What VIP Tour Guides Can do...

[anomamatt]

Soooooo, I've read the Disney promos for VIP and I've read THIS thread...

What would be the compelling reasons for the $$$ outlay for the VIP tour?

Obviously it's a very personal choice, but if you believe time is money and are willing to pay the $$$ to get more done, these can be worthwhile. The only real perk is massive efficiency (unlimited FPs, rapid transportation w/ backstage entry/exit, no need to save seats for parade/fireworks (come 5 mins before)). The guides are masters at navigating the parks and optimizing time in the parks. But there are really no other perks -- unlike VIP tours in other parks (Universal, Legoland, etc), you don't get any food/snacks/gifts/etc.

 

[wcw57]

you don't get even a lousy button!?!

 

[cobright]

you don't get even a lousy button!?!

Mine was going to say "I'm Celebrating my VIP Tour" but the guide took my sharpie away. They kinda try to keep it on the down-to-earth.
And I spent the first half of it trying to get our guide to refer to the other guests as peasants. She wouldn't. But at the very end we see a huge crowd of people and my daughter yells out, "sure the peasants are revolting" and the guide finished the bit from the movie, which was funny because my daughter had never seen ''istory of the world'

 

[Barnabas T Bullion]

$425-650/hour (pricing is seasonal, but can vary from one day to the next) with a minimum of 7 (continuous) hours.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/private-vip-tours/

JESUS!

 

[rlk]

you don't get even a lousy button!?!

We've done a VIP tour twice and never received a button, but we did get snacks and water when we arrived behind the scenes at Magic Kingdom. I forgot to mention that on our first VIP tour, it started raining and they gave us Disney ponchos when we arrived backstage at HS.

 

[anomamatt]

We've done a VIP tour twice and never received a button, but we did get snacks and water when we arrived behind the scenes at Magic Kingdom.

We've never gotten snacks! My wife was mad and thought we should have gotten snacks and water. Haha. I wonder if it's guide specific? We have always had the same guide.

 

[rlk]

We've never gotten snacks! My wife was mad and thought we should have gotten snacks and water. Haha. I wonder if it's guide specific? We have always had the same guide.

I agree with your wife, you should have gotten snacks and water! Both times we received snacks when we got to Magic Kingdom.

We did our first VIP tour in August and we were surprised that there weren't any water bottles for us in the car. It wasn't until late in our tour when we arrived at MK, that we were offered snacks and water. We did three parks, starting with Epcot. When we arrived at our second park, HS, it was raining and the CM waiting for us gave us Disney rain ponchos. We knew better on our recent tour. We brought our own water for the first part of the tour.

 

[Tigger in a kilt]

Would anyone mind sharing an overview of their itinerary during their tour, please? I think a VIP tour would work well for our situation but every time I go to book it, I realise that I don’t even really know what I want! I haven’t been before, which is a large part of the problem, and I’m trying to let my nieces see as much of WDW as possible in the 3 days they are with us.

If anyone can tell me what they did, just to give me some ideas, I would be very grateful.

 

[Steven G]

I did the VIP tour in Disneyland on Christmas day. It was great. But it seems the disneyworld version is way more limited. You can't get reserved seating as mentioned in disneyworld. But additionally, in Disneyland the guides let you skip the lines even on non fastpass rides, with a few exceptions mostly in fantasyland. Autopia and Nemo rides were great examples.
They have me a list of rides they couldn't help with, so I did those in the morning, and then the guide joined us.

Being limited to only fastpass rides is crappy, and is the main reason. I am holding back on trying again.

 

[rlk]

Would anyone mind sharing an overview of their itinerary during their tour, please? I think a VIP tour would work well for our situation but every time I go to book it, I realise that I don’t even really know what I want! I haven’t been before, which is a large part of the problem, and I’m trying to let my nieces see as much of WDW as possible in the 3 days they are with us.

If anyone can tell me what they did, just to give me some ideas, I would be very grateful.

What you do in each park is up to you. You will let Disney Special Services know what you are wanting to accomplish during your tour, including start time. End time is at least 7 hours after you start, but you can decide during the tour if you want to extend.

Both times we did the VIP tour, we chose to visit three parks. We did not eat lunch during our tour, but chose to have a snack while waiting for the parade. The tour we just had a few weeks ago went something like this:

Eight people; my family & my brother's family.
VIP guide picked us up at AKL Kidani at 7:45 am.
Arrived at AK before 8am. At AK we rode:
Navi River Journey
FoP x2 * looking back, we should have gone on a third time.
Expedition Everest
Kali - nephews choice

Drove to Magic Kingdom. Grabbed snacks and water back stage.
At MK we did the following:
Space
Buzz
HM
Splash
BTMRR
Pirates
Watched Festival of Fantasy Parade (12:30) while having some snack.
Mine Train
Met Talking Mickey

Drove to Epcot and did the following:
Test Track
Frozen ride
Soarin

We ended our tour at Epcot. We were very happy and accomplished a lot during a very busy time.

 

[rlk]

I did the VIP tour in Disneyland on Christmas day. It was great. But it seems the disneyworld version is way more limited. You can't get reserved seating as mentioned in disneyworld. But additionally, in Disneyland the guides let you skip the lines even on non fastpass rides, with a few exceptions mostly in fantasyland. Autopia and Nemo rides were great examples.
They have me a list of rides they couldn't help with, so I did those in the morning, and then the guide joined us.

Being limited to only fastpass rides is crappy, and is the main reason. I am holding back on trying again.

