VIP Tour - What time to start?

[holden]

We have done two VIP tours and are considering doing it again on our next trip (summer). On our previous tours we started when the parks opened. My thought was to do the tour early and hopefully avoid afternoon rain. We've only done the 7 hours and will do that again on the next tour.

What time have you started your VIP tour? It would be nice to sleep in a bit, but I'm not sure I want to risk the rain pouring down on us.

I'd like to hear other guests experiences with starting at different times. Thanks!

 

[xlsm]

We started both of our tours at 1pm so that we would have a special spot for MK fireworks.

The second one we did was in June 2021 before fireworks came back, but that was the reason we planned it the same as our first one - just in case they came back by our trip.

If we do a VIP tour again I'd probably pick the same time. It made it so we could sleep in, go swimming, and have a sit down lunch/brunch before heading into the parks. We also did all four parks both times, and did not stop for dinner. We just ate afterward.

 

[cdnSpinalTap]

I agree with @xlsm. We've done one earlier and one later and much prefer the later time. We also timed it to finish at MK for the fireworks.

 

[SkyGuy]

We’ve done several VIP tours and only two of those have had later start dates so we could finish with fireworks - once at MK and once at Epcot, both pre-Covid. We prefer starting earlier. We always start with the first park that opens, ie AK, usually at 8am and hit all four parks (although we do that with either an early time or a later time). The temps are generally cooler; the sun is most definitely not as fierce in the morning; and even though we’re on a VIP, it’s still nicer not to have to dodge the heavier crowds for a few hours. Three of those VIP tours were finished up just as the daily Florida storms started to pass through, so it was perfect to head back to the resort for some drinks and rest before freshening up for dinner. We can always venture out to see fireworks on our own, BUT we are not huge fireworks people, which obviously skews our preference.

 

[dieumeye]

We have done two VIP tours

We started both of our tours at 1pm

We've done one earlier and one later and much prefer the later time.

We’ve done several VIP tours

To everyone here who has done VIP tours in the past, how many attractions were you able to experience on the tour? Did the start time affect how many attractions you were able to do? And do you feel like you were on an exhausting or casual pace?

I’m planning future tours of my own and am trying to figure out what a good target number is for a solid, but not completely exhausting, pace.

Currently our plan is for a 10am start time. We can leisurely make our way to the park in the morning, and we wrap up the 7 hours just before heading to dinner. We’re not looking to get seating for fireworks or other shows.

 

[T.G.I.Friday]

We started both of ours at 10. One was 7 hours and one was 10. Starting at 10 and going for 7 hours was perfect for us. It gave us time to leisurely wake up and have CL breakfast and walk to EP to meet our guide. The snack from Mickey was enough for lunch after a bigger breakfast and we were done at 5, so we had plenty of time to relax and eat dinner. I’m pretty sure we even went back to MK later that evening after the fireworks. (Moved from BWI to CR that day)

In 7 hours, I believe we did 12 attractions over 3 parks (skipped AK). In 10, I think we did 14 also in the same 3 parks. 10 hours was a long day and we needed to stop for dinner and we also had our Tour Guide enjoy the fireworks with us and then take us back to our resort, so it was more tour time, but we weren’t trying to push more rides.

These were in March and November of 2022, so afternoon storms and brutal heat weren’t as much of a factor.

 

[PalmettoPath]

To everyone here who has done VIP tours in the past, how many attractions were you able to experience on the tour? Did the start time affect how many attractions you were able to do? And do you feel like you were on an exhausting or casual pace?

I’m planning future tours of my own and am trying to figure out what a good target number is for a solid, but not completely exhausting, pace.

Currently our plan is for a 10am start time. We can leisurely make our way to the park in the morning, and we wrap up the 7 hours just before heading to dinner. We’re not looking to get seating for fireworks or other shows.

We did 16 on our most recent one last year (three parks -- we skipped AK) and could have done more but wanted to get an MK fireworks spot, so you basically forfeit the final hour or 45 minutes.

