Disney World VIP Tour: Worth The Extravagance or Not? Updated March 2024

Last Updated on October 9, 2024 by Leslie Stroud <!– %AUTHOR_NAME% –>

Imagine walking onto any ride at Disney World, riding however many times you want, all while having your own personal Disney Guide.  Magical is just the beginning!

We’ve now done two Disney VIP Tours, and the resounding review is that they are tons of fun, incredibly cool, and a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially for hard-core Disney fans. However, they are also extremely, ridiculously expensive! They would have to be to make them truly VIP, right?

Let me start with something else: this is 100%, hands-down, one of the most frivolous and expensive things we’ve ever done. We did our first tour with our kids and my parents (who had NEVER been to Disney before—keep reading to learn why that wasn’t the best idea). We used our second VIP Tour to treat our company’s management team, which was such a fun surprise.

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Why We Chose To Do A Disney VIP Tour

Why did we do it?  Well, a few reasons:

• We’ve known about it for a while and always wanted to do it!  We found a reference to it long ago when booking a Disney trip… a guide to walk you around Disney?  What in the world?  However, we called and got the price and had a hearty laugh to ourselves.
• We’ve been really blessed. Since then, our businesses have seen a lot more success.  That initial figure that made us laugh isn’t as out of range as it once was.  Not to say it wasn’t still a total splurge, but it wasn’t out of the question anymore.
• The grandparents! My parents really surprised me by agreeing to come to Disney for a day!  This is a real shocker as they’ve never been.  Ever.  And we’ve been to all of the parks in the world. I think my parents were finally curious enough to see what it was really about.
• Park Hopping. Park hopping isn’t allowed until after 2 pm.  It was going to be hard to pick just one park to show my parents in one day.  We also would only get in 2-4 rides, realistically, all day.  Knowing with a VIP guide we could visit ALL the parks and do ALL the rides, we went for it!
• Future Company Trip. We wanted to check out the VIP Tour to see if we would want to take our management team or not later on. We did take our management team in May 2023, and it was even more fun than I expected it to be! Surprising a bunch of adults was much more difficult but also a lot more fun.

What Can You Do With Your Disney VIP Tour Guide?

Not anything you want, sadly, but about as close as you’ll ever get at Disney!  Our guide, Roy, was a rockstar.  He helped us to change our reservations to another park, got us a free stroller, worked to get us dining reservations, etc.  This was on top of all the rides!

He would not take us into the castle (yes, I did ask!) or any crazy areas like that.  However, you do see parts of the parks that you wouldn’t be allowed to see otherwise!

The main benefits of the Disney Private VIP Tour Guide are:

• Walking onto nearly any ride as much as you want.  Any new, super popular ride might be excluded from the VIP Tour, as Rise of the Resistance was when we did our first VIP Tour. However, on our second tour both Guardians and Tron were brand new and we were allowed to both twice!  The limit was two times. This may also vary depending on the time of year (as does the price of the VIP Tour) and the amount of time the ride has been open.
• You are transported in a private vehicle between parks. You enter backstage employee areas, sometimes right into a ride! We literally walked into the Tower of Terror. The Disney SUVs include any car seats you need.
• Being able to park hop, as much as you want to and when you want to. You can go back to parks you’ve already been to, but it does take time form your tour to travel between the parks.
• Learning about the parks and their history from your guide’s extensive knowledge.
• Maximizing your time in the parks.

What is NOT Included in Disney Private Tours?

• Your park admission
• Food (you buy your own or bring your own- they don’t care!)
• Your accommodation

How Many Rides Can You Do During Your Disney VIP Experience?

Honestly, as many as you want!  You have to pay for the Disney VIP Guide for 7 hours at a minimum.  You can also extend up to 10 hours. You pay by hour and can even d 15 min increments if there is a ride at the end of the day you just really need to do!

Our friends on Instagram that I saw do it logged 33 rides in a day!  Wow.  We only got to 20, but we did a lot of back and forth trying to get onto the Rise of the Resistance ride.  

My best advice would be to let your guide lead you.  They have the best routes mapped out, and with years of experience, they know how to do all the rides in a park in the quickest manner!

