Disney is 100 years old this year. My family is not obsessed with Disney by any means but I do feel Disneyland is a historically significant place to visit (how many places and movies have shaped society the way Disney does?) and it can be a lot of fun. Disneyland is also a place where families feel so much pressure to spend more than they can handle. And this is why I felt I better share my thoughts on the VIP tour service at Disneyland.
Before you read further: I have not tried the VIP tours at Disneyland
Three reasons: it simply did not save me time, give me value and it felt like it had too many hidden restrictions and rules. Also, the thought of having someone babysit me and my family and friends around the park the whole day really did not seem like fun to me. We’re not tour people. (And I saw someone’s recent post on Instagram where they were stuck on a ride for a couple hours with the VIP team member stuck in the ride with them and it cemented my decision that this service would really not be my favorite thing)
And here is the back story to how we did not do a VIP tour but still had a fantastic time at Disneyland
One of my best friends was bringing her family to Disneyland. I decided to join last minute and tried to book the same hotel