April 19, 2024 • 40 mins
Step behind the velvet rope with me and my good friend George, as we unveil the allure of Disneyland's VIP tours. – an experience usually whispered about among the elite and celebrity circles. George and I get candid about details of the cost and what is included in VIP tours, the etiquette of tipping, how to get the most out of your VIP day.
Right now, our tools are just for Disneyland, but we hope to expand to other parks soon. Disney changes policies, prices, and shows often. Be sure to visit our website at Parkmagic.com or Disneyland's Website for more information.
Park Magic is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or Disney Enterprises, Inc. Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Mickey Mouse are all registered trademarks of Disney Enterprises, Inc. Any use of third-party names or trademarks is for identification purposes only and does not imply, nor is it intended to imply, any affiliation with, endorsement from, or business relationship with any third party, including with Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or Disney Enterprises, Inc.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Park Magic podcast, your place for
insider tips for your nextDisneyland adventure.
Whether you're a first-timer orfirst-time in a while visitor,
we're here to unwrap the secretsto creating and simplifying
your dream Disneyland vacation.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Have you ever wanted to go to Disneyland just like
Taylor Swift or Beyonce?
Well, today we're going to betalking about the way the rich
and famous experiencedDisneyland.
That you can do as well and youhave almost the same
experiences them.
We're talking about VIP tours,which is the bougiest way to do
Disneyland, but it is alsofantastic.
I have my friend and co-founder, george, here to talk to us a
(00:54):
little bit about VIP tours.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, well, first of all, it's great to be back with
you, robin, hi, everyone outthere and I love talking about
VIP tours, partly becausethey're really amazing things to
do, but also because there's somuch misinformation about them.
It's kind of shrouded insecrecy.
What the heck is one of thesethings?
What exactly do you do whenyou're on one, when, like well,
I heard that this happens?
Let's dispel all the myths andrumors.
(01:16):
Let's get down to the like, thenitty gritty of it, and let's
talk about what it actuallymeans to do a VIP tour in
Disneyland.
The first thing that I want tosay is there have been a lot of
things you can do at Disneylandthat have the word tour in them,
and so you may have heard about.
Someone did a tour and someoneelse did a tour.
It doesn't necessarily meanthat they did the big, fancy,
expensive, bougie VIP tour and,just like most things in life,
(01:38):
there's a economical version ofstuff and there's an even
crazier, expensive version ofstuff.
But let's just quickly recapthe different versions.
Back in the day, you could dosomething called Walk in Waltz
footsteps and there was ahandful of other tours.
I think that they may be evencalled one of those things, the
VIP tours.
But what those group tours werewas not a private,
(01:58):
individualized tour experience,it was a group tour.
So, just like you may have done, you know, on vacation in
Europe or anywhere else, youstay in a group.
You all have those little earpieces so you can hear the
leader talk, and then the leader, who is wearing plaid, like you
may have seen in the park,takes you around and that cast
member, your tour guide, willshow you all the different
things.
But it's always you staytogether in a group and you
travel as a group.
If you experience anyattractions, you experience them
(02:21):
as a group.
If you have a little dining,you dine as a group and at the
end of the tour it's a few hoursyou may have ridden some rides,
you may have had a few snacks,but you did a group tour around
Disneyland and that's great.
The first thing I wanted to justmake clear is for a hundred or
two hundred dollars you can joina group tour and you can have
kind of a VIP experience,because you get to walk around
(02:41):
with a plaid and you get to seethings that people don't
normally see, and thatexperience will only set you
back a couple hundred dollars.
But that's not what we'retalking about, even though the
word tour is in that.
We're talking about somethingelse, and what we're talking
about is a private VIP tour, andthe private VIP tour is a
completely different animal.
You don't pay per person.
You pay for for up to tenpeople, and but it's your ten
(03:04):
people, so you're not going tobe connected with random
strangers.
You can just choose up to ninemore of your favorite folks to
join you, and for this one priceyou pay by the hour.
And since you're paying by thehour, it's up to you to decide
how many hours you'd like to go.
Now there's a minimum of sevenhours and there is an upper
maximum.
I believe it's ten or maybetwelve hours, and frankly, you
probably wouldn't want to gopast that anyway, because in the
(03:26):
seven hours, which is theminimum, you're probably going
to ride every single thing youand your friends want to ride
anyway, and, plus, going muchfurther than the maximum
wouldn't make sense anyway,because you, and especially your
tour guide, you're just allgoing to get tired bouncing
around the park.
And now the other thing Iwanted to say is the price
varies from five to sevenhundred dollars an hour, and
(03:47):
just figure for planningpurposes figures going to cost
about six hundred dollars anhour.
However, on the busier daysit's going to be seven hundred
dollars an hour and on the lesscrowded days going to be five
hundred dollars an hour.
So the price varies that waytoo, and for those seven to ten
hours you can do whatever it isyou want to do inside the park.
The tour guide, he or she, thetour guide, is sort of yours to
(04:08):
say here's what I want to do,let's, let's do what I want to
do.
It's all going to be about metoday and your tour guide can
take you to the rides.
Your tour guide can take you toany other experiences, but your
tour guide cannot take you tolike the backstage areas.
You can't say, well, I'vealways wanted to see what the
dumpsters look like.
Show me what those look like.
No, no, no, that's not what wedo.
It is not a skip the linesituation, it is not a very
(04:33):
front of the line situation.
You know, you may have heard oryou may have just concluded
that if I'm on a six thousanddollar experience, if I'm paying
six hundred dollars an hour tobe let around the park when it
comes my turn to get into theback of the line, I skip right
to the front, and that,unfortunately, is not true.
What happens is your tour guidegives you access to the
(04:53):
lightning lane, but you're stillgoing to spend, as you already
know, about five or ten minutesin the lightning lane, and so if
that's something that you wereexpecting to do, you know you
got to reset your expectations alittle bit now.
That said, on a VIP tour, thatis the fastest way to see
Disneyland.
Hands down, there is no fasteror better way to see Disneyland
than on a VIP tour.
(05:13):
But you're going to stand in thelightning lanes and mostly
that's great.
Mostly the lightning lanes areawesome.
They're always better than thestandby line.
But just so you're aware, theremay be a disability folks
currently using the lightninglanes.
There may be other folks whoyou know just by regular genie
through the lightning lanes, sothere's all kinds of other
people who may be in thelightning lane with you.
Just make some friends, have agood time.
(05:35):
Disneyland won't empty thelightning lane just for a VIP
tour.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
The VIP tour joins the lightning lane so one of the
nice things is you don't haveto finagle with genie plus and,
unlike genie plus, if you wantto ride space mountain six times
, your VIP tour will let you dothat.
I've done that before.
You have to have a strongstomach to do it, but you can
ride the same ride multipletimes, which is one way that it
does make it a little differentthe other thing is it's not
(05:59):
unlimited.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
All you can eat everything.
In fact, snacks are notincluded.
Food is not included.
Your tour guide can absolutelybuy a bottle of water if you're
thirsty, right, you know.
So that's kind of included, butI would prefer for you to think
that really nothing's included.
Now, however, what a lot of thetour guides do is they're very
helpful when it comes to buyingsnacks for their guests, but the
easiest thing to do in thatcase is they just have a.
(06:21):
One of the guests will handover their credit card to their
tour guide and then, when thetour guide needs to go buy
something on behalf of theirguests and he or she'll be happy
to do that for you, but they'lldo it for you with your credit
card because, like food andsnacks and everything, is not
automatically included.
Now, to that end, when it comesto restaurant dining that's
another thing you need to beaware of is that you pay $600 an
(06:42):
hour, or whatever the rate is,for your trip, and that keeps
ticking even when you stop andsit down and have a nice meal.
So perhaps you've got a nicereservation already and remember
, the tour guide can't magicallydo that for you if you really
want to eat at a restaurantduring your tour, you'll have to
get the reservation yourself.
They can't make that magicallygo away.
But then during your sit downrestaurant you're still paying
(07:03):
$600 an hour.
So what most tour guidesrecommend is, during the course
of your tour, whenever you'rekind of on the clock, so to
speak, maximize that by doingthe rides or doing the shows.
The tour guide should havementioned this earlier.
Tour guides also can get youreserve seating for the
fireworks show and reserveseating for the parades.
You don't have to fight thecrowds there and that's really
great.
But when it comes time tositting down and enjoying a nice
(07:26):
long leisurely meal, it's bestto schedule that at the end of
your experience.
And since you can control thestart and stop times, perhaps
you get started, you know, atwhatever in the morning and then
by the time you end, end rightwhen your reservation for dinner
starts.
So you'll say goodbye to yourtour guide.
You know you will thank themfor the wonderful day, you'll
give them a tip and we'll talkmore about that in a second and
then they leave and you sit downand enjoy the rest of your meal
(07:49):
together when you're off theclock.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I was actually having a glass of water at Pizza
Planet and one of the tourguides was around looking for a
place for their group to sit.
So a lot of people will mobileorder on their VIP tours and try
to get something quick.
So you know you're not having.
You know your blue $200 bluebuy you dinner is not now $700.
They don't even have like apre-roped off area for you to
sit.
(08:10):
So the biggest thing is thatyou're getting expedited not run
of the line but expeditedaccess to the attractions, but
also that they have all thesefun facts.
They usually know things.
They will help help youcustomize and identify exactly
what rides your family will like, and it can be a really magical
experience.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, the other thing is, since we're talking about
snacks, mobile ordering is greatand, don't get me wrong, I love
mobile ordering, but when I'mon a tour, sometimes I think the
vibe that works out better isask your tour guide if they're
willing to, because you can'tboss them around, but ask your
tour guide if they're willing towhile you're riding a ride,
because you know some tourguides like to ride with their
guests, other tour guides don't.
And if you could imagine if thisis your nine to five day job,
(08:49):
if you're in the parks everysingle day helping people have
fun, you might not want to rideSpace Mountain every single day.
So if you're, if you're, ifyour tour guide wants to take a
break and join you at the exitof the ride while you go and
experience the ride without them, that's fine, you know, please
let them, don't boss them around.
But if they're willing, youcould ask your tour guide to go
grab a nachos or a churro or youknow whatever they can grab in
(09:10):
the park.
Even your tour guide may evenuse mobile order to do it.