You can also do rides more than once.  We did several rides twice.  However, our guide warned us this could be a bad time loss, especially during Covid. They cleaned the rides every two hours, and on the VIP tour of not, you had to wait in line. This can also make you surprisingly sick! When we took our team, a couple of our managers were sensitive to motion sickness and nearly threw up after doing two big rides back to back.

Wait, You Still Wait In Line?

Yes, sometimes.  On some rides, Roy would walk us to the ride itself, like put us in our seats.  

On other rides, he would just put us in the fast pass line.  He walked into the ride with us and sometimes even rode with us unless there was a single ride line or even number.

Have a disability?  Talk to Guest Experiences at the front of the park about it and see if you can get this.  It basically allows you to come back to a ride after checking in at the ride to ride it and not have to wait in line.  However, if the wait time is 60 minutes, you have to come back in 60 minutes.

What Are The Downsides To These Magic Disney VIP Tours?

Really, are there any downsides to a private tour of Disney?  No.  Haha.  But there are a few things I noticed:

• You miss out on the anticipation of the ride when you are doing them constantly.  It sounds dumb, but as you wait in line, you build up your excitement and anticipation.  Like opening a present!  If you are just handed a chocolate bar, it’s still way cool, but a little less exciting than opening a gift.
• You don’t get to see the inside line queue part of the ride.  Again, not a big loss, but Disney Imagineers do a lot to make those line areas really cool!  For example, when you wait in line for Avatar, you get to walk through the lab and see a life-size avatar floating in a tank!  It’s way cool!  You don’t see any of that when you just walk into the fast pass line.
• It’s a LOT of stimuli.  Disney rides are designed to encompass as many parts of your brain as possible.. sight, sound, smell, etc.  Doing 4-7 of these in an hour is INTENSE.  I was feeling a little nauseous and certainly exhausted as the day wore on. 
• You don’t really want to stop and eat.  Eating at Disney right now is kind of hard.  You MUST be sitting.  Mobile ordering or a restaurant are the only options to buy.  You are NOT allowed to eat in your tour guide’s private car.  You also don’t want to waste (or at least I didn’t!) an hour of your tour guide to stop and eat.  This meant we had quick snacks in the parking lots, sitting on the ground, before going into the parks.  It wasn’t very glamorous.

Bringing my parents to Disney for the first time and throwing them into a VIP tour was probably a bit too much for them. Not only did they not have time to build up any excitement or anticipation for Disney, but the tour experience can also be intense. It is a lot of rides quickly. It’s also not worth much if you’ve never experienced Disney anyway and don’t know what you like. Oh well. We enjoyed having them along!

How Much Does The Disney VIP Tour Cost?

I know, this is your first question and I’m JUST getting there.  I’m not going to put exact prices in this blog post as Disney will likely change it.  It is also a range based on when you are going.  

However, I will tell you it starts at just over $700 per hour with a seven-hour minimum.  When I got a quote for New Year’s Eve, it clocked in at over $1000 per hour! You must pay that amount when booking, but I do think you have a period you can cancel without a fee.  For our first tour, we booked it only two days before, so our window had already passed to cancel.

That price is up for 10 people.  The amount of people doesn’t change the price.

If you extend past 7 hours (up to 10 hours), you will be billed to the same card after the tour for the extended hours.

You are also expected to tip. We couldn’t swallow 10% but did something closer to 5%, which is still a ton of money. Future career goals: Disney VIP Tour Guide.

Speaking Of Which, How Do I Book My Disney VIP Tour?

You have to call Disney.  Before COVID, there were several tour options, such as a big group tour that let you see inside the castle (yes, please!!).  

Right now, only the VIP Tours are running, but you still have to call to book any of them.  

If your requested date is full, you can be put on a waitlist.  I was told we could find out we got a tour any time, including the morning of, depending on staffing for that day.  

If you are better at planning, you can book up to 60-days in advance.

When you move from the waiting list, you are given a call.  I believe you have a couple of hours to call back before you lose your spot.

Our guide told us they do 30-40 tours like this PER DAY.  Sure enough, the day after and all the rest of our time at Disney, I saw the tour guides all over!  I never had noticed them before.

How Many People Can Do The Disney World VIP Tour?

Up to 10 people can be in your group.  The amount of people doesn’t change the price.

