the private tour? I would like to hear about your recommendations. Thank you!

You must have park hopper tickets to park hop with them. During Covid when they stopped selling park hopper tickets it sounds like they made an exception, but now that they are back I would assume they went back to that policy. However, I doubt they are bound by the 2pm rule. You’d have to call and ask.

As far as length, there is a 7 hour minimum commitment with a tour. We never intentionally tried to go over that and they definitely don’t like announce your time is up or anything. They’ll go as long as you want (although the do have a max- I think it’s like 12+ hours) and they are flexible so if you don’t care about the cost, they’ll just go until you are finished (which is what we did). If cost is a concern and you want to only do 7 hours then I’m sure if you tell them they’ll be happy to organize that. We normally did about 8 hours, but they also picked us up and dropped us off at the hotel which is technically part of the time. It would be difficult to do all 4 parks in 7 hours unless you were only doing a few rides in each park, but I think in 9 hours you could probably do most of the big rides in the parks. It’s pretty much nonstop go-go-go if you want to do it that way though. For us this was fine because we took our time the other days. I’ve also done tours of just single parks too. In MK, for example, we did about 7 hours and still didn’t get *everything* done (but we didn’t care about like Tomorrowland Speedway or Ariel etc.). For HS, Epcot, and AK, 7 hours is plenty. You’d probably be able to repeat things (especially without shows).

 

[moliuchick]

THank you!!!