But whatever your tour guidedoes, if they're willing to grab
you a snack while you're on theride, you can really maximize
your time Because as you'recoming off the ride, then your
tour guide will have your snacksthere and you can eat your
snacks while you're walking tothe next thing.
That's a nice way to takeadvantage of your time.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It is really nice to be able to get off a ride and
have have a tasty little snack,kind of ready and waiting for
you.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
The other thing I want to make sure that we talk
about before we do anything elseabout VIP tours, and that is
you know the cost about.
You know five or $6,000.
But let's talk about gratuities, tips.
This is one of the things thatsometimes it makes people
uncomfortable to discuss tips,and so often there's it's hard
to get like any hard cold factsabout it.
The Disney website often hassome very like vague language.
(09:56):
Like you know, your gratuitiesare always accepted but never
mandatory.
You know blah, blah, blah.
But the hard cold fact of it isa tour guide deserves to be
tipped because of their greatservice they're giving you and a
tour is generally expect.
The tip is generally expectedto be in the range of about 10%,
even higher, maybe as high as20% if the service is amazing Of
(10:19):
what the cost of the tour.
And so when you're paying$5,000, a 10% tip on $5,000, of
course, $500.
And people for whom thoseamounts are no big deal probably
won't push back on that.
But if this is something you'rekind of reaching for, saving up
for, if you're splurging, a$500 tip on top of a $5,000 tour
is going to sound excessive.
(10:39):
But I want to let you know inkind of cold hard facts that
that's kind of the range that'shappening out there.
And so if you're wondering ifyou're under tipping your tour
guide or over tipping your tourguide, let me tell you that $500
is about average $1,000, whichwould be 20% give or take of
what the tour cost.
You would be a very generoustip and that's at the very high
(11:01):
end of the range.
But unfortunately, like $100,which in other circumstances may
be a very generous tip, if youwere led on a tour of somewhere
else and tipped your tour guide$100, that might be super
generous, but in this contextthat actually is far below the
average and, of course,naturally someone who doesn't
want to tip at all, that's theworst, because your tour guide
really, really works hard foryou and so that he or she will
(11:23):
deserve that recognition.
And then the one last thing Iwant to say about the tips and,
robin, I'd love to hear yourthoughts about tipping a tour
guide.
The one last thing I want tosay is some people mistakenly
think that their $6,000 thatthey paid goes to the tour guide
, and nothing could be furtherfrom the truth.
That goes right to Disney'sbottom line.
You know they're a for profitcompany.
They're doing this to makemoney, and so Disney keeps all
(11:43):
that money and the tour guide ispaid just an hourly rate like a
regular cast member, and so youknow figure in the neighborhood
of $20 an hour or whatever itis.
I don't really know, and youknow I don't would never ask a
tour guide what they get paid,but I do know that it's in the
range of a normal cast member,maybe a little higher than your
average cast member, but stillit is not anywhere close to the
amount of money you pay.
They don't see that at all.
(12:04):
They will see a regular kind ofa low $20 an hour rain.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
It is an expensive day but you know it is a really
magical day and it can be reallygreat, especially if you're
somebody that has the extraincome and you're looking for
kind of like a carefree Maybeyou're the person that does all
the planning on the trip.
You're really looking forsomebody to kind of take the
reins and guide you throughwhere you don't have to do maybe
as much research into the rides.
(12:30):
I know that my family has beenable to do a VIP tour due to it
with a friend.
That has been really, reallyamazing and one of, like, my
favorite memories of all time isthe time that we spent on those
VIP tours.
The way that the tour guide likeinteracted this was a Disney
tour guide the way the tourguide interacted with my son and
(12:52):
, you know, got my son to ride aroller coaster for the first
time.
And you know my son was soenamored with this particular
cast member that that castmember had said you know, if you
try this roller coaster, all byyou.
You know he tried the rollercoaster, he got the ice cream
and then six months later I'mcleaning up his room.
(13:12):
I'm like, dude, how do you havetrash from Disney World in your
room.
He had saved the ice creamwrapper and he's like no, no, no
, that's not trash, that's theice cream from my, from our tour
guide.
And so we actually now havethat ice cream wrapper framed in
his room and it's one of hismost treasured possessions.
So, while it was awesome and itwas amazing to get to see the
(13:34):
shows and ride the rides, whenhe says that the cast members,
the tour guides, are doing a lot, they really do go out of their
way to make magic any waypossible for your family within
some very tight constraints, butit really is a magical,
wonderful day.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yes, and I'm glad you used that phrase, make magic,
because all of us have had fromtime to time an amazing
experience with a cast member ora guest relations cast member,
where someone goes out of theirway to make a little magic for
you.
It's rare but it does happen,and when it happens, boy it's
delightful.
You know Disneyland, the Disneycompany, likes to refer to that
as surprise and delight.
When people are delighted bythese little interactions and
(14:14):
when you're experiencing Disneyas a regular day guest and it's
wonderful.
Sometimes you'll maybe have anoccasion one or two times where
you'll get a little extra pixiedust sprinkled on you by a cast
member.
It's just a delight.
But this, if you're going tosplurge for this experience,
this is a way to have pixie dustsprinkled on you continuously
all day long, and so that makesit extra fun.
(14:34):
But you touch on something thatI think was really interesting
and that is kind of dovetailsnicely into the why tipping is
sort of a suggested range andnot like some specific number,
and that is when you get anamazing tour guide who just
absolutely knocks it out of thepark for you and elevates the
experience beyond.
Just getting you access to thelighting lanes, just elevates
(14:55):
the experience in every way isbonding with your family and
having a great time.
Everybody wins because that'swhat the tour guide wants to
provide.
That's what you, of course,want to receive from your tour
guide, and that's when it'stotally appropriate to step up
and be very generous with yourtips to thank them for such a
wonderful day.
Now, I'm definitely never goingto throw shade on Disney cast
member at all, but I'm notsaying every tour guide is not
(15:16):
the same.
And if you go ahead and do aVIP tour, you are going to get
assigned someone who could be aplus plus 10 out of 10, 11 out
of 10,.
You or you might get signedsomeone who is maybe a B plus
player you know, nine out of 10,.
You're going to have awonderful day, no matter what,
and that person is going to befriendly and get you into all
the lighting lanes, but theyjust might not have that same
(15:39):
spark, and so that's where itwould be appropriate to adjust
what you think is fair for agratuitity.
At the end, I'll tell you onequick story, and again I'm not
trying to throw shade on anybody.
I'll tell you one quick story.
We found ourselves atDisneyland last minute trip and
all the regular tour guides havebeen.
All the tours had been assigned.
All the regular tour guides whoare normally tour guides have
been assigned.
No more two guys to be had.
So I looked at the guestrelation folks and I'm like,
(16:01):
look, it's kind of a specialsituation.
We're only here in the Anaheimfor one day.
I got friends with me.
We've never seen Disneyland.
I've really got to show them agood time.
It's really busy.
You know it's going to take usforever to do standby lines.
Are you sure you couldn't maybereassign someone from another
role and have them be a VIP tourguide for today and take us
around the park?
So they called around and theyfound a guest relation person,
not very experienced and hadn'tdone many tours, but they called
(16:22):
a guest relations person andthat cast member came on board
as our VIP tour guide and we hada fun time, no doubt about it.
But it was clear that thisperson had never really done a
VIP tour before, didn't reallyknow how they work, and so I
almost felt like I was givingher the VIP tour around the park
.
And so the reason I mentionedthis story is just to say that,
(16:42):
look, you're going to have awonderful time and your tour
guide is going to be amazing.
It's just like anything else.
Sometimes when you go out todinner, you have a fantastic
server and sometimes your serveris just okay.
So you know, set yourexpectations accordingly.
But what you're promised willactually be delivered, and that
is lightening access to everyattraction and reserve seating
for the fireworks and reserveseating for the parades.
If that's what you want to do,that's the deal and you will
(17:03):
definitely get the deal.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I think one question I see a lot is do I have to
schedule if I want reserveseating for the fireworks or for
the parade?
Does that have to be during myVIP tour hours or can I book it
like earlier in the day and thengo see the go to those, check
into those reserve spots aftermy VIP tour is completed for the
day?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Well, what I do know for sure is when your VIP tour
is coming to an end, your tourguide can say goodbye to you as
you begin that last thing onyour own, and so the timing
wouldn't really work out for aseven hour tour to end during
the parades.
But you can tell your tourguide yep man, in fact there's a
lot of.
There's a little bit of likeplanning ahead of time as you
arrange the tour, because youknow they don't have a form
(17:43):
right on the website where youcan just put it in your cart and
check out and now you've got atour.
It's more like a kind of amanual process as you send an
email, you know your responseback, and then they ask for your
credit card.
You know, blah, blah, blah blah.
There's little back and forth.
So in that back and forth sortof pre planning stages, as you
plan for your day, you, disney,will want you to communicate
with them what activities you'reinterested in doing, and so
(18:05):
you'll have to kind of indicateyour proposed start time,
proposed location, which parkwould you like to start in?
You know, where do you want tomeet your tour guide?
And then, what do you intend ondoing?
What are your must do so.
Make sure your tour guide knowsthat you're going to do
everything you want, but likewhat are the ones that you're
really important to you, so theycan help plan for that.
And then the important thing is, where do you want your tour to
end, and do you want to see thefireworks as part of that or
(18:26):
the parades?
And they will make all thearrangements so you can't
actually watch the fireworksright as you say goodbye to your
tour guide, your tour guidewill get you into the great
viewing area that's reserved foryou, and then you say goodbye
to them and enjoy the fireworksand then go home.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And I believe that's one of the only ways to sit down
and watch the fireworks infront of the castle.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Well, I've had my fair share of I've been standing
here for three hours.
I'm going to sit when thefireworks start.
Sorry, I've sit my butt downright on the street there plenty
of times, but the only way, theonly way to have like the
bougie folding chair and likesit down and relax and plus, you
know, you think oh, the phrasebougie folding chair is one you
(19:04):
get to use every day.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well fair enough?
Fair enough?
No, it is, but it is a.
It is a bougie thing to be ableto sit in a folding chair to
watch the fireworks.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Well, just like my bougie churro.
You know churros aren't bougiefood, for sure, but when one is
handed to you as you step off aride, that is definitely the
bougiest of churros.
But yeah, if you think about itfor a minute, it's like oh my
God, last time I waited forfireworks, I was there for two
hours.