You can get reserved seating, but it has to be included during the time you are touring with the VIP guide. It would be great if they offered reserved seating for one nighttime show no matter what time your tour ends.

We didn't feel limited in our ride choices. The first time we took a VIP tour, we arraigned beforehand to meet a few characters that didn't have fast pass access. Our guide had made appointments at certain times for us to meet them.

 

[Tigger in a kilt]

What you do in each park is up to you. You will let Disney Special Services know what you are wanting to accomplish during your tour, including start time. End time is at least 7 hours after you start, but you can decide during the tour if you want to extend.

Both times we did the VIP tour, we chose to visit three parks. We did not eat lunch during our tour, but chose to have a snack while waiting for the parade. The tour we just had a few weeks ago went something like this:

Eight people; my family & my brother's family.
VIP guide picked us up at AKL Kidani at 7:45 am.
Arrived at AK before 8am. At AK we rode:
Navi River Journey
FoP x2 * looking back, we should have gone on a third time.
Expedition Everest
Kali - nephews choice

Drove to Magic Kingdom. Grabbed snacks and water back stage.
At MK we did the following:
Space
Buzz
HM
Splash
BTMRR
Pirates
Watched Festival of Fantasy Parade (12:30) while having some snack.
Mine Train
Met Talking Mickey

Drove to Epcot and did the following:
Test Track
Frozen ride
Soarin

We ended our tour at Epcot. We were very happy and accomplished a lot during a very busy time.

Thank you so much - this is very helpful indeed. Did they help you work out what you wanted to do, or did you already know and were able to tell them?

 

[rlk]

Thank you so much - this is very helpful indeed. Did they help you work out what you wanted to do, or did you already know and were able to tell them?

I made a few phone calls to the VIP tour/ special services number and spoke with cast members. I let them know what we wanted to accomplish, in which parks and what time we wanted to start. If you have any requests for meet & greets, make sure you let them know, so they can try to make it happen. They offered helpful suggestions especially if I wasn't sure about the timing. For our last tour, I was concerned about starting at AK because it had EMH starting at 7 am. I thought the fast pass line at FoP would be long if we arrived at 8:00am. They assured me that getting to AK at 8:00 would be fine and they were right. With our VIP guide, we bypassed most of the FP line. There is a door as you walk through the beginning of the FP line, behind the door is a hallway that dumps you at the point where they assign you a room.

 

[Greg Lembrich]

Mine was going to say "I'm Celebrating my VIP Tour" but the guide took my sharpie away. They kinda try to keep it on the down-to-earth.
And I spent the first half of it trying to get our guide to refer to the other guests as peasants. She wouldn't. But at the very end we see a huge crowd of people and my daughter yells out, "sure the peasants are revolting" and the guide finished the bit from the movie, which was funny because my daughter had never seen ''istory of the world'

Shirley you must be joking

 

[Greg Lembrich]

Duplicate post removed.

 

[Greg Lembrich]

I did the VIP tour in Disneyland on Christmas day. It was great. But it seems the disneyworld version is way more limited. You can't get reserved seating as mentioned in disneyworld. But additionally, in Disneyland the guides let you skip the lines even on non fastpass rides, with a few exceptions mostly in fantasyland. Autopia and Nemo rides were great examples.
They have me a list of rides they couldn't help with, so I did those in the morning, and then the guide joined us.

Being limited to only fastpass rides is crappy, and is the main reason. I am holding back on trying again.

A major difference between DLR and WDW is that the vast majority of rides at WDW have FP access, while most rides at DLR do not. Of the 46 rides currently operating at WDW, 36 have FP. And once TSL opens, it will become 38 out of 48. At DLR, it is something like only 16 out of 55 rides that have FP access available. Several rides that exist in both parks have FP at WDW but don't at DLR. Peter Pan's Flight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Buzz Lightyear, Small World, and Jungle Cruise for example, just off the top of my head. Of the 10 rides at WDW that don't have FP, most are walk ons even during busy days. The only one I ever waited more than a few minutes for is Astro Orbiter. I honestly can't imagine any ride at WDW without FP that I would spend time on during a VIP tour.

 

[baler31]

We've never gotten snacks! My wife was mad and thought we should have gotten snacks and water. Haha. I wonder if it's guide specific? We have always had the same guide.

We have always gotten snacks.

 

[fractalpotato]

Jeez this thread is making me feel insecure about my income. I can't fathom spending that kind of money in one day when it would normally cover an entire trip for me! That's absurd.

Matt

 

[FSU Girl]

I did the VIP tour in Disneyland on Christmas day. It was great. But it seems the disneyworld version is way more limited. You can't get reserved seating as mentioned in disneyworld. But additionally, in Disneyland the guides let you skip the lines even on non fastpass rides, with a few exceptions mostly in fantasyland. Autopia and Nemo rides were great examples.
They have me a list of rides they couldn't help with, so I did those in the morning, and then the guide joined us.

Being limited to only fastpass rides is crappy, and is the main reason. I am holding back on trying again.

I agree, I feel like I got more bang for my buck at Disneyland. It was great and a perfect way for me to see it all for my first time on a short trip. The limitations at Disney World I probably wouldn't try it unless maybe when Star Wars land opens and its crazy busy.

 

[disneygirlsng]

Jeez this thread is making me feel insecure about my income. I can't fathom spending that kind of money in one day when it would normally cover an entire trip for me! That's absurd.

Matt

Agreed! Never really looked at the price and this thread intrigued me. The peak price for one day would easily cover 2, week-long solo trips for me. Dropping $3-4K in one day on vacation? No thanks.