 

[holden]

Thanks everyone. Fireworks aren't important to us, so I think we might keep an early start. We have always started at AK (for the 8am opening) but perhaps we will start at 10.

On our previous tours we were able to do 12-14 attractions in 7 hours. We skipped EP, but I think we will have to include it this time for GOTG.

 

[SkyGuy]

When we do VIP Tours we’re doing them to maximize rides in all parks and (after Covid) to hop before the 2pm rule, so we’re go-go-go, snack while walking, no resting. So, we’ve used VIP Tours for shorter trips or trips with non-Disney lovers, like my husband or my highly-impatient brother. With FP, I could have easily done a leisurely day at Disney and ridden everything with little wait, and I’d say I’m pretty good doing that with Genie, too. We do well over 20,000 steps with a VIP tour, but we usually get in 16 rides before heading to Epcot where we’ll gauge our time - and try to hit Soarin and TT and then have our guide leave us in the Remy line if we have time. If we’re pushing it, we’ll have the guide leave us in the TT line (and pre-Remy, this was our usual plan). We generally stay at an Epcot hotel, so we just walk back from there. Most of the time we’re cutting the seven hours super close, but we have added an extra hour once or twice, especially if we aren’t staying near the last park and don’t want to find transpo back to our hotel. We avoid Rise unless we’re with someone who hasn’t done it before since it eats so much time; if we ride it, we add an hour to the tour. We also avoid the Safari as we did it one VIP tour and were held up for 45 minutes by a giraffe in the road. I don’t think I could bring myself to skip GotG, so I’d either plan to add an hour or try to figure out some rides to cut out of the day.

 

[xlsm]

To everyone here who has done VIP tours in the past, how many attractions were you able to experience on the tour? Did the start time affect how many attractions you were able to do? And do you feel like you were on an exhausting or casual pace?

I’m planning future tours of my own and am trying to figure out what a good target number is for a solid, but not completely exhausting, pace.

Currently our plan is for a 10am start time. We can leisurely make our way to the park in the morning, and we wrap up the 7 hours just before heading to dinner. We’re not looking to get seating for fireworks or other shows.

I went back through trip reports and pictures to check.

On our first one, which was New Year's Day 2019 (staying at the Polynesian) we did TSMM and Slinky at DHS, FOP and River Journey at AK, Test Track and Soarin' at Epcot, and Splash, Big Thunder, Pirates, HM, Peter Pan, Mine Train and then Happily Ever After viewing.

The second was June 10, 2021 (staying at YC) we had a different guide and it was similar. This time we started at MK with Jungle Cruise, Pirates, HM, Peter Pan, Mine Train, and Buzz. Next was Hollywood for TSMM, Slinky, Falcon, MMRR, and Tower, then AK for only the safari. We ended at Epcot for Spaceship Earth and Soarin.

Both times we had our guide pick us up from our resort. We just used the tours as a bonus day, because I'm a good planner and don't *need* a guide (the first time I wanted to cancel the guide, because I was afraid he would ruin my carefully planned day, LOL!! The second time I just sat back and enjoyed not thinking about anything)

In my opinion, crowd level affects things more than time of day. Our New Year's Day trip had very high crowds and we were going at a very fast pace. In June the crowds were a little less (and fast passes were not back at that point, so the FP lines were lower, which got us on rides faster than the new year trip) and we went at a slower pace, but did a couple more things.

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

We started at Hollywood Studios and did Rise of the Resistance, Millenium Falcon, Slinky, Rockin Rollercoaster 2x
Then AK we did Flight of Passage, safari, Everest 2x. We also mobile ordered lunch.
Off to MK for Big Thunder, pirates, space mountain, Peter Pan, 7 dwarfs, people mover for a chill moment.
Finished at Epcot with guardians, test track and ratatouille.

We were staying at the BCV’s and we started at 9:00 and finished around 5ish. It was an incredible day! This was over our fall break in October.

 

[R&RsMom]

We started at 10 and met the guide at the park. We actually got to the park (HS) for early entry, rode ToT and RnR, got breakfast from Starbucks, and then Met the guide. We ended at Epcot at the perfect time to begin exploring food and wine booths.