Having a chair to sit on wouldbe great.
Well, the best news is, notonly do you have a wonderful
(19:37):
folding chair to sit on and,believe me, it's better than
standing you don't have to getthere two hours ahead of time.
You can get there five minutesbefore it starts and be like oh
hello, Mr Lawrence.
Yes, your seats are right thisway Typical one.
Yes, that's a delight.
But yeah, in that, if you haveany additional questions about
well, we want to do this, wewant to do that, but we'd like
(19:58):
our tour to end here but stilldo that other thing, those are
all the questions you can ask inthe kind of pre-planning stages
, as you're emailing back andforth with Disney and they're
kind of putting the tour plantogether for you.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And that's also a great.
You see, you want to do thatahead of time.
And then also the day of thetour, you want to say like these
are the things that I wanted todo, these are our priorities,
and then the cast member willusually be like, all right,
let's do these first.
Or, like you know, like they'llgive you some, they'll kind of
help you figure out how toorganize that day.
But if you can come in kind ofknowing what you want to do or
what you don't want to do, Ifeel like that's helpful.
What are some other tips to getthe most out of your VIP tour?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Well, you know I'm a real fan of talking about Disney
Zen.
You know your attitude andhaving a good, positive attitude
is really important.
You know it's hard to have abad attitude when you're on a
VIP tour because everything isabout you.
But every now and thensomething might happen where
your tour guide might have toexcuse him or herself for a
moment and then step backstageto take Sarah some business.
You know there's.
They're still an employee andthey're still required to take,
(20:53):
you know, five minute breaksevery so often.
I don't know how it works, butthe point is your tour guide may
have to say excuse me for justone moment.
I'll be right back with you Ifyou feel like that's unfair or
whatever.
They can always tack on thattime at the end of your tours.
You haven't wasted anything.
You're going to have to makesure to feel unhappy, but one
thing I do want to mention it'sa little silly, but one thing I
do want to mention is your tourguide is probably very well
(21:14):
known inside the parks.
Other cast members probablylove them.
Other guests who have had themin the past, who may still be
there in the park for the restof their vacation, might see
them again.
So the person you're on tourwith today, your guide, may have
been somebody else's guideyesterday and that family will
absolutely want to come up tothem and give them a big hug and
(21:35):
say, oh, we had so much funYesterday.
And you might be thinking, hey,hey, $600 an hour, clock is
ticking.
I'm not paying for social time.
Relax Right.
Let your tour guide say hi totheir family because chances are
the next day on your vacationyou're going to see that same
tour guide again and you'regoing to want to go give them a
big hug and that family mightthink about giving you the evil
eye because you're on the clock.
(21:56):
So don't let that, don't letthat or any other delay ruin
your day.
If your tour encounters somekind of delay, for whatever
reason, you just simply ask yourtour guide hey, look, you know
we spent 10 minutes doing thisother thing.
You mind tacking 10 minutes onto the end, and that's fine.
They want to make sure you feelgood about it.
And one last thing I want tosay is this will probably never
happen, but if you have theworld's worst experience, if
(22:19):
every, if the wheels just falloff of what's going on and
everything goes sideways, youcan always just go talk to the
folks who run the VIP tourdepartment and say, hey, we need
to do over.
You know, or you need to likesomehow figure this out to make
it fair, because you know thisis a once in a lifetime thing
for us.
We didn't expect it to go south, but it went south.
Can you help us out?
And they will absolutely dowhatever it takes to make sure
(22:41):
you're happy.
I'm not saying you'll get afreebie do over, but they'll do
something to make it right foryou, don't worry about that.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
And I think one of you know when you're paying.
You know so much per hourthings like lots of bathroom
stops that they can, they canget the get some people a little
frustrated.
So I think before you're makingsure that everybody you're
going with knows that you knowwe want to use the bathroom
before we meet the VIP tourguide, we want to try to.
If one person goes, let's allgo so we don't have to make a
(23:09):
bunch of stops and kind of thesame thing around food and you
can split up if necessary, butyour tour guide can only be in
one place at a time.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, and you know it's $600 an hour.
That's $10 a minute, or $100every 10 minutes, $6 a minute,
whatever it is.
So even if you're on the grouppotty break, yeah, you know, go
quick because the clock'sticking.
It's just, it's nice towhoever's gonna pay the bill to
say look, I appreciate the timeso I went P extra fast, thank
you.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
So, and we talked about making about about meals
and kind of maximizing that bymaybe having your tour guide
order and have it ready for you.
Talked about the shows.
Is there any other tips that wedidn't hit so far?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
There is something that you can buy your way into
and I'd love to talk about thatfor a second.
If you want to be Extra bougieand get a higher profile
treatment without necessarilybeing Beyonce or Taylor Swift,
you can buy your way into that.
Let's quickly talk about thatfor a second.
It started in disney world andhere in disney world they called
it and I say here because I'mhappy to be sitting in Orlando
at this moment but here indisney world they called it
(24:12):
world of dreams tour and thepandemic shut that down.
But disney land in anaheim said, hey, that's a great idea.
Instead of world of dreams tour, let's call ours land of dreams
tour.
And land of dreams tours are upand running, so you can.
If you want to book a land ofDreams tour, it's a little bit
different and here's thedifferences you can have up to
six people, no more.
So you can't have a partyattend, but you have a up to
(24:34):
party six and it costs $14,000flat fee for a 12 hour
experience.
So if you run the math, it ismore expensive than the hourly
rate of a VIP tour, but it's notlike 10 times as much it's.
It's a little more, but it ismore.
However, it's a 12 hourexperience cost you $14,000.
You can have it up to sixpeople, but that includes all
(24:57):
the things that you're like.
Oh well, that VIP tour is notas VIP as it sounds, meaning all
your foods included, all yoursnacks are included.
You actually have two tourguides that come along with you,
so while one's hanging out withyou, helping you get on the
rides or whatever else you needhelp with, the other tour guide
Can run ahead and be planningwhatever the next thing is, or
getting your food or whatever.
You don't need to makereservations for restaurants,
(25:17):
they'll take care of all of that.
Basically, it is the.
It is the creme de la creme ofthe creme de la creme, and so if
$14,000 is in your budgetinstead of the $6,000, then land
of Dreams tour is the bougiestof all the VIP tours, and if you
do a little googling to land onthe Disneyland VIP tour page,
you'll just see it kind ofmentioned without any details at
(25:38):
all, and I'm happy to kind ofshare the details with you so
you understand, but that willgive you Skip the lightning lane
access, and so let's, let'skind of dig into what that means
.
On a regular VIP tour still,it's fantastic.
On a regular VIP tour, you willbe asked to go through a
lightning lane for everyattraction that has a lightning
lane, for, for better, for worse, if the Lightning's backed up,
(25:59):
that's, it is what it is.
You'll be asked to go throughthe lightning lane.
If an attraction doesn't have alightning lane, like you know,
peter Pan or whatever youapproach the nearest merge point
where you can join the lineright before you board.
And so if Peter Pan, forexample, in Disneyland, you have
to kind of wait there and whenthey're like, okay, hold the
line, Well, these people cut in.
It's not really skipping theline, but since there isn't a
(26:20):
lightning lane, you join theline right before you board, and
so that's really nice.
But on a land of Dreams tour,you get right to the boarding
platform access or in throughthe exit sometimes they call it
access where you basically Skipthe entire line and walk right
up to the boarding platform andjump right in your next ride
vehicle.
So that is the creme de lacreme of VIP tour.
(26:42):
It's called land of Dreams.
You get everything you couldpossibly want and more, and that
is the bougiest of the bougiethat sounds fantastic, but those
are life goals right there.
Yeah, right, exactly.
But then again, if you thinkabout it, you got to do this for
12 hours.
I mean, you don't have to.
You can leave early, anytimeyou want, right, but you're
gonna be there for 12 hours.
Lightning lanes only gonna takefive minutes.
(27:02):
So shaving an extra fiveminutes off of each attraction
sounds great and all, but like,what are you gonna do?
Do Disneyland twice, you knowright, every.
If you want to spend 12 hoursgetting to the front of every
single line, hey, leave yourbest life.
But you'll probably be halfwaythrough the day and go, wow,
I've done it all twice.
I've seen everything there's tosee.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And at that price you could go back to Disneyland
every weekend for a month.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Think all the annual passes youcould buy for you and your
whole family and everything.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And that's the other thing your ticket is not
included in your VIP tour aswell.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
That's exactly right.
So the last thing I want to sayabout land of Dreams is and I
just want to finish this up isLand of Dreams will also include
access to any of the backstageareas that are interesting to
show people.
So you will see Walt'sapartment, you will see any of
the other backstage things, andif you were gonna do one of
these, there's a lot ofcoordination involved.
You indicate your interest,they reach out for payment, you
give your planning details andkind of work out exactly what
(27:58):
your day is gonna be.
But that's something you don'thave to be Beyonce or Taylor
Swift to do.
You can just do that as aregular person.
You just have to come up with14 grand to do it.
But, robin, you bring up a veryinteresting point.
Let's dig on that a little bit.
This does not include yourticket to the park.
Now, don't take that the wrongway.
Don't think that they're, likeyou know, trying to add insult
to injury.
It just it is what it is.
The.
(28:18):
The money you pay for your touris for the expedited access,
it's for the elevated experience.
It's not to get in the frontdoor, and so don't don't expect
that to be part of it.
In fact, a good way to maximizeyour tour is to get inside the
park yourself on your owntickets, whatever they happen to
be.
Do whatever you want to orthat's low crowds, or whatever
you feel like doing and theearly parts of the day If you're
(28:38):
a rope dropper, you know, dothat and then, once the park
gets crowded, have that be thestart time of your tour.
Do the tour during the mostcrowded times of the day and at
the fireworks, say goodbye toyour tour guide, enjoy the
fireworks and that's a wonderfulway to make the day, but you
bring up a good point and thatis your park Admission ticket is
not included in the experience.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
So if you wanted to have the bougiest day ever, you
could start with a land ofdreams tour, do that for 12
hours and then have a dinner atRoyal 21, which is I think it's
a is it $14,000 for a dinner for10 people, I think well, just
like everything else, prices aresubject to change.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But the royal 21 dinner experience is, you know
you can.
