VIP tour

[Goalstone22]

My best friend and I are coming to Disneyland for the first time ever in May! We are celebrating a wedding in Hawaii (sadly no Aulani stay yet) and my 33rd birthday, but decided to sneak in a Disneyland Trip! We are staying at the Grand Californian, and were looking into a VIP tour. Are they worth it, and does anyone know if you have access to ROTR on the tour? Any Disneyland tips and tricks appreciated! After a long 2 years we are so excited to really have a splurge trip!

 

[Geemo]

My best friend and I are coming to Disneyland for the first time ever in May! We are celebrating a wedding in Hawaii (sadly no Aulani stay yet) and my 33rd birthday, but decided to sneak in a Disneyland Trip! We are staying at the Grand Californian, and were looking into a VIP tour. Are they worth it, and does anyone know if you have access to ROTR on the tour? We were also hoping to celebrate turning 33 at Club 33, but know this is going to be nearly impossible! Any Disneyland tips and tricks appreciated! After a long 2 years we are so excited to really have a splurge trip!

I see you just join the board.



I am sure board members will share park tips with you.
Several have experience with VIP tours.

However, I believe Club 33 invitation requests are frowned upon here on the board.
Club 33 is a BIG WISH for very one, including me.

Have fun planning your trip!

 

[Goalstone22]

Looking forward to any tips thank you! Post edited for clarity on request!

 

[Steven G]

You can ride rotr once during your tour. I had a vip tour earlier this week, and this is the first time I have to give a negative review. I've been on 3 vip tour at dl and 2 at wdw.

The negative is not on the guide Jason, he was awesome. The negative is on the attraction wait times. Jason admitted that the vip group has less access than before, in that they are forbidden on using shortcuts for any lightning lane ride. In the past if the line was really long, they could use a shortcut like going in the back, or joining the queue further along. We were in the gotg line for 40 plus minutes, not because of any shutdown, but just because it was really long. We paid $700 an hour, and that was just poor. That happened nearly as badly in Indiana Jones, and radiator springs. At wdw for example, for tower of terror, we twice cut to near the front to save a lot of time, and I remember that happened in dl as well on previous tours.

I can't in good conscience recommend a vip tour at dl until they change this policy. I complained on the vip survey and told them that as well.

 

[shosh1530]

I can't in good conscience recommend a vip tour at dl until they change this policy. I complained on the vip survey and told them that as well.

Oof, I would be pretty unhappy to pay for a VIP tour and then wait the same amount of time as those doing Genie + Seems much more cost-effective to just pay for Genie+ and ILL at that point.

 

[Steven G]

Please note that in the fine print, they state that a vip tour group will use the fast pass, now lightning lane if the ride has one. So in theory, I got what I was promised. However, as I said above, even though that was official policy before, the guides were allowed to bypass parts of the line as needed, and now, apparently, they cannot.

if you have any other questions about the tour, let me know.

 

[poptart90]

You can ride rotr once during your tour. I had a vip tour earlier this week, and this is the first time I have to give a negative review. I've been on 3 vip tour at dl and 2 at wdw.

The negative is not on the guide Jason, he was awesome. The negative is on the attraction wait times. Jason admitted that the vip group has less access than before, in that they are forbidden on using shortcuts for any lightning lane ride. In the past if the line was really long, they could use a shortcut like going in the back, or joining the queue further along. We were in the gotg line for 40 plus minutes, not because of any shutdown, but just because it was really long. We paid $700 an hour, and that was just poor. That happened nearly as badly in Indiana Jones, and radiator springs. At wdw for example, for tower of terror, we twice cut to near the front to save a lot of time, and I remember that happened in dl as well on previous tours.

I can't in good conscience recommend a vip tour at dl until they change this policy. I complained on the vip survey and told them that as well.

Wow. So a VIP tour is now simply Genie+, PLUS the ability to ride your fave attractions more than once a day through the LLs. That’s it?

I would be critical as well for that ridiculous price point! Let’s see, $20 a day to ride one time or $700 a hour to have the “possibility” of riding more than once? Wait times the same regardless?! Whoa.

Grateful for your recent review. We’ve been toying with doing some super saving to splurge on the kiddos first trip to WDW by booking a VIP day… not sure we’ll bother if this becomes the norm.

 

[Dory92130]

Wow. So a VIP tour is now simply Genie+, PLUS the ability to ride your fave attractions more than once a day through the LLs. That’s it?

I would be critical as well for that ridiculous price point! Let’s see, $20 a day to ride one time or $700 a hour to have the “possibility” of riding more than once? Wait times the same regardless?! Whoa.

