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 did we do it? Well, a few reasons:
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!
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.
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.
Really, are there any downsides to a private tour of Disney? No. Haha. But there are a few things I noticed:
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!
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.
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.
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.
Other things I learned:
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!
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!
We did our tour on the first of our five scheduled days. I liked that a lot for a few reasons:
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.
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
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How do I get on your staff-ha! J/k. So interesting. I always thought these were famous people when I saw them doing this at Disney-although ya’ll are kind of famous. I really enjoyed this article and appreciate that you pointed out both the pros and cons. Thanks for sharing!
How do I get on your staff-ha! J/k. So interesting. I always thought these were famous people when I saw them doing this at Disney-although ya’ll are kind of famous. I really enjoyed this article and appreciate that you pointed out both the pros and cons. Thanks for sharing!
How do I get on your staff-ha! J/k. So interesting. I always thought these were famous people when I saw them doing this at Disney-although ya’ll are kind of famous. I really enjoyed this article and appreciate that you pointed out both the pros and cons. Thanks for sharing!
How do I get on your staff-ha! J/k. So interesting. I always thought these were famous people when I saw them doing this at Disney-although ya’ll are kind of famous. I really enjoyed this article and appreciate that you pointed out both the pros and cons. Thanks for sharing!
Hi! this was really informative as we were recently gifted with this for our upcoming trip, and had no idea how Covid played into everything. I have a few questions, if you don’t mind answering. First, do you need to have a park-hopper ticket, or just a one-park ticket for that day? Second, do they still give out the special VIP tour pin, or is there one available as an add-on? And, finally, how did you manage the RotR ticket? We’re worried if we don’t get one in the morning, we might have to arrange to be back at HS in the afternoon to try again. Is that what you did? Thank you!!
Hi Lynn! How exciting, you’re going to love it! To answer your questions:
1. You just need a one-park ticket.
2. Yes, all 9 of us got the VIP pin!
3. Yes, that one is tricky. We had to be in HS at the afternoon release time and got it then. We then went to another park and had to get back to HS. However, I’d recommend not paying for tour time with this ride.. we spent over an hour in line and it was a huge waste of our VIP tour guide!
Hope this helps! Enjoy your trip 🙂
Great tips! Thanks! We’re hoping we get RotR before our tour time starts, but knowing this we probably won’t try for a later time. I *think* that since one of our party has a DAS card, we have an extended time for return, so maybe if we got a late time, we could just go after the guide dropped us off at the end of our tour. But…that’s a lot of ifs. We have park hoppers for all but 1 day of our trip, and I’m definitely going to change that to be on the tour day, and then we can park hop every day! Thanks!
Hi! this was really informative as we were recently gifted with this for our upcoming trip, and had no idea how Covid played into everything. I have a few questions, if you don’t mind answering. First, do you need to have a park-hopper ticket, or just a one-park ticket for that day? Second, do they still give out the special VIP tour pin, or is there one available as an add-on? And, finally, how did you manage the RotR ticket? We’re worried if we don’t get one in the morning, we might have to arrange to be back at HS in the afternoon to try again. Is that what you did? Thank you!!
Hi Lynn! How exciting, you’re going to love it! To answer your questions:
1. You just need a one-park ticket.
2. Yes, all 9 of us got the VIP pin!
3. Yes, that one is tricky. We had to be in HS at the afternoon release time and got it then. We then went to another park and had to get back to HS. However, I’d recommend not paying for tour time with this ride.. we spent over an hour in line and it was a huge waste of our VIP tour guide!
Hope this helps! Enjoy your trip 🙂
Great tips! Thanks! We’re hoping we get RotR before our tour time starts, but knowing this we probably won’t try for a later time. I *think* that since one of our party has a DAS card, we have an extended time for return, so maybe if we got a late time, we could just go after the guide dropped us off at the end of our tour. But…that’s a lot of ifs. We have park hoppers for all but 1 day of our trip, and I’m definitely going to change that to be on the tour day, and then we can park hop every day! Thanks!
Hi! this was really informative as we were recently gifted with this for our upcoming trip, and had no idea how Covid played into everything. I have a few questions, if you don’t mind answering. First, do you need to have a park-hopper ticket, or just a one-park ticket for that day? Second, do they still give out the special VIP tour pin, or is there one available as an add-on? And, finally, how did you manage the RotR ticket? We’re worried if we don’t get one in the morning, we might have to arrange to be back at HS in the afternoon to try again. Is that what you did? Thank you!!