You can see details about it onthe website and I'm not sure if
they even talk about.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
We'll have a link in the.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah, you can, if you want, if you want to, if you
want to put it up for your dreamboard it's kind of I think
here's the reason why they don'tever talk about the prices on
their landing pages on thedesign website and it's kind of
one of those you know, if youhave to ask moments that really
this only makes sense for peoplewho have the right amount of
disposal income, for whom thisis really not a stretch.
(29:42):
So dropping 10 or $20,000,whatever it is, on a meal for
you and your friends, if that'ssomething that you would have to
reach for that, and maybe ifyou you know that puts you in a
financial pinch, oh please don'tdo it.
But Don't mortgage your houseto do any of these things.
It's just not worth it.
But but if you, you have anexperience where you're in a
situation where this is kind ofwithin your budget and something
(30:03):
you want to splurge for, yet byall means, these are really
wonderful experiences.
And you know one of the things Iwanted to mention about that
kind of like your budget andbudgeting and everything, you
can still have a wonderful daywithout ever once doing a VIP
tour.
So don't think that like theworld is past you by, or, and
you know, robert and I say lifegoals, and sure it is a life
(30:23):
goal, but it's not like you'reseeing a different Disneyland
than a person on a VIP tour.
It's the same awesomeattraction, it's the same
awesome parade, it's the sameawesome fireworks you're all
seeing the same thing.
It just kind of removes a lotof the line waiting from the
situation, that's all.
But you still see the samegreat product.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
So I hope, if you were considering a VIP tour,
that this has been helpful.
You know there are so manyluxury experience the Disneyland
has to offer, including 21Royal, which they have a video
on their page, but for mostpeople that's pretty outside of
the box.
Vip tour is is a really greatway.
If you're kind of in that midrange where You'd like to try
something a little bit moreelevated, or you have some
(31:04):
disposable income and you'replanning on coming, like, let's
say, the week of Christmas isthe only time you can come, then
that's where I think becauseyou're able to kind of get all
of those lightning wings outhaving to use genie plus that
you get the best value.
So any parting tips on that,george?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Oh well, you made me think of one last thing, and
that is I have seen in Facebookgroups and other places people
offering to split the IP toursbecause if you look at, if you
look at the fact that it up to10 people and you're paying $600
an hour, you can really turnthat into $60 an hour per person
.
If you like, split it up.
I've talked to plenty of tourguide friends of mine who have
gone on, you know, been theguide for these kind of like
(31:42):
strangers who come together tomeet for this, and sometimes it
works out OK.
But more often than not thedifferent groups that are coming
together will have differentpriorities.
Some do have kids, others don'thave kids, and when you're all
in the same tour group together,you've kind of now dropped back
down to the group tourexperience.
You know you got to go here forthat Because those people want
to do it.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
But then you got to write the mark yeah, right,
exactly, so that I mean, if youreally have to say, yep, did it.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
You know, I Dang mission accomplished.
That is a way that some peoplekind of like work around the
cost to kind of do it.
He won't be the same experienceas having your own personalized
tour guide.
Now, that said, if you had afamily that you know everybody
(32:26):
wants to pool their resourcesbut you all get on the same page
, you might have a wonderful,wonderful experience.
If everybody chips in, no oneperson has to pay the six grand
spreading it out that way itmight be nice.
But you know, please, it's kindof unfair to your tour guide to
have the impossible constraintsof.
These guys want to do something, we don't.
Those guys want to do somethingand they don't you know what
you're going to do with it.
(32:47):
How are they going to makepeople happy?
They want to make magic for you.
They want to sprinkle pixiedust.
Please, please, let us know anddon't put them in that awkward
situation.
And then there's one last thingI wanted to mention, and that is
most tour guides will have alittle bag of goodies to solve,
some kind of little chachki toshare with you at the end of the
tour to kind of likecommemorate your experience.
You will Could be that you geta little pin to put on your
(33:10):
lapel that you know, just aDisney pin, trading pin.
Please don't trade it becausethey're super cool.
But you may get a VIP tour pin.
You may get some other littlething to recognize the
experience.
It may change over time, so itdoesn't really matter.
What they're doing today mightbe different when you do it, but
you will get the end of thetour.
You will get some kind of littlethank you for being on a tour
with me today and your guidewill give you some kind of
little Remembrance to rememberthem by.
(33:33):
And that's when it'sappropriate to thank them and
give them the gratuity and offyou go.
And then, even though, like Isaid, some people are
uncomfortable but talking abouttips, just in straight up terms,
every tour guide I know isperfectly happy to receive your
gratuity with you know, paypal,venmo, whatever it is that you
do.
So if you don't happen to runto the ATM to grab a stack of
(33:53):
five hundred dollar bills andcarry them around in your pocket
, if that's not how you liveyour life, just simply straight
up, ask your tour guide hey, youknow, I don't want to make this
awkward or anything, but youhave a Venmo where I could like
send you a little gratuity andit won't be awkward at all.
Your tour guide would be verythankful because it's important
to show your gratitude, butelectronically.
Every tour guide I know will behappy to receive a gratuity
electronically.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And then, how far in advance do you usually book a
VIP tour?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
as early as you can, and in fact you know, the
earlier you can predict yourneed to want to do one, the
better, because they will sellout.
There's only a certain number.
Because there's only a certainnumber of cast members like even
though that one time I askedanother cast member to be
reassigned to be my tour guidethere's only a certain number
before they fill up, both forstaffing reasons but also for,
like park reasons.
If you had a hundred groups of10 people all show up at the
(34:41):
biggest bad, the biggest bestestride ever all the same time,
then you know, like how are theygoing to accommodate that?
And so actually, on busier daysthey may ask your, they may ask
the tour guides to kind of likespread it out.
And so, like I cannot, we, wecan ride Mickey Minis anytime
you want, but since it's this isthe first day of the tour guide
, this is the first day itopened, I have to just let them
know that we intend on coming at11 o'clock and like, well, some
(35:02):
VIP tour of you tell me when Ido the thing, like that, that's
just for park operationssituations and so.
But to answer your question,just given that there's no like
availability shown on thewebsite.
Like I said, you can't put itin your cart and check out
online, but what you are givenis the email address or phone
number to call.
Just reach out to them and sayI'm thinking about it to her.
(35:23):
Do you have availability onthis date?
And they will figure it out andget back to you and see if they
do.
But don't be surprised ifyou're going to do a last minute
If they are all sold out andthere's no availability to you.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
If you have the budget and you're considering,
that's great.
I would really encourage you todo it, but only if you have the
budget.
Otherwise the whole day mightbe ruined because you're feeling
like you're setting money onhire.
Every time you have to wait acouple minutes.
But it is a really greatexperience if you have the
opportunity.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yep, and you know now that we've sort of a peak
behind the veil or whatever ofwhat these are all about.
I hope if you ever see a VIPtour guide and their family
enjoying a tour, you knowthere's nothing wrong with
saying hi waving at a tour guide, but like, don't slow down that
tour guide by walking up andsaying excuse me, where's the
bathroom.
They are trying to give thatfamily their A game and they
(36:10):
won't be rude to you.
But it might feel like they'rebeing a little brusque if they
sort of give you a very quickanswer and then they kind of
move along.
Well, that's because they'refocused on it and they're not a
regular guest relations castmember, even though, confusingly
, tour guides and guestrelations cast members all wear
plaid.
So if you ever get the brushoff or sort of a curt answer
from a plaid, it could be thatthey're on a tour guide and they
(36:33):
need to stay focused on theirfamily.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
And it doesn't always mean that they're with somebody
famous.
It could be just George.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I was on a tour.
My face happens to look a lotlike Jack Black, that's just how
my beard grows.
And I was on a tour the otherday and you know I don't fault
the kid for thinking I was JackBlack because I look a little
bit like him.
And here I am on a tour itlooks a little fancy and he
comes up and starts talking tome about how much he loves
different Jack Black movies andstuff and then it became clear
to him that I wasn't Jack Blackand it was a little bit awkward,
(37:02):
but you know, we made the bestof it.
Yeah, chances are that personwith the tour guide is just
going to be a regular personenjoying their best Disney day.
It's not going to be a highprofile celebrity, but then
again, that said, it might be.
So there's no guarantees.
It's not, because unless youare the highest of profiles,
you'll be walking around rightalong the lightning lane lines
in the crowds with everybodyelse.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, we hope this has been helpful if you've been
trying to decide whether you'redoing a VIP tour and you have a
great day Before we go.
George, can we have you do aquick like we kind of we kind of
went into the negatives alittle bit in the beginning Can
you do like I'll set you up andcan you do like a quick like
sell me on the tour, kind ofthing?
Speaker 1 (37:45):
My A number one is this and that is you might look
at these prices and go OMG,you're kidding me.
I'm already paying.
How much for tickets and thehotel and the flights and
everything else and you want meto add $6000 to my vacation.
But think about it this way ifyou go, especially during a
crowded time, and you want toexperience like all the park has
to offer, you might have tospend three or four days to get
(38:07):
it all in, and that's three orfour days of you standing in the
hour long lines, you know,dealing with all the crowds.
But add up the price your hotelmight be several hundred
dollars a night.
The food that you're going toeat that day for being in the
park those days is going to beseveral hundred dollars.
You know, I added all up.
An alternative way to look atthat is you could do a VIP tour
and instead spend two days.
(38:28):
I cut your hotel budget in half, I cut your food budget in half
.
I cuts all these other thingsin half.
It might not seem as crazy asit sounds to spend $6000 on a
VIP tour experience, because itmeans you can get it all done in
much less time.
So, depending on how the mathworks out, to what kind of hotel
you're renting.
You may be better off doing onehot and heavy hard day instead
(38:50):
of like for death marches allday long in the entire park.
So that's my number one tip onwhy this sounds like a lot, but
in reality it might not be thatmuch.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
You're able to get so much more done, and there's
some people who just can't takefour or five days off.
Maybe their work is demandingand this is the most that
they're able to do, so this is agreat way to do that,
especially if you're coming atpeak times, when hotels end up
being the most expensive.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
And then the other thing is, as we were talking
about, is these are wonderfulhuman beings.
They know a lot about Disney,they're friendly, they want to
make sure you have a good time,and just spending time with the
tour guides Never mind thatyou're in the happiest place on
earth and you're, you know,doing all these wonderful
experiences and rides andwhatnot.