Grateful for your recent review. We’ve been toying with doing some super saving to splurge on the kiddos first trip to WDW by booking a VIP day… not sure we’ll bother if this becomes the norm.

Not that simple math as group of 10 to share costs. Also ILL for ROTR, RS, WS not included in Genie+ along with rerides on favorites to your delight.

Totally agree that the ILL lines merge way too early for some rides like IJA -- in those cases, I believe they allow to bypass and go the handicap backway to merge up much further ahead.

For GOTG - hard as the preshow is downstairs and really can be backed up between preshow and ride loads.

• Reservations are required and can be made by contacting Disney Special Activities at DisneylandVIPTours@disney.com or (714) 300-7710. (Guests under 18 years of age must have parent or guardian permission to email or call.)
• Starting at $2,975, you and up to 9 other Guests can enjoy a customizable VIP Tour, with a minimum of 7 hours.
• A maximum of 10 Guests, including infants, can be accommodated by each VIP Tour Guide.
• Tours in languages other than English may be available with advance notice

 

[Steven G]

In Florida, on a tour I had in June this year, we were able to bypass all of the line for tower of terror, and go directly to the elevators. Twice In a row.

what I am saying is the tour guide has said he used to be able to offer that in DL and now cannot. Same thing for Indiana jones, he could not take us the back way.

I am not sure if this policy is for both wdw and dl, or just dl.

 

[Steven G]

As a contrast, legoland also has a vip tour, and they almost always go the back way to the front of the line, and if you wish, you can ride the ride twice without getting out of the seat.

 

[Steven G]

Please note that the vip tour in Disneyland does skip the line for non lightning lane rides. So for example,you go to near the front for the fantasyland dark rides, including Peter pan, as well as other popular rides like POTC, etc. so there are additional advantages,
, compared to LL.

its really only the lightning lane rides that a vip tour has less rights to than before.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

You can ride rotr once during your tour. I had a vip tour earlier this week, and this is the first time I have to give a negative review. I've been on 3 vip tour at dl and 2 at wdw.

The negative is not on the guide Jason, he was awesome. The negative is on the attraction wait times. Jason admitted that the vip group has less access than before, in that they are forbidden on using shortcuts for any lightning lane ride. In the past if the line was really long, they could use a shortcut like going in the back, or joining the queue further along. We were in the gotg line for 40 plus minutes, not because of any shutdown, but just because it was really long. We paid $700 an hour, and that was just poor. That happened nearly as badly in Indiana Jones, and radiator springs. At wdw for example, for tower of terror, we twice cut to near the front to save a lot of time, and I remember that happened in dl as well on previous tours.

I can't in good conscience recommend a vip tour at dl until they change this policy. I complained on the vip survey and told them that as well.

Wow, I would not be happy either. At that price point, you shouldn't be waiting in lines. I've done VIPs a couple times before, but I wouldn't do one again unless that is changed. Glad you took the time to write something.

 

[sosoready]

We have a tour scheduled next week for our first visit to DL, been to WDW several times when kids were young, now they are young adults who love the coasters.

Steven, how many rides were you able to do on your tour?

At WDW kids have single rider re-ridden favorite rides but not sure how much re-riding we will want to do since there are so may we haven't done. When I made the reservation we could not get a DL start if we were booking tickets on our own, but now we can.

Has anyone noticed staffing issues at DL because of people calling in sick or does everything seem to be at full capacity?

The tour is crazy money, we only have the one day at Disney before some fly home. If the rides we care about most have LL lanes, I wonder if I figure out how to work the Genie+ and pay for the ILL we can do almost as much and save thousands, if we'll be waiting with the guide anyway. What do you think?

 

[Steven G]

We did 15 rides, which is a couple fewer than usual for us. We have been between 17 to 20 in the last, not including rerides. We were not able to reride anything because of time.

we did Peter Pan and Snow White, which helped raise the number.

we missed out on space mountain and toy story midway mania. space mountain was down when we were close by, and we ran out of time to revisit. Toy story we ran out of time. Our last ride was incredicoaster.

 

[sosoready]

Thanks again Steven, you saved us thousands. I canceled the tour and we did it on our own. I'm sure we did not do as much but everyone was happy. We did not do WS and we lost an hour doing Snorin, but if we'd been with a guide and the LL and ride took an hour my head would have exploded. We actually saw a guide and customers in the line a little ahead of us, yikes.

Genie+ was a lifesaver for park hopping and my people who hate waiting in line.