In theory, this means you could gather up to 9 friends and only be charged a little over $70-120/hr for a tour guide!  We just have too many kids 🙂

I also saw two groups going together when they had a group over 10.  It was a large group of about 12 with two guides. Other groups were small families with only one child or even guides with an adult couple. I’ve since learned that the 33 Club, a Dinsey exclusive, invite-only members club, includes several VIP Tour each year. However, it’s like joining a country club with a massive price tag.

What Else Do I Need To Know About The WDW VIP Tour?

Other things I learned:

• The Disney Tour Guide may or may not stay with small children while others ride.  There is no hard and fast rule.  We still did ride-switch for most of the day, which ate up a lot of time.  Our guide told us it just depends on the situation and their comfort level.  Will the child stay calm with a stranger?  Can they watch an iPad while you ride?  It’s just case by case.  We did have Roy stay with Grace near the end of the day.
• You can book your tour guide again in the future.  Once you’ve found the one you like, you can request them again.  Roy told us he has families that come to see him every year and he already knows what they want, so it’s great for everyone!
• Every tour is totally different.  Some groups might want to sit for a 2-hour lunch while others want to get in 30 rides.
• It’s best to tell your guide your top desires and let them guide you.  However, they will do anything you want when it comes to rides and which park to visit.
• With Covid restrictions, your guide could not eat with you.  However, on our second tour, Roy did join us and ate some of our fries and such. I am not sure if it’s expected to buy your guide food or not, but we enjoyed a quick snack with Roy on our second visit.
• No photography or video is allowed in special backstage areas.
• Your guide will pick you up from your hotel and can drop you off also, or you can stay in the park longer.
• You MUST have a ticket to Disney and a park reservation.  This is NOT included in the tour price.

Do You Tip Your Disney VIP Tour Guide?

This was a question we were scrambling to answer ourselves!  From what I’ve seen online, yes.  However, you can’t tip through Disney, so you need to do it another way. 

You can bring cash, of course, or our guide gave us his PayPal address.

How much?  I’ve seen all kinds of answers from 10-20% of the total to $100 per person.  We ended up tipping about $300 for our day for our first tour and then around $500 for our second.  Since we never carry cash, I was so glad Roy took PayPal!

Overall, Was The Disney VIP Tour Worth It?

Yes.  It was so cool.  It totally spoiled us for the next few days at Disney.  

However, it also took a lot of pressure off our remaining days at Disney.  We didn’t feel like we had to rush to the park to get on our favorite rides.  We were able to go and enjoy other parts of the park we usually don’t take the time to see.  I really like that part.

Our staff members also echoed this sentiment. With several Disney fans in our group, it was good to hear their perspective. They also felt completely satisfied after the VIP tour and didn’t need to go back to Disney for a while.

I would never recommend going into debt for this, but if you can invest this much into your Disney Vacation, I’d absolutely recommend it!

How Many Days Should I Go To Disney If I’m Doing a Disney VIP Tour?

We did our tour on the first of our five scheduled days.  I liked that a lot for a few reasons:

• We had the most energy on the first day! Disney can wear you down after days in the park.
• We were able to take the rest of our days slow and didn’t feel a ton of pressure to wait in the lines.
• What an awesome way to start your vacation!

I think doing it on your last day would also be pretty cool!  What a way to end your vacation (although you might be sleeping on your plane ride home).

If you wanted to just do one day of Disney, a tour would be amazing!  However, you will not see a lot of other areas of the parks.

How many days also depends a lot on if you are taking kids with you.  Kids make everything a bit slower, so you might want extra days, if possible when you go.

Ultimately, let your schedule and budget decide.  There are no wrong answers.

Will You Do The Disney Private Tour Again?

I think we will definitely do so with our management staff. We took them to Disneyland Paris in 2019 and only had one day.  This kind of tour would have been amazing in that situation! It was super fun to take them in 2023, but one of our group couldn’t make it last minute, and I’d love to do a repeat. As for splurging this on our kids, I doubt we will. It’s just too much money for something we can manage well with Lightning Lanes.

Or I’d do it with friends (does anyone want to?) to help offset some of the cost.  As fun as it was, I did feel a bit guilty at the end of the day!

If you have been on a tour or plan to go on one, drop a comment below!  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Xoxo,

Leslie

Additional Reading

Eating Gluten-Free At Disney World

Spending Halloween at Disneyland with Kids

Visiting Disney World During COVID: Finding Your Magic in a Pandemic