 

[StitchandPooh'sMom]

To everyone here who has done VIP tours in the past, how many attractions were you able to experience on the tour? Did the start time affect how many attractions you were able to do? And do you feel like you were on an exhausting or casual pace?

I’m planning future tours of my own and am trying to figure out what a good target number is for a solid, but not completely exhausting, pace.

Currently our plan is for a 10am start time. We can leisurely make our way to the park in the morning, and we wrap up the 7 hours just before heading to dinner. We’re not looking to get seating for fireworks or other shows.

We did a VIP tour in June 2021 and did all four parks. We met our guide at 11:30 after starting our day at AK. With our guide, we did

AK - FOP, Navi, Everest x3, Dinosaur (we had already done FOP and Kilimanjaro Safaris and eaten an early lunch on our own)
MK - Space and Buzz (we had been to MK two days earlier and did everything we wanted)
DHS - MFSR, SDD, TSMM x 2, TOT x 2, RNRC x3 ( we had been to DHS the day before and ridden all of these plus MMRR and ROTR, but DHS has our favorite rides)
Epcot - Frozen Ever After, TT, Soarin'

We got Dole Whips in AK and snacks in DHS, plus had a couple of water breaks.

We ended with a 6:30 ADR at Via Napoli and then picked up a few more Epcot rides (without our guide) after dinner. So we did 20 rides in four parks in seven hours with our guide, plus added a few before and after on our own. It was a full but fun day!

 

[CeCe0906]

We started at noon at Hollywood Studios. We arrived just before park open via the friendship boars from Dolphin. This was in Aug 2021, so no Genie or fastpass. It was just me and my granddaughter, then age 8, who didn't want to ride TT( too spooky) or RR (scared of loop). Also some shows like Fantasmic and Indiana Jones not running. So we did Runaway railway, Star Tours and my granddaughter did some shopping, it was our last day. And then we saw the Frozen Show and had a snack before tour. On our tour we did Galaxy Edge, Rise and MF, saw Rey and Chewie, then Toy Story area Slinky Dog Twice and Midway Mania and saucers, did some photo pass shots, and runaway railway again. Guide got us some waters and took a short break. Then drove us to Epocot to do Test track, since it was down when we wanted to do the day before. We Parked right behind and went in. Then we ended our day in MK. Did snow white mine train, small world ( my gd favorite), Peter Pan, Thunder Mountain, Ariel, buzz lightyear, winnie the pooh, jungle cruise, speedway, had a quick mobile order pizza, jumped into philharmagic on our way to fireworks area. Watched the fireworks then the quite took us out of a side door bypassing the crowds for the short drive to hotel.
It was mainly to do a few rides we missed in MK and reride Gd favorites. She's becoming more adventurous, but we didn't do some of the E-tickets like Smountain that trip.

We had a great guide, Stephanie, that really listened to what we wanted to do and made it happen.

It worked out well, doing the rides early on our own when crowds were lighter, and then meeting the guide. We got a lot done. But the LL were only for ride recovery, tours and DAS at that time, so didn't wait long at all to the merge points. We also went in a side door directly to Rey hologram for Rise.

 

[mmouse50]

Is there a limit to how many VIP tours are done on a given day? I would love to schedule one for our October trip over Columbus day weekend. There will probably be a Halloween party during that time, so I have 3 days that I could do the tour but not sure if there is a limit to how many are scheduled per day.

 

[holden]

Is there a limit to how many VIP tours are done on a given day? I would love to schedule one for our October trip over Columbus day weekend. There will probably be a Halloween party during that time, so I have 3 days that I could do the tour but not sure if there is a limit to how many are scheduled per day.

I think the number of tours are limited by the availability of the tour guides. I do know that the VIP tours book quickly. You have to call exactly 60 days before your check-in date (if you are staying at a Disney resort).

 

[T.G.I.Friday]

I believe there are around 100 guides in total, so maybe around 75-80 tours/day?

 

[mmouse50]

Thanks -