 

[Steven G]

I am glad you had a good time. Hopefully when you cancelled, you told them why. That is the only way they will be able to change,if enough people complain or cancel.

 

[Malcon10t]

We did VIP tours both NYE and NY day. Only a couple Lightening Lanes (Guardians an dSpace Mountain) slowed us down, and our guide was able to "foresee" when it would be best for lanes we wanted. We went and did another ride and when we came back it was much shorter. But, it isn't just Lightening Lanes. Dumbo, Pirates, and Peter Pan (and all Fantasyland rides) are much easier with a guide. Being able to walk on Pixar Pal Around was great when the wait time was 50mins. The kids loved riding Web Slingers 4 times in a row. (Rise is only once a day.). They enjoyed riding Smugglers 3 times so they could do all positions. The LL really aren't much different from when Max Pass was around. We do have a great guide, we use the same ones each trip. For us, it is much better than Genie+.

 

[sosoready]

I did tell them why I cancelled.

You make a very good point Malcon10t, and we did none of those rides. We'd never been and were all about the thrill rides. It was not easy to re-ride, I tried to do a 'Thrill ride Holiday Park Hopping' hybrid and it took until 10:30pm for them to get the second Space Mountain in. Incredicoaster was one's favorite and we did ride 3x, but the last two were close to closing. We were not efficient and walked a kajillion miles, lots of backtracking and park crossing. I did mention to my husband on the way back to the hotel after CA closed that we would have probably been done hours earlier had we done the tour, which at that point he would have paid some good money for. ;-)

Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to be on a tour and it would have made for a very different day, which I would have seen more of not being so tied to my phone screen. I booked the tour at the end of Nov, before Genie+ rolled out and when the lines were horrible. I couldn't justify the expense for us now that Genie is mostly working, but there is always next time...

 

[Chokky]

We did VIP tours both NYE and NY day. Only a couple Lightening Lanes (Guardians an dSpace Mountain) slowed us down, and our guide was able to "foresee" when it would be best for lanes we wanted. We went and did another ride and when we came back it was much shorter. But, it isn't just Lightening Lanes. Dumbo, Pirates, and Peter Pan (and all Fantasyland rides) are much easier with a guide. Being able to walk on Pixar Pal Around was great when the wait time was 50mins. The kids loved riding Web Slingers 4 times in a row. (Rise is only once a day.). They enjoyed riding Smugglers 3 times so they could do all positions. The LL really aren't much different from when Max Pass was around. We do have a great guide, we use the same ones each trip. For us, it is much better than Genie+.

Hello,
Do you mind sharing your guide’s first name?
Requesting a guide that has good reviews would make me worry less.
Thank you!

 

[ishbit92]

Hello,
Do you mind sharing your guide’s first name?
Requesting a guide that has good reviews would make me worry less.
Thank you!

You can ride rotr once during your tour. I had a vip tour earlier this week, and this is the first time I have to give a negative review. I've been on 3 vip tour at dl and 2 at wdw.

The negative is not on the guide Jason, he was awesome. The negative is on the attraction wait times. Jason admitted that the vip group has less access than before, in that they are forbidden on using shortcuts for any lightning lane ride. In the past if the line was really long, they could use a shortcut like going in the back, or joining the queue further along. We were in the gotg line for 40 plus minutes, not because of any shutdown, but just because it was really long. We paid $700 an hour, and that was just poor. That happened nearly as badly in Indiana Jones, and radiator springs. At wdw for example, for tower of terror, we twice cut to near the front to save a lot of time, and I remember that happened in dl as well on previous tours.

I can't in good conscience recommend a vip tour at dl until they change this policy. I complained on the vip survey and told them that as well.

I did the tour in early December, was lucky enough to be invited to tag along with family who happened to be there the same time and already purchased the tour. Our guides were Tim and Adrian (we had a big group so had 2) and they were awesome. Super knowledgeable. Granted this was before the Genie+ came out so we were able to walk onto everything rather then do the LL lines.

Wow. That's lame. It seems like VIP tours were the most bang for your buck for the past several months where they didn't have Genie+ yet. I did notice when I was in DLR the week before Genie + debuted that their was a tooon of plaids compared to ever before. So I wonder if them making the VIP perks worse has anything to do with Disney thinking too many were buying VIP tours. Which...doesn't really make sense because it's a ton of money in their pockets if more people are doing it, but maybe it was affecting lines or staffing or something? Not trying to defend Disney FYI (hard to indicate tone over writing sometimes lol) but I'm just trying to understand why they are changing this.