Just spending the day withwonderful people who are
friendly and are just happyhuman beings, that does your
(39:36):
heart good.
So I mean that, the people, theexperience, the fact that maybe
in the long run it saves youmoney, so it's not as expensive
as you might think, I think neton net on net when you add it
all up, this is a wonderfulthing to do occasionally.
If you want to splurge, don'tdo it every trip to Disney, but
but every now and then when youfeel like splurging.
This is a great way to splurge,not to touch it.
Welcome to the Park Magic podcast, your place for
insider tips for your nextDisneyland adventure.
Whether you're a first-timer orfirst-time in a while visitor,
we're here to unwrap the secretsto creating and simplifying
your dream Disneyland vacation.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Have you ever wanted to go to Disneyland just like
Taylor Swift or Beyonce?
Well, today we're going to betalking about the way the rich
and famous experiencedDisneyland.
That you can do as well and youhave almost the same
experiences them.
We're talking about VIP tours,which is the bougiest way to do
Disneyland, but it is alsofantastic.
I have my friend and co-founder, george, here to talk to us a
(00:54):
little bit about VIP tours.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, well, first of all, it's great to be back with
you, robin, hi, everyone outthere and I love talking about
VIP tours, partly becausethey're really amazing things to
do, but also because there's somuch misinformation about them.
It's kind of shrouded insecrecy.
What the heck is one of thesethings?
What exactly do you do whenyou're on one, when, like well,
I heard that this happens?
Let's dispel all the myths andrumors.
(01:16):
Let's get down to the like, thenitty gritty of it, and let's
talk about what it actuallymeans to do a VIP tour in
Disneyland.
The first thing that I want tosay is there have been a lot of
things you can do at Disneylandthat have the word tour in them,
and so you may have heard about.
Someone did a tour and someoneelse did a tour.
It doesn't necessarily meanthat they did the big, fancy,
expensive, bougie VIP tour and,just like most things in life,
(01:38):
there's a economical version ofstuff and there's an even
crazier, expensive version ofstuff.
But let's just quickly recapthe different versions.
Back in the day, you could dosomething called Walk in Waltz
footsteps and there was ahandful of other tours.
I think that they may be evencalled one of those things, the
VIP tours.
But what those group tours werewas not a private,
(01:58):
individualized tour experience,it was a group tour.
So, just like you may have done, you know, on vacation in
Europe or anywhere else, youstay in a group.
You all have those little earpieces so you can hear the
leader talk, and then the leader, who is wearing plaid, like you
may have seen in the park,takes you around and that cast
member, your tour guide, willshow you all the different
things.
But it's always you staytogether in a group and you
travel as a group.
If you experience anyattractions, you experience them
(02:21):
as a group.
If you have a little dining,you dine as a group and at the
end of the tour it's a few hoursyou may have ridden some rides,
you may have had a few snacks,but you did a group tour around
Disneyland and that's great.
The first thing I wanted to justmake clear is for a hundred or
two hundred dollars you can joina group tour and you can have
kind of a VIP experience,because you get to walk around
(02:41):
with a plaid and you get to seethings that people don't
normally see, and thatexperience will only set you
back a couple hundred dollars.
But that's not what we'retalking about, even though the
word tour is in that.
We're talking about somethingelse, and what we're talking
about is a private VIP tour, andthe private VIP tour is a
completely different animal.
You don't pay per person.
You pay for for up to tenpeople, and but it's your ten
(03:04):
people, so you're not going tobe connected with random
strangers.
You can just choose up to ninemore of your favorite folks to
join you, and for this one priceyou pay by the hour.
And since you're paying by thehour, it's up to you to decide
how many hours you'd like to go.
Now there's a minimum of sevenhours and there is an upper
maximum.
I believe it's ten or maybetwelve hours, and frankly, you
probably wouldn't want to gopast that anyway, because in the
(03:26):
seven hours, which is theminimum, you're probably going
to ride every single thing youand your friends want to ride
anyway, and, plus, going muchfurther than the maximum
wouldn't make sense anyway,because you, and especially your
tour guide, you're just allgoing to get tired bouncing
around the park.
And now the other thing Iwanted to say is the price
varies from five to sevenhundred dollars an hour, and
(03:47):
just figure for planningpurposes figures going to cost
about six hundred dollars anhour.
However, on the busier daysit's going to be seven hundred
dollars an hour and on the lesscrowded days going to be five
hundred dollars an hour.
So the price varies that waytoo, and for those seven to ten
hours you can do whatever it isyou want to do inside the park.
The tour guide, he or she, thetour guide, is sort of yours to
(04:08):
say here's what I want to do,let's, let's do what I want to
do.
It's all going to be about metoday and your tour guide can
take you to the rides.
Your tour guide can take you toany other experiences, but your
tour guide cannot take you tolike the backstage areas.
You can't say, well, I'vealways wanted to see what the
dumpsters look like.
Show me what those look like.
No, no, no, that's not what wedo.
It is not a skip the linesituation, it is not a very
(04:33):
front of the line situation.
You know, you may have heard oryou may have just concluded
that if I'm on a six thousanddollar experience, if I'm paying
six hundred dollars an hour tobe let around the park when it
comes my turn to get into theback of the line, I skip right
to the front, and that,unfortunately, is not true.
What happens is your tour guidegives you access to the
(04:53):
lightning lane, but you're stillgoing to spend, as you already
know, about five or ten minutesin the lightning lane, and so if
that's something that you wereexpecting to do, you know you
got to reset your expectations alittle bit now.
That said, on a VIP tour, thatis the fastest way to see
Disneyland.
Hands down, there is no fasteror better way to see Disneyland
than on a VIP tour.
(05:13):
But you're going to stand in thelightning lanes and mostly
that's great.
Mostly the lightning lanes areawesome.
They're always better than thestandby line.
But just so you're aware, theremay be a disability folks
currently using the lightninglanes.
There may be other folks whoyou know just by regular genie
through the lightning lanes, sothere's all kinds of other
people who may be in thelightning lane with you.
Just make some friends, have agood time.
(05:35):
Disneyland won't empty thelightning lane just for a VIP
tour.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
The VIP tour joins the lightning lane so one of the
nice things is you don't haveto finagle with genie plus and,
unlike genie plus, if you wantto ride space mountain six times
, your VIP tour will let you dothat.
I've done that before.
You have to have a strongstomach to do it, but you can
ride the same ride multipletimes, which is one way that it
does make it a little differentthe other thing is it's not
(05:59):
unlimited.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
All you can eat everything.
In fact, snacks are notincluded.
Food is not included.
Your tour guide can absolutelybuy a bottle of water if you're
thirsty, right, you know.
So that's kind of included, butI would prefer for you to think
that really nothing's included.
Now, however, what a lot of thetour guides do is they're very
helpful when it comes to buyingsnacks for their guests, but the
easiest thing to do in thatcase is they just have a.
(06:21):
One of the guests will handover their credit card to their
tour guide and then, when thetour guide needs to go buy
something on behalf of theirguests and he or she'll be happy
to do that for you, but they'lldo it for you with your credit
card because, like food andsnacks and everything, is not
automatically included.
Now, to that end, when it comesto restaurant dining that's
another thing you need to beaware of is that you pay $600 an
(06:42):
hour, or whatever the rate is,for your trip, and that keeps
ticking even when you stop andsit down and have a nice meal.
So perhaps you've got a nicereservation already and remember
, the tour guide can't magicallydo that for you if you really
want to eat at a restaurantduring your tour, you'll have to
get the reservation yourself.
They can't make that magicallygo away.
But then during your sit downrestaurant you're still paying
(07:03):
$600 an hour.
So what most tour guidesrecommend is, during the course
of your tour, whenever you'rekind of on the clock, so to
speak, maximize that by doingthe rides or doing the shows.
The tour guide should havementioned this earlier.
Tour guides also can get youreserve seating for the
fireworks show and reserveseating for the parades.
You don't have to fight thecrowds there and that's really
great.
But when it comes time tositting down and enjoying a nice
(07:26):
long leisurely meal, it's bestto schedule that at the end of
your experience.
And since you can control thestart and stop times, perhaps
you get started, you know, atwhatever in the morning and then
by the time you end, end rightwhen your reservation for dinner
starts.
So you'll say goodbye to yourtour guide.
You know you will thank themfor the wonderful day, you'll
give them a tip and we'll talkmore about that in a second and
then they leave and you sit downand enjoy the rest of your meal
(07:49):
together when you're off theclock.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I was actually having a glass of water at Pizza
Planet and one of the tourguides was around looking for a
place for their group to sit.
So a lot of people will mobileorder on their VIP tours and try
to get something quick.
So you know you're not having.
You know your blue $200 bluebuy you dinner is not now $700.
They don't even have like apre-roped off area for you to
sit.
(08:10):
So the biggest thing is thatyou're getting expedited not run
of the line but expeditedaccess to the attractions, but
also that they have all thesefun facts.
They usually know things.
They will help help youcustomize and identify exactly
what rides your family will like, and it can be a really magical
experience.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, the other thing is, since we're talking about
snacks, mobile ordering is greatand, don't get me wrong, I love
mobile ordering, but when I'mon a tour, sometimes I think the
vibe that works out better isask your tour guide if they're
willing to, because you can'tboss them around, but ask your
tour guide if they're willing towhile you're riding a ride,
because you know some tourguides like to ride with their
guests, other tour guides don't.
And if you could imagine if thisis your nine to five day job,
(08:49):
if you're in the parks everysingle day helping people have
fun, you might not want to rideSpace Mountain every single day.
So if you're, if you're, ifyour tour guide wants to take a
break and join you at the exitof the ride while you go and
experience the ride without them, that's fine, you know, please
let them, don't boss them around.
But if they're willing, youcould ask your tour guide to go
grab a nachos or a churro or youknow whatever they can grab in
(09:10):
the park.
Even your tour guide may evenuse mobile order to do it.
But whatever your tour guidedoes, if they're willing to grab
you a snack while you're on theride, you can really maximize
your time Because as you'recoming off the ride, then your
tour guide will have your snacksthere and you can eat your
snacks while you're walking tothe next thing.
That's a nice way to takeadvantage of your time.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It is really nice to be able to get off a ride and
have have a tasty little snack,kind of ready and waiting for
you.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
The other thing I want to make sure that we talk
about before we do anything elseabout VIP tours, and that is
you know the cost about.
