VIP tour tipping

[T.G.I.Friday]

Does anyone know if you can use the tour for any type of Eat to the Beat concert benefit? Front row seats? Backstage passes? (Kidding, but not! )

Not sure how I feel about using tour time for the show, but I’d consider it if there was a significant advantage.

 

[Grasshopper2016]

This is very interesting. I don't think we will ever do a VIP tour (unless we are also the lucky beneficiaries of an awesome gift!). That's a little more that we can afford to pay.

An observation . . .

I don't know how often the tour guides work. But if being a VIP tour guide is a full-time job, and if $500 is a typical tip, then the guides might be doing quite well for themselves. If you work five days a week with four weeks of vacation, you would earn $120,000 a year in tips alone --- on top of your salary! I strongly suspect that most tour guides don't have the opportunity to work that many days. And I further suspect that it is quite common to receive considerably smaller tips (and significantly less common to receive considerably larger tips). So I imagine that the job is not actually that lucrative. And I don't mean to suggest in any way that the money is not earned and deserved, however much it is. I just found it interesting to contemplate.

 

[freshmanjs]

For quite a long time after ROTR opened, it was not available to VIP tours at all.

That's not correct. It was available to VIP tours with a boarding group. VIP tours with a boarding group could use the LL access, which at that time had almost no one in it. It was a pretty big advantage.

 

[2vets]

That was also the rule with Rise when it was VQ.

On our last VIP, we couldn’t even do Rise. But honestly, I don’t feel the need to do Rise more than once - and we may not bother during the tour bc it’s such a time suck. (Great ride, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a long attraction!) Now, Guardians I could easily ride about 5 times in a row!!!!

 

[2vets]

That's not correct. It was available to VIP tours with a boarding group. VIP tours with a boarding group could use the LL access, which at that time had almost no one in it. It was a pretty big advantage.

We weren’t told this at all during our last tour (Nov 3020). We were told that the VIP Tour could not get you access to Rise; no one ever mentioned enhanced accessibility if you got a BG - through the FP lane or LL. And we asked. In writing and again in person.

 

[GoingSince1990]

We weren’t told this at all during our last tour (Nov 3020). We were told that the VIP Tour could not get you access to Rise; no one ever mentioned enhanced accessibility if you got a BG - through the FP lane or LL. And we asked. In writing and again in person.

Correct. The only way you could do ROTR was by getting a boarding group in the same way as everyone else, even if you were on a VIP tour. And back then to get a boarding group you had to be physically in DHS when it opened.

 

[SkyGuy]

We weren’t told this at all during our last tour (Nov 3020). We were told that the VIP Tour could not get you access to Rise; no one ever mentioned enhanced accessibility if you got a BG - through the FP lane or LL. And we asked. In writing and again in person.

We did 2 VIP Tours after the parks reopened; one in October of 2020, and Rise was not an option and one in June of 2021, and we could have if we had wanted to try for a BG. We chose not to since we’d already ridden it, and our guide seemed relieved. He said it was so much easier to plan the day if we didn’t have to worry about Rise functionality.

 

[freshmanjs]

Correct. The only way you could do ROTR was by getting a boarding group in the same way as everyone else, even if you were on a VIP tour. And back then to get a boarding group you had to be physically in DHS when it opened.

But if you got a boarding group, the VIP guides could take you to the LL, which almost no one else was using at that time.

 

[2vets]

Correct. The only way you could do ROTR was by getting a boarding group in the same way as everyone else, even if you were on a VIP tour. And back then to get a boarding group you had to be physically in DHS when it opened.

That’s exactly what we were told. It was like injecting a regular, everyday DHS PITA experience into the day. Seemed like a waste to us, and I think we’d have felt this way even if they HAD given us LL access as a result of the tour.

Anyways, this isn’t the point of this thread. We’ll still be tipping around 500 most likely, maybe a bit more if our guide rules.

 

[Lehuaann]

But if you got a boarding group, the VIP guides could take you to the LL, which almost no one else was using at that time.

Not what I saw. We had a very VIP family get in line with us (head to toe Chanel). I asked the CMs if it was included with the tour, and they said, “no, they’re in boarding groups just like everyone else.” FP wasn’t even an option for the ride, so definitely not LL

 

[freshmanjs]

Not what I saw. We had a very VIP family get in line with us (head to toe Chanel). I asked the CMs if it was included with the tour, and they said, “no, they’re in boarding groups just like everyone else.” FP wasn’t even an option.

Yeah, the first part is right about boarding groups. The 2nd part that LL was not an option is dead wrong. I did it. Multiple times.

 

[Lehuaann]

Yeah, the first part is right about boarding groups. The 2nd part is dead wrong. Sorry.

Re-read what I said. Not what I saw. They were right in front of me. And I thought the poster was discussing when Rise first opened. FP and LL was not an option at the beginning.

 

[freshmanjs]

Re-read what I said. Not what I saw. They were right in front of me. And LL was not an option at the beginning.

Obviously, I have no way to know what you saw. The 2nd part of your comment that using the LL was not an option for VIP guests at the beginning is just flat out wrong no matter how many times you say it.

 

[Lehuaann]

The 2nd part of your comment that LL was not an option at the beginning is just flat out wrong no matter how many times you say it.

Rise + VIP = LL access in 2019-2020?

How when LL started in October 2021?

 

[freshmanjs]

Rise + VIP = LL access in 2019-2020?

How when LL started in October 2021?

It wasn't called the Lightning Lane yet, but the queue was there and it was open to VIP groups and some guests with Disability Access and some recoveries.

 

[Lehuaann]

It wasn't called the Lightning Lane yet, but the queue was there and it was open to VIP groups and some guests with Disability Access and some recoveries.

Got it. I know FP was not offered when we went, only boarding groups. And the VIPs in front of us were required to enter the general line. I was shocked, which was why I asked the CM. Seemed like a waste of VIP time

 

[freshmanjs]

Got it. I know FP was not offered when we went, only boarding groups. And the VIPs in front of us were required to enter the general line. I was shocked, which was why I asked the CM. Seemed like a waste of VIP time

Those days were the best time to do VIP tours because you could use the FP/LL line for just about every attraction and almost no one else could use it. Now, you have to wait in the LL line for most attractions with normies.

 

[Lehuaann]

Those days were the best time to do VIP tours because you could use the FP/LL line for just about every attraction and almost no one else could use it. Now, you have to wait in the LL line for most attractions with normies.

I bet. The VIP in front of me was right after the parks reopened in Sep 2020.

Found this video below. At 3:20, he seems to mention the guide “got” them on Rise, and they went through the regular line. Maybe the CM told me a little fib…and VIP with a boarding group got FP access while VIP without got the general line?

 

[scrappinginontario]

Please take this thread back to assisting OP and discuss VIP Tour tipping.

 

[lovethattink]

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