Hi Lynn! How exciting, you’re going to love it! To answer your questions:
1. You just need a one-park ticket.
2. Yes, all 9 of us got the VIP pin!
3. Yes, that one is tricky. We had to be in HS at the afternoon release time and got it then. We then went to another park and had to get back to HS. However, I’d recommend not paying for tour time with this ride.. we spent over an hour in line and it was a huge waste of our VIP tour guide!
Hope this helps! Enjoy your trip 🙂
Great tips! Thanks! We’re hoping we get RotR before our tour time starts, but knowing this we probably won’t try for a later time. I *think* that since one of our party has a DAS card, we have an extended time for return, so maybe if we got a late time, we could just go after the guide dropped us off at the end of our tour. But…that’s a lot of ifs. We have park hoppers for all but 1 day of our trip, and I’m definitely going to change that to be on the tour day, and then we can park hop every day! Thanks!
Hi! this was really informative as we were recently gifted with this for our upcoming trip, and had no idea how Covid played into everything. I have a few questions, if you don’t mind answering. First, do you need to have a park-hopper ticket, or just a one-park ticket for that day? Second, do they still give out the special VIP tour pin, or is there one available as an add-on? And, finally, how did you manage the RotR ticket? We’re worried if we don’t get one in the morning, we might have to arrange to be back at HS in the afternoon to try again. Is that what you did? Thank you!!
Hi Lynn! How exciting, you’re going to love it! To answer your questions:
1. You just need a one-park ticket.
2. Yes, all 9 of us got the VIP pin!
3. Yes, that one is tricky. We had to be in HS at the afternoon release time and got it then. We then went to another park and had to get back to HS. However, I’d recommend not paying for tour time with this ride.. we spent over an hour in line and it was a huge waste of our VIP tour guide!
Hope this helps! Enjoy your trip 🙂
Great tips! Thanks! We’re hoping we get RotR before our tour time starts, but knowing this we probably won’t try for a later time. I *think* that since one of our party has a DAS card, we have an extended time for return, so maybe if we got a late time, we could just go after the guide dropped us off at the end of our tour. But…that’s a lot of ifs. We have park hoppers for all but 1 day of our trip, and I’m definitely going to change that to be on the tour day, and then we can park hop every day! Thanks!
Can I borrow your tour guide? I am booking tomorrow and heard not all guides are created equal! Do I just request Roy or does he have a last name? Haha
Yes, ask for Roy! He didn’t give us a last name, but there are only about 20 VIP guides right now, so you won’t have trouble!
Thank you SO much! Will do!!
Can I borrow your tour guide? I am booking tomorrow and heard not all guides are created equal! Do I just request Roy or does he have a last name? Haha
Yes, ask for Roy! He didn’t give us a last name, but there are only about 20 VIP guides right now, so you won’t have trouble!
Thank you SO much! Will do!!
Can I borrow your tour guide? I am booking tomorrow and heard not all guides are created equal! Do I just request Roy or does he have a last name? Haha
Yes, ask for Roy! He didn’t give us a last name, but there are only about 20 VIP guides right now, so you won’t have trouble!
Thank you SO much! Will do!!
Can I borrow your tour guide? I am booking tomorrow and heard not all guides are created equal! Do I just request Roy or does he have a last name? Haha
Yes, ask for Roy! He didn’t give us a last name, but there are only about 20 VIP guides right now, so you won’t have trouble!
Thank you SO much! Will do!!
Hello, we were gifted a VIP Tour and were told we needed to buy one day ticket with park hopper. Did I understand your previous response as that is not necessary? Thank you!
Yes, only a one-park pass is required!
Hello, we were gifted a VIP Tour and were told we needed to buy one day ticket with park hopper. Did I understand your previous response as that is not necessary? Thank you!
Yes, only a one-park pass is required!
Hello, we were gifted a VIP Tour and were told we needed to buy one day ticket with park hopper. Did I understand your previous response as that is not necessary? Thank you!
Yes, only a one-park pass is required!
Hello, we were gifted a VIP Tour and were told we needed to buy one day ticket with park hopper. Did I understand your previous response as that is not necessary? Thank you!
Yes, only a one-park pass is required!