You know five or $6,000.
But let's talk about gratuities, tips.
This is one of the things thatsometimes it makes people
uncomfortable to discuss tips,and so often there's it's hard
to get like any hard cold factsabout it.
The Disney website often hassome very like vague language.
(09:56):
Like you know, your gratuitiesare always accepted but never
mandatory.
You know blah, blah, blah.
But the hard cold fact of it isa tour guide deserves to be
tipped because of their greatservice they're giving you and a
tour is generally expect.
The tip is generally expectedto be in the range of about 10%,
even higher, maybe as high as20% if the service is amazing Of
(10:19):
what the cost of the tour.
And so when you're paying$5,000, a 10% tip on $5,000, of
course, $500.
And people for whom thoseamounts are no big deal probably
won't push back on that.
But if this is something you'rekind of reaching for, saving up
for, if you're splurging, a$500 tip on top of a $5,000 tour
is going to sound excessive.
(10:39):
But I want to let you know inkind of cold hard facts that
that's kind of the range that'shappening out there.
And so if you're wondering ifyou're under tipping your tour
guide or over tipping your tourguide, let me tell you that $500
is about average $1,000, whichwould be 20% give or take of
what the tour cost.
You would be a very generoustip and that's at the very high
(11:01):
end of the range.
But unfortunately, like $100,which in other circumstances may
be a very generous tip, if youwere led on a tour of somewhere
else and tipped your tour guide$100, that might be super
generous, but in this contextthat actually is far below the
average and, of course,naturally someone who doesn't
want to tip at all, that's theworst, because your tour guide
really, really works hard foryou and so that he or she will
(11:23):
deserve that recognition.
And then the one last thing Iwant to say about the tips and,
robin, I'd love to hear yourthoughts about tipping a tour
guide.
The one last thing I want tosay is some people mistakenly
think that their $6,000 thatthey paid goes to the tour guide
, and nothing could be furtherfrom the truth.
That goes right to Disney'sbottom line.
You know they're a for profitcompany.
They're doing this to makemoney, and so Disney keeps all
(11:43):
that money and the tour guide ispaid just an hourly rate like a
regular cast member, and so youknow figure in the neighborhood
of $20 an hour or whatever itis.
I don't really know, and youknow I don't would never ask a
tour guide what they get paid,but I do know that it's in the
range of a normal cast member,maybe a little higher than your
average cast member, but stillit is not anywhere close to the
amount of money you pay.
They don't see that at all.
(12:04):
They will see a regular kind ofa low $20 an hour rain.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
It is an expensive day but you know it is a really
magical day and it can be reallygreat, especially if you're
somebody that has the extraincome and you're looking for
kind of like a carefree Maybeyou're the person that does all
the planning on the trip.
You're really looking forsomebody to kind of take the
reins and guide you throughwhere you don't have to do maybe
as much research into the rides.
(12:30):
I know that my family has beenable to do a VIP tour due to it
with a friend.
That has been really, reallyamazing and one of, like, my
favorite memories of all time isthe time that we spent on those
VIP tours.
The way that the tour guide likeinteracted this was a Disney
tour guide the way the tourguide interacted with my son and
(12:52):
, you know, got my son to ride aroller coaster for the first
time.
And you know my son was soenamored with this particular
cast member that that castmember had said you know, if you
try this roller coaster, all byyou.
You know he tried the rollercoaster, he got the ice cream
and then six months later I'mcleaning up his room.
(13:12):
I'm like, dude, how do you havetrash from Disney World in your
room.
He had saved the ice creamwrapper and he's like no, no, no
, that's not trash, that's theice cream from my, from our tour
guide.
And so we actually now havethat ice cream wrapper framed in
his room and it's one of hismost treasured possessions.
So, while it was awesome and itwas amazing to get to see the
(13:34):
shows and ride the rides, whenhe says that the cast members,
the tour guides, are doing a lot, they really do go out of their
way to make magic any waypossible for your family within
some very tight constraints, butit really is a magical,
wonderful day.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yes, and I'm glad you used that phrase, make magic,
because all of us have had fromtime to time an amazing
experience with a cast member ora guest relations cast member,
where someone goes out of theirway to make a little magic for
you.
It's rare but it does happen,and when it happens, boy it's
delightful.
You know Disneyland, the Disneycompany, likes to refer to that
as surprise and delight.
When people are delighted bythese little interactions and
(14:14):
when you're experiencing Disneyas a regular day guest and it's
wonderful.
Sometimes you'll maybe have anoccasion one or two times where
you'll get a little extra pixiedust sprinkled on you by a cast
member.
It's just a delight.
But this, if you're going tosplurge for this experience,
this is a way to have pixie dustsprinkled on you continuously
all day long, and so that makesit extra fun.
(14:34):
But you touch on something thatI think was really interesting
and that is kind of dovetailsnicely into the why tipping is
sort of a suggested range andnot like some specific number,
and that is when you get anamazing tour guide who just
absolutely knocks it out of thepark for you and elevates the
experience beyond.
Just getting you access to thelighting lanes, just elevates
(14:55):
the experience in every way isbonding with your family and
having a great time.
Everybody wins because that'swhat the tour guide wants to
provide.
That's what you, of course,want to receive from your tour
guide, and that's when it'stotally appropriate to step up
and be very generous with yourtips to thank them for such a
wonderful day.
Now, I'm definitely never goingto throw shade on Disney cast
member at all, but I'm notsaying every tour guide is not
(15:16):
the same.
And if you go ahead and do aVIP tour, you are going to get
assigned someone who could be aplus plus 10 out of 10, 11 out
of 10,.
You or you might get signedsomeone who is maybe a B plus
player you know, nine out of 10,.
You're going to have awonderful day, no matter what,
and that person is going to befriendly and get you into all
the lighting lanes, but theyjust might not have that same
(15:39):
spark, and so that's where itwould be appropriate to adjust
what you think is fair for agratuitity.
At the end, I'll tell you onequick story, and again I'm not
trying to throw shade on anybody.
I'll tell you one quick story.
We found ourselves atDisneyland last minute trip and
all the regular tour guides havebeen.
All the tours had been assigned.
All the regular tour guides whoare normally tour guides have
been assigned.
No more two guys to be had.
So I looked at the guestrelation folks and I'm like,
(16:01):
look, it's kind of a specialsituation.
We're only here in the Anaheimfor one day.
I got friends with me.
We've never seen Disneyland.
I've really got to show them agood time.
It's really busy.
You know it's going to take usforever to do standby lines.
Are you sure you couldn't maybereassign someone from another
role and have them be a VIP tourguide for today and take us
around the park?
So they called around and theyfound a guest relation person,
not very experienced and hadn'tdone many tours, but they called
(16:22):
a guest relations person andthat cast member came on board
as our VIP tour guide and we hada fun time, no doubt about it.
But it was clear that thisperson had never really done a
VIP tour before, didn't reallyknow how they work, and so I
almost felt like I was givingher the VIP tour around the park
.
And so the reason I mentionedthis story is just to say that,
(16:42):
look, you're going to have awonderful time and your tour
guide is going to be amazing.
It's just like anything else.
Sometimes when you go out todinner, you have a fantastic
server and sometimes your serveris just okay.
So you know, set yourexpectations accordingly.
But what you're promised willactually be delivered, and that
is lightening access to everyattraction and reserve seating
for the fireworks and reserveseating for the parades.
If that's what you want to do,that's the deal and you will
(17:03):
definitely get the deal.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I think one question I see a lot is do I have to
schedule if I want reserveseating for the fireworks or for
the parade?
Does that have to be during myVIP tour hours or can I book it
like earlier in the day and thengo see the go to those, check
into those reserve spots aftermy VIP tour is completed for the
day?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Well, what I do know for sure is when your VIP tour
is coming to an end, your tourguide can say goodbye to you as
you begin that last thing onyour own, and so the timing
wouldn't really work out for aseven hour tour to end during
the parades.
But you can tell your tourguide yep man, in fact there's a
lot of.
There's a little bit of likeplanning ahead of time as you
arrange the tour, because youknow they don't have a form
(17:43):
right on the website where youcan just put it in your cart and
check out and now you've got atour.
It's more like a kind of amanual process as you send an
email, you know your responseback, and then they ask for your
credit card.
You know, blah, blah, blah blah.
There's little back and forth.
So in that back and forth sortof pre planning stages, as you
plan for your day, you, disney,will want you to communicate
with them what activities you'reinterested in doing, and so
(18:05):
you'll have to kind of indicateyour proposed start time,
proposed location, which parkwould you like to start in?
You know, where do you want tomeet your tour guide?
And then, what do you intend ondoing?
What are your must do so.
Make sure your tour guide knowsthat you're going to do
everything you want, but likewhat are the ones that you're
really important to you, so theycan help plan for that.
And then the important thing is, where do you want your tour to
end, and do you want to see thefireworks as part of that or
(18:26):
the parades?
And they will make all thearrangements so you can't
actually watch the fireworksright as you say goodbye to your
tour guide, your tour guidewill get you into the great
viewing area that's reserved foryou, and then you say goodbye
to them and enjoy the fireworksand then go home.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And I believe that's one of the only ways to sit down
and watch the fireworks infront of the castle.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Well, I've had my fair share of I've been standing
here for three hours.
I'm going to sit when thefireworks start.
Sorry, I've sit my butt downright on the street there plenty
of times, but the only way, theonly way to have like the
bougie folding chair and likesit down and relax and plus, you
know, you think oh, the phrasebougie folding chair is one you
(19:04):
get to use every day.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well fair enough?
Fair enough?
No, it is, but it is a.
It is a bougie thing to be ableto sit in a folding chair to
watch the fireworks.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Well, just like my bougie churro.
You know churros aren't bougiefood, for sure, but when one is
handed to you as you step off aride, that is definitely the
bougiest of churros.
But yeah, if you think about itfor a minute, it's like oh my
God, last time I waited forfireworks, I was there for two
hours.
Having a chair to sit on wouldbe great.
Well, the best news is, notonly do you have a wonderful
(19:37):
folding chair to sit on and,believe me, it's better than
standing you don't have to getthere two hours ahead of time.
You can get there five minutesbefore it starts and be like oh
hello, Mr Lawrence.
Yes, your seats are right thisway Typical one.
Yes, that's a delight.
