Want To Be VIP?

Have you ever been to Disney World and noticed the men and women in plaid leading groups of people around the park, through the FastPass+ lines and wonder how they are getting such special treatment? Well let me tell you, I had those thoughts for many years. As a detailed planner, I always had great FastPass+ reservations lined up, I know how to work the system to get as many FastPass+ reservations as possible, I know my way around the parks backwards and forwards and have all sorts of tips and tricks but I was always left wondering who these groups are. It wasn’t until I became a travel advisor that I realized they are just guests who have booked a VIP Tour.

So what exactly is a VIP Tour? This tour is a chance to explore all the parks with your very own private tour guide. Plus, you are given access to the FastPass+ line for every attraction. You have the freedom to design your own perfect day or leave it up to the tour guide to lead you based on your preferences. Are you a thrill ride junkie? Your guide can take you from park-to-park so you can experience all the high thrill rides and attractions back-to-back-to-back! Prefer a more laid back day and want to learn Disney history, ask your guide to lead you through the parks at a leisurely pace and ask them to share their Disney knowledge. Or maybe you want to conquer all the headliner attractions across all 4 parks in one day? With enough time scheduled, your tour guide will navigate you through the parks so you can accomplish that feat!

VIP Tours are limited to 10 people (including non-ticketed children under 3) and are booked for a minimum of 7 hours. It is important to note that park tickets are not included and a Disney Park Pass reservation must be booked for initial park entry. If guests on the VIP Tour wish to visit more than one park in a day, a Park Hopper ticket must be purchased. Park hopping is permitted with the VIP Tour and while normal day guests with hoppers must wait until 2pm to enter a new park, the VIP Tour does grant attendees hopping privilege whenever they wish; a fabulous VIP Tour benefit! You’ll also get private van transportation with backstage access at each of the parks. A little heads up, some of the magic could be spoiled for your littles because of where VIP Tours enter/exit. You may be asking, Carrie, why do you know so much about this tour? Well, it’s because I and 9 additional ladies of the Fabulous Adventures Travel Agency experienced this tour back in May!

Every year, my travel agency owner hosts a conference to make us better travel agents. In 2021, we were focused on Disney, stayed at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, spent time in the parks, toured resorts and experienced as many new things as possible. The day before the conference officially began, a handful of agents arrived to take part in something that we had only dreamed of and that was the Disney VIP Tour. Here is how our day went:

At 9:00am, our VIP Tour Guide, Randy, picked us up in a private van at our resort. As I stated, you must have an initial park reservation and so we headed to Hollywood Studios. Ahead of the tour, my agency owner sent in a list of the rides we wanted to hit. We did not plan much downtime as we wanted to do as much as possible during our 7 hours. Randy recognized that he had a group of ladies that wanted to just go, go, go so he put together an awesome schedule. Upon arriving at Hollywood Studios, we immediately rode Tower of Terror. Then we made our way through the park riding Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, Slinky Dog Dash, Toy Story Midway Mania and finished with Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster before heading off to Animal Kingdom. Please note that in order to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, you must secure a boarding pass yourself when they open at 7am each day because your tour guide is unable to get you access to this ride. Unfortunately, our group was not successful at obtaining a boarding pass and so we were forced to miss it.

Our group arrived at Animal Kingdom around 11:45am. We had just one goal to accomplish and that was the attractions in Pandora - The World of Avatar. On this particular day, Flight of Passage had its typical hour long wait but with Randy guiding our group through the FastPass+ lane, that wait time was reduced to just a few minutes. Following our amazing ride on Flight of Passage we headed over to Navi River Journey and then we were whisked away to our way to our final destination, Magic Kingdom.

With Magic Kingdom having the most amount of attractions we wanted to have as much time as possible there. As I said, we were go, go, go and didn’t build in any meal times but by 1pm we were hungry and so we decided to take a small break. We headed over toward Adventureland where many of the agents (and Randy) stopped at the spring roll cart for the famous cheeseburger spring rolls. I had an agent grab me a pretzel at Hollywood Studios while I rode Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, so I decided to skip the delicious spring rolls and instead indulged in the I Lava You Float from Sunshine Tree Terrace. I’ll also point out that throughout the tour, Randy would grab us bottles of water and hand them out which was a nice perk. We were of course free to purchase food and drinks on our own throughout the day but that did mean giving up valuable ride time..

I Lava You Float -

Fanta® Strawberry Soda and Passion Fruit flavor served with DOLE Whip® Orange and topped with Popping Candy

After a quick break, we were off and running again. Starting in Adventureland, we rode Pirates of the Caribbean, quickly moved on to Frontierland for Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, then we continued on to Fantasyland where we rode Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan’s Flight and Seven Dwarves Mine Train then finished in Tomorrowland with Space Mountain. After some group photos in front of Cinderella Castle we headed back to our resort.

At the conclusion of our tour, Randy had one last piece of magic and he gifted each of us an exclusive Disney pin which now sits on my desk as a wonderful reminder of my dream Disney day.

So, would I do this tour again? Absolutely. There is no doubt in my mind that given the opportunity I would not hesitate for a moment to say yes. While this was my first VIP Tour, it wasn’t my first Disney Tour. Previously, my family booked the Family Magic Tour at Magic Kingdom (temporarily unavailable) and that was spectacular. Disney does tours very, very well! So, was the VIP Tour costly? Absolutely. The price of a tour ranges from $425-$850 per hour depending on the season. Going in May, we were lucky that the costs were on the lower end and then when split between 10 people it made the per person cost fairly reasonable. Would I keep the same schedule? Maybe. I really missed the headliner attractions at Epcot. Soarin’ & Test Track are two of my very favorite rides in all of Disney and I would want to see how I can incorporate those into the schedule. However, after dinner in Disney Springs, myself and two other agents headed to Epcot and we can officially say we visited all 4 parks in one day which is something I had never done before!

One last thing is that I’ll say is, had we not wanted a ride back to our hotel, we could have stayed in Magic Kingdom or been driven to another park. But after 3 parks and 15 rides in 7 hours, we were pretty tired and wanted to rest a bit before dinner at Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’. Of course I was exhilarated and headed to Disney Springs early with a couple agents instead, but that’s just how I roll when I’m traveling solo.

So tell me, can I book you a VIP Tour?