Four Disney Parks in One Day: Touring with a VIP Tour Guide

I recently took a trip to Walt Disney World with the agency with which I am affiliated—MEI and Mousefan Travel. We spent quite a bit of time working, but one of the days our agency owner arranged for us to tour the parks with a VIP tour guide. I personally have never done one of these VIP experiences before now. I am so excited to share what I learned and how you might find it beneficial for your trips!

Thank-you to our guide for allowing us to take pictures with him!

When you book a VIP tour guide, you can also schedule for him to meet you anywhere on property. Most people utilize this to be picked up at their resort. So, our guide met us first thing in the morning at Disney’s Riviera Resort. (By the way, if you have not visited this resort yet, get on over there. It is beautiful and one of my favorites now.)

For social distancing and safety purposes, our guide had us take care of our personal belongings. Plus, once loaded into the van, there was a barrier between us and the front seat. They may be removing that soon as the guidelines change. For now though, it worked well!

This remained our main mode of transportation during the entire tour. If you are considering one of these tours and wondering just how much you can get done, this cut down on so much time just by itself. You will see more of this, but the fact that we had one vehicle with access to backstage roads made the travel exceedingly faster!

Some Important Details about VIP Tour Guides

Max of 10 Guests per group
Ticket admission not included in tour price
Flexibility in start time and tour choices

Magic Kingdom

TIP: Have a plan for what you want to accomplish.

We chose to start our day at Magic Kingdom. With the current requirements at the parks, we had to reserve Magic Kingdom as our first park and then our guide to allow for flexibility in park hopping through the rest of the day. The People Mover had just reopened and it was on all of our lists to experience that gorgeous attraction again. “Paging Mr. Morrow. Mr. Tom Morrow.” If you know, you know.

You guide will work with you on getting you to where you want to be in the most efficient time while also making it fun along the way. Our guide pulled right up to an entry point backstage and almost instaneously were smack dab in the middle of Tomorrowland. That fast!

This was quite possibly my favorite aspect of traveling with a tour guide—that you would just pop out from backstage right where you needed to be. No touchstiles, no crowds, no wandering through the park’s lands to get the ride you want.

TIP: Don’t forget that your guide can help you skip the line to most attractions.

amanda boardwine haunted mansion vip tour

From The People Mover, we went straight to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and walked right on. Your guide also acts as a human fastpass, letting you skip the line straight to the attraction with little-to-no wait. As you might know, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train almost always has a very long line. So, having someone with skip-the-line access like this will save you so much time to do what you want the rest of the day!

Next up, we walked through Fantasyland and stopped for a ride among the 999 happy haunts. If you did not already know this, The Haunted Mansion is by far my favorite ride within Magic Kingdom. I love the intrigue, story-telling, history, and attention to detail on this dark ride. I am not kidding that I have exited this one and gotten right back on multiple times. So, you can’t blame me for being excited when we got to take an expedited entry into the attraction.

Our crew split at this point, some of us going to Splash Mountain and others headed toward Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Our guide handled this expertly! He took our group to Splash Mountain first, getting us to the front of the line. He set up a meeting point with us for when we exited the ride and met with the Big Thunder group to take them through the queue as well. So smooth and easy! We met back up with everyone without an issue and were headed on our way!

Of course, we had to stop in front of the castle. Not only to grab photos of the colors, but also to see the new embellishments on the castle for Magic Kingdom’s 50th anniversary! This wrapped up our time in Magic Kingdom.

The crazy part? Not once did we walk down Main Street USA. 1) Because we did not ask to and 2) with access provided by the tour guide, we did not need to enter or exit by the main gate! Back out Tomorrowland to our van we went.

Animal Kingdom

TIP: Your guide can usually help you modify dining reservations to fit your schedule. Be sure to ask at the beginning of your tour.

We submittted our mobile orders for Satuli Canteen in Disney’s Animal Kingdom while driving to the park. Once parked backstage, we were inside Pandora right next to the restaurant within seconds. Talk about efficiency! Now, we opted to take a long lunch here that not everyone may choose to do. You may want to grab your food and keep going! Regardless, we sat for a bit and then went to ride…can you guess?

Flight of Passage, of course! (When you have skip-the-line access, you skip the Flight of Passage line!)

We also got all kinds of photos a various photo spots along the way and in front of the Tree of Life. Side note: after so long not being around fellow agents, it sure was nice to spend some quality time and grab those photos together!

And now…DINOSAUR. I have heard some are of the opinion that the dinosaurs eat your head here… (Major kidding, of course.) What do you think? Is this a favorite of yours or do you prefer to skip it? Well, it is a favorite of mine and there was no skipping this ride. “Now, let’s go get that dino!”

While we rode this terrifying or exciting (however you view it) attraction, our guide brought our vehicle around back to pick us up. I cannot express enough how much time this saved. Not only that, our feet were not worn out so quickly! If you are like me and dread making the walk back and forth across the parks, this in itself is worth it just to save you walking.

Hollywood Studios

walt disney railroad mickey and minnie vip tour

If you are a big Disney fan, you will love the aspect of driving backstage. You never know what you will find back there from pop-up storefronts to stage props to old pieces of shows…it is all back there and with a VIP tour guide, you drive right passed it.

Our trip to Hollywood Studios brought us into the park right by Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy. This entrance was the most convenient for us as our agency owner had a phenomenal surprise for us that was not included in the tour package. Our guide was able to work with us on that special request though to make sure we had the least walking time to get where we needed to go.

Immediately following the surprise, (may or may not have had the number 33 in it…) we rode Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. Have you had the opportunity to experience this attraction? It is the cutest! I was wary of it at first, but the innocence and simplicity of it quickly won me over. Some of our group had yet to experience and it was such a pleasure to watch them take it all in. Honestly, this is one of my favorite things about Disney, watching others appreciate the magic.

Smuggler’s Run was next on the agenda. Two of our group had never been pilots at that point. So, you know we had to put them in that position. This is one of the joys of this attraction, letting other people take new positions and see how your score turns out. If you tend to stick with the same assignment, change it up and see how it changes the flight’s experience.

Our time with our guide was wrapping up, but have you noticed just how much you can accomplish by this point? Now, to head over to Epcot!

Epcot

amanda boardwine world showcase vip tour disney

We drove right behind The Land pavilion to enter Soarin’ from the back entrance. Here, we said goodbye to our guide before entering the queue. He had a few gifts for us that I was not expecting. What a sweet end to the day!

As we entered the queue, he requested that we get the front and center row on Soarinn’. For those of you who know, it is the most satifying thing to see the Eiffel Tower perfectly straight on this ride. (Come on, you know exactly what I’m saying.) The guide requested this of the cast members without us even mentioning it. So, if you are worried about missing things, you guide will for sure sprinkle in little extras like this into your day to make sure you get the best experience possible!

On our own, we rounded out the day with a trip over to World Showcase’s France pavilion to chat together. All in all, it was such a sweet ending to a wonderfully memorable day with a VIP tour guide.

For the amount that we got done in that day while not having any stress about getting do see everything our group wanted, I truly am impressed with the experience. It is a high recommendation in my book now!