But yeah, in that, if you haveany additional questions about
well, we want to do this, wewant to do that, but we'd like
(19:58):
our tour to end here but stilldo that other thing, those are
all the questions you can ask inthe kind of pre-planning stages
, as you're emailing back andforth with Disney and they're
kind of putting the tour plantogether for you.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And that's also a great.
You see, you want to do thatahead of time.
And then also the day of thetour, you want to say like these
are the things that I wanted todo, these are our priorities,
and then the cast member willusually be like, all right,
let's do these first.
Or, like you know, like they'llgive you some, they'll kind of
help you figure out how toorganize that day.
But if you can come in kind ofknowing what you want to do or
what you don't want to do, Ifeel like that's helpful.
What are some other tips to getthe most out of your VIP tour?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Well, you know I'm a real fan of talking about Disney
Zen.
You know your attitude andhaving a good, positive attitude
is really important.
You know it's hard to have abad attitude when you're on a
VIP tour because everything isabout you.
But every now and thensomething might happen where
your tour guide might have toexcuse him or herself for a
moment and then step backstageto take Sarah some business.
You know there's.
They're still an employee andthey're still required to take,
(20:53):
you know, five minute breaksevery so often.
I don't know how it works, butthe point is your tour guide may
have to say excuse me for justone moment.
I'll be right back with you Ifyou feel like that's unfair or
whatever.
They can always tack on thattime at the end of your tours.
You haven't wasted anything.
You're going to have to makesure to feel unhappy, but one
thing I do want to mention it'sa little silly, but one thing I
do want to mention is your tourguide is probably very well
(21:14):
known inside the parks.
Other cast members probablylove them.
Other guests who have had themin the past, who may still be
there in the park for the restof their vacation, might see
them again.
So the person you're on tourwith today, your guide, may have
been somebody else's guideyesterday and that family will
absolutely want to come up tothem and give them a big hug and
(21:35):
say, oh, we had so much funYesterday.
And you might be thinking, hey,hey, $600 an hour, clock is
ticking.
I'm not paying for social time.
Relax Right.
Let your tour guide say hi totheir family because chances are
the next day on your vacationyou're going to see that same
tour guide again and you'regoing to want to go give them a
big hug and that family mightthink about giving you the evil
eye because you're on the clock.
(21:56):
So don't let that, don't letthat or any other delay ruin
your day.
If your tour encounters somekind of delay, for whatever
reason, you just simply ask yourtour guide hey, look, you know
we spent 10 minutes doing thisother thing.
You mind tacking 10 minutes onto the end, and that's fine.
They want to make sure you feelgood about it.
And one last thing I want tosay is this will probably never
happen, but if you have theworld's worst experience, if
(22:19):
every, if the wheels just falloff of what's going on and
everything goes sideways, youcan always just go talk to the
folks who run the VIP tourdepartment and say, hey, we need
to do over.
You know, or you need to likesomehow figure this out to make
it fair, because you know thisis a once in a lifetime thing
for us.
We didn't expect it to go south, but it went south.
Can you help us out?
And they will absolutely dowhatever it takes to make sure
(22:41):
you're happy.
I'm not saying you'll get afreebie do over, but they'll do
something to make it right foryou, don't worry about that.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
And I think one of you know when you're paying.
You know so much per hourthings like lots of bathroom
stops that they can, they canget the get some people a little
frustrated.
So I think before you're makingsure that everybody you're
going with knows that you knowwe want to use the bathroom
before we meet the VIP tourguide, we want to try to.
If one person goes, let's allgo so we don't have to make a
(23:09):
bunch of stops and kind of thesame thing around food and you
can split up if necessary, butyour tour guide can only be in
one place at a time.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, and you know it's $600 an hour.
That's $10 a minute, or $100every 10 minutes, $6 a minute,
whatever it is.
So even if you're on the grouppotty break, yeah, you know, go
quick because the clock'sticking.
It's just, it's nice towhoever's gonna pay the bill to
say look, I appreciate the timeso I went P extra fast, thank
you.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
So, and we talked about making about about meals
and kind of maximizing that bymaybe having your tour guide
order and have it ready for you.
Talked about the shows.
Is there any other tips that wedidn't hit so far?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
There is something that you can buy your way into
and I'd love to talk about thatfor a second.
If you want to be Extra bougieand get a higher profile
treatment without necessarilybeing Beyonce or Taylor Swift,
you can buy your way into that.
Let's quickly talk about thatfor a second.
It started in disney world andhere in disney world they called
it and I say here because I'mhappy to be sitting in Orlando
at this moment but here indisney world they called it
(24:12):
world of dreams tour and thepandemic shut that down.
But disney land in anaheim said, hey, that's a great idea.
Instead of world of dreams tour, let's call ours land of dreams
tour.
And land of dreams tours are upand running, so you can.
If you want to book a land ofDreams tour, it's a little bit
different and here's thedifferences you can have up to
six people, no more.
So you can't have a partyattend, but you have a up to
(24:34):
party six and it costs $14,000flat fee for a 12 hour
experience.
So if you run the math, it ismore expensive than the hourly
rate of a VIP tour, but it's notlike 10 times as much it's.
It's a little more, but it ismore.
However, it's a 12 hourexperience cost you $14,000.
You can have it up to sixpeople, but that includes all
(24:57):
the things that you're like.
Oh well, that VIP tour is notas VIP as it sounds, meaning all
your foods included, all yoursnacks are included.
You actually have two tourguides that come along with you,
so while one's hanging out withyou, helping you get on the
rides or whatever else you needhelp with, the other tour guide
Can run ahead and be planningwhatever the next thing is, or
getting your food or whatever.
You don't need to makereservations for restaurants,
(25:17):
they'll take care of all of that.
Basically, it is the.
It is the creme de la creme ofthe creme de la creme, and so if
$14,000 is in your budgetinstead of the $6,000, then land
of Dreams tour is the bougiestof all the VIP tours, and if you
do a little googling to land onthe Disneyland VIP tour page,
you'll just see it kind ofmentioned without any details at
(25:38):
all, and I'm happy to kind ofshare the details with you so
you understand, but that willgive you Skip the lightning lane
access, and so let's, let'skind of dig into what that means
.
On a regular VIP tour still,it's fantastic.
On a regular VIP tour, you willbe asked to go through a
lightning lane for everyattraction that has a lightning
lane, for, for better, for worse, if the Lightning's backed up,
(25:59):
that's, it is what it is.
You'll be asked to go throughthe lightning lane.
If an attraction doesn't have alightning lane, like you know,
peter Pan or whatever youapproach the nearest merge point
where you can join the lineright before you board.
And so if Peter Pan, forexample, in Disneyland, you have
to kind of wait there and whenthey're like, okay, hold the
line, Well, these people cut in.
It's not really skipping theline, but since there isn't a
(26:20):
lightning lane, you join theline right before you board, and
so that's really nice.
But on a land of Dreams tour,you get right to the boarding
platform access or in throughthe exit sometimes they call it
access where you basically Skipthe entire line and walk right
up to the boarding platform andjump right in your next ride
vehicle.
So that is the creme de lacreme of VIP tour.
(26:42):
It's called land of Dreams.
You get everything you couldpossibly want and more, and that
is the bougiest of the bougiethat sounds fantastic, but those
are life goals right there.
Yeah, right, exactly.
But then again, if you thinkabout it, you got to do this for
12 hours.
I mean, you don't have to.
You can leave early, anytimeyou want, right, but you're
gonna be there for 12 hours.
Lightning lanes only gonna takefive minutes.
(27:02):
So shaving an extra fiveminutes off of each attraction
sounds great and all, but like,what are you gonna do?
Do Disneyland twice, you knowright, every.
If you want to spend 12 hoursgetting to the front of every
single line, hey, leave yourbest life.
But you'll probably be halfwaythrough the day and go, wow,
I've done it all twice.
I've seen everything there's tosee.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And at that price you could go back to Disneyland
every weekend for a month.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Think all the annual passes youcould buy for you and your
whole family and everything.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And that's the other thing your ticket is not
included in your VIP tour aswell.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
That's exactly right.
So the last thing I want to sayabout land of Dreams is and I
just want to finish this up isLand of Dreams will also include
access to any of the backstageareas that are interesting to
show people.
So you will see Walt'sapartment, you will see any of
the other backstage things, andif you were gonna do one of
these, there's a lot ofcoordination involved.
You indicate your interest,they reach out for payment, you
give your planning details andkind of work out exactly what
(27:58):
your day is gonna be.
But that's something you don'thave to be Beyonce or Taylor
Swift to do.
You can just do that as aregular person.
You just have to come up with14 grand to do it.
But, robin, you bring up a veryinteresting point.
Let's dig on that a little bit.
This does not include yourticket to the park.
Now, don't take that the wrongway.
Don't think that they're, likeyou know, trying to add insult
to injury.
It just it is what it is.
The.
(28:18):
The money you pay for your touris for the expedited access,
it's for the elevated experience.
It's not to get in the frontdoor, and so don't don't expect
that to be part of it.
In fact, a good way to maximizeyour tour is to get inside the
park yourself on your owntickets, whatever they happen to
be.
Do whatever you want to orthat's low crowds, or whatever
you feel like doing and theearly parts of the day If you're
(28:38):
a rope dropper, you know, dothat and then, once the park
gets crowded, have that be thestart time of your tour.
Do the tour during the mostcrowded times of the day and at
the fireworks, say goodbye toyour tour guide, enjoy the
fireworks and that's a wonderfulway to make the day, but you
bring up a good point and thatis your park Admission ticket is
not included in the experience.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
So if you wanted to have the bougiest day ever, you
could start with a land ofdreams tour, do that for 12
hours and then have a dinner atRoyal 21, which is I think it's
a is it $14,000 for a dinner for10 people, I think well, just
like everything else, prices aresubject to change.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But the royal 21 dinner experience is, you know
you can.
You can see details about it onthe website and I'm not sure if
they even talk about.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
We'll have a link in the.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah, you can, if you want, if you want to, if you
want to put it up for your dreamboard it's kind of I think
here's the reason why they don'tever talk about the prices on
their landing pages on thedesign website and it's kind of
one of those you know, if youhave to ask moments that really
this only makes sense for peoplewho have the right amount of
disposal income, for whom thisis really not a stretch.
(29:42):
So dropping 10 or $20,000,whatever it is, on a meal for
you and your friends, if that'ssomething that you would have to
reach for that, and maybe ifyou you know that puts you in a
financial pinch, oh please don'tdo it.
But Don't mortgage your houseto do any of these things.
It's just not worth it.
But but if you, you have anexperience where you're in a
situation where this is kind ofwithin your budget and something
(30:03):
you want to splurge for, yet byall means, these are really
wonderful experiences.
And you know one of the things Iwanted to mention about that
kind of like your budget andbudgeting and everything, you
can still have a wonderful daywithout ever once doing a VIP
tour.
So don't think that like theworld is past you by, or, and
you know, robert and I say lifegoals, and sure it is a life
(30:23):
goal, but it's not like you'reseeing a different Disneyland
than a person on a VIP tour.
It's the same awesomeattraction, it's the same
awesome parade, it's the sameawesome fireworks you're all
seeing the same thing.
It just kind of removes a lotof the line waiting from the
situation, that's all.
But you still see the samegreat product.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
So I hope, if you were considering a VIP tour,
that this has been helpful.
You know there are so manyluxury experience the Disneyland
has to offer, including 21Royal, which they have a video
on their page, but for mostpeople that's pretty outside of
the box.
Vip tour is is a really greatway.
If you're kind of in that midrange where You'd like to try
something a little bit moreelevated, or you have some
(31:04):
disposable income and you'replanning on coming, like, let's
say, the week of Christmas isthe only time you can come, then
that's where I think becauseyou're able to kind of get all
of those lightning wings outhaving to use genie plus that
you get the best value.
So any parting tips on that,george?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Oh well, you made me think of one last thing, and
that is I have seen in Facebookgroups and other places people
offering to split the IP toursbecause if you look at, if you
look at the fact that it up to10 people and you're paying $600
an hour, you can really turnthat into $60 an hour per person
.
If you like, split it up.
I've talked to plenty of tourguide friends of mine who have
gone on, you know, been theguide for these kind of like
(31:42):
strangers who come together tomeet for this, and sometimes it
works out OK.
But more often than not thedifferent groups that are coming
together will have differentpriorities.
Some do have kids, others don'thave kids, and when you're all
in the same tour group together,you've kind of now dropped back
down to the group tourexperience.
You know you got to go here forthat Because those people want
to do it.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
But then you got to write the mark yeah, right,
exactly, so that I mean, if youreally have to say, yep, did it.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
You know, I Dang mission accomplished.
That is a way that some peoplekind of like work around the
cost to kind of do it.
He won't be the same experienceas having your own personalized
tour guide.
Now, that said, if you had afamily that you know everybody
(32:26):
wants to pool their resourcesbut you all get on the same page
, you might have a wonderful,wonderful experience.
If everybody chips in, no oneperson has to pay the six grand
spreading it out that way itmight be nice.
But you know, please, it's kindof unfair to your tour guide to
have the impossible constraintsof.
These guys want to do something, we don't.
Those guys want to do somethingand they don't you know what
you're going to do with it.
(32:47):
How are they going to makepeople happy?
They want to make magic for you.
They want to sprinkle pixiedust.
Please, please, let us know anddon't put them in that awkward
situation.
And then there's one last thingI wanted to mention, and that is
most tour guides will have alittle bag of goodies to solve,
some kind of little chachki toshare with you at the end of the
tour to kind of likecommemorate your experience.
You will Could be that you geta little pin to put on your
(33:10):
lapel that you know, just aDisney pin, trading pin.
Please don't trade it becausethey're super cool.
But you may get a VIP tour pin.
You may get some other littlething to recognize the
experience.
It may change over time, so itdoesn't really matter.
What they're doing today mightbe different when you do it, but
you will get the end of thetour.
You will get some kind of littlethank you for being on a tour
with me today and your guidewill give you some kind of
little Remembrance to rememberthem by.
(33:33):
And that's when it'sappropriate to thank them and
give them the gratuity and offyou go.
And then, even though, like Isaid, some people are
uncomfortable but talking abouttips, just in straight up terms,
every tour guide I know isperfectly happy to receive your
gratuity with you know, paypal,venmo, whatever it is that you
do.
So if you don't happen to runto the ATM to grab a stack of
(33:53):
five hundred dollar bills andcarry them around in your pocket
, if that's not how you liveyour life, just simply straight
up, ask your tour guide hey, youknow, I don't want to make this
awkward or anything, but youhave a Venmo where I could like
send you a little gratuity andit won't be awkward at all.
Your tour guide would be verythankful because it's important
to show your gratitude, butelectronically.
Every tour guide I know will behappy to receive a gratuity
electronically.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And then, how far in advance do you usually book a
VIP tour?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
as early as you can, and in fact you know, the
earlier you can predict yourneed to want to do one, the
better, because they will sellout.
There's only a certain number.
Because there's only a certainnumber of cast members like even
though that one time I askedanother cast member to be
reassigned to be my tour guidethere's only a certain number
before they fill up, both forstaffing reasons but also for,
like park reasons.
If you had a hundred groups of10 people all show up at the
(34:41):
biggest bad, the biggest bestestride ever all the same time,
then you know, like how are theygoing to accommodate that?
And so actually, on busier daysthey may ask your, they may ask
the tour guides to kind of likespread it out.
And so, like I cannot, we, wecan ride Mickey Minis anytime
you want, but since it's this isthe first day of the tour guide
, this is the first day itopened, I have to just let them
know that we intend on coming at11 o'clock and like, well, some
(35:02):
VIP tour of you tell me when Ido the thing, like that, that's
just for park operationssituations and so.
But to answer your question,just given that there's no like
availability shown on thewebsite.
Like I said, you can't put itin your cart and check out
online, but what you are givenis the email address or phone
number to call.
Just reach out to them and sayI'm thinking about it to her.
(35:23):
Do you have availability onthis date?
And they will figure it out andget back to you and see if they
do.
But don't be surprised ifyou're going to do a last minute
If they are all sold out andthere's no availability to you.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
If you have the budget and you're considering,
that's great.
I would really encourage you todo it, but only if you have the
budget.
Otherwise the whole day mightbe ruined because you're feeling
like you're setting money onhire.
Every time you have to wait acouple minutes.
But it is a really greatexperience if you have the
opportunity.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yep, and you know now that we've sort of a peak
behind the veil or whatever ofwhat these are all about.
I hope if you ever see a VIPtour guide and their family
enjoying a tour, you knowthere's nothing wrong with
saying hi waving at a tour guide, but like, don't slow down that
tour guide by walking up andsaying excuse me, where's the
bathroom.
They are trying to give thatfamily their A game and they
(36:10):
won't be rude to you.
But it might feel like they'rebeing a little brusque if they
sort of give you a very quickanswer and then they kind of
move along.
Well, that's because they'refocused on it and they're not a
regular guest relations castmember, even though, confusingly
, tour guides and guestrelations cast members all wear
plaid.
So if you ever get the brushoff or sort of a curt answer
from a plaid, it could be thatthey're on a tour guide and they
(36:33):
need to stay focused on theirfamily.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
And it doesn't always mean that they're with somebody
famous.
It could be just George.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I was on a tour.
My face happens to look a lotlike Jack Black, that's just how
my beard grows.
And I was on a tour the otherday and you know I don't fault
the kid for thinking I was JackBlack because I look a little
bit like him.
And here I am on a tour itlooks a little fancy and he
comes up and starts talking tome about how much he loves
different Jack Black movies andstuff and then it became clear
to him that I wasn't Jack Blackand it was a little bit awkward,
(37:02):
but you know, we made the bestof it.
Yeah, chances are that personwith the tour guide is just
going to be a regular personenjoying their best Disney day.
It's not going to be a highprofile celebrity, but then
again, that said, it might be.
So there's no guarantees.
It's not, because unless youare the highest of profiles,
you'll be walking around rightalong the lightning lane lines
in the crowds with everybodyelse.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, we hope this has been helpful if you've been
trying to decide whether you'redoing a VIP tour and you have a
great day Before we go.
George, can we have you do aquick like we kind of we kind of
went into the negatives alittle bit in the beginning Can
you do like I'll set you up andcan you do like a quick like
sell me on the tour, kind ofthing?
Speaker 1 (37:45):
My A number one is this and that is you might look
at these prices and go OMG,you're kidding me.
I'm already paying.
How much for tickets and thehotel and the flights and
everything else and you want meto add $6000 to my vacation.
But think about it this way ifyou go, especially during a
crowded time, and you want toexperience like all the park has
to offer, you might have tospend three or four days to get
(38:07):
it all in, and that's three orfour days of you standing in the
hour long lines, you know,dealing with all the crowds.
But add up the price your hotelmight be several hundred
dollars a night.
The food that you're going toeat that day for being in the
park those days is going to beseveral hundred dollars.
You know, I added all up.
An alternative way to look atthat is you could do a VIP tour
and instead spend two days.
(38:28):
I cut your hotel budget in half, I cut your food budget in half
.
I cuts all these other thingsin half.
It might not seem as crazy asit sounds to spend $6000 on a
VIP tour experience, because itmeans you can get it all done in
much less time.
So, depending on how the mathworks out, to what kind of hotel
you're renting.
You may be better off doing onehot and heavy hard day instead
(38:50):
of like for death marches allday long in the entire park.
So that's my number one tip onwhy this sounds like a lot, but
in reality it might not be thatmuch.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
You're able to get so much more done, and there's
some people who just can't takefour or five days off.
Maybe their work is demandingand this is the most that
they're able to do, so this is agreat way to do that,
especially if you're coming atpeak times, when hotels end up
being the most expensive.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
And then the other thing is, as we were talking
about, is these are wonderfulhuman beings.
They know a lot about Disney,they're friendly, they want to
make sure you have a good time,and just spending time with the
tour guides Never mind thatyou're in the happiest place on
earth and you're, you know,doing all these wonderful
experiences and rides andwhatnot.
Just spending the day withwonderful people who are
friendly and are just happyhuman beings, that does your
(39:36):
heart good.
So I mean that, the people, theexperience, the fact that maybe
in the long run it saves youmoney, so it's not as expensive
as you might think, I think neton net on net when you add it
all up, this is a wonderfulthing to do occasionally.
If you want to splurge, don'tdo it every trip to Disney, but
but every now and then when youfeel like splurging.
This is a great way to splurge,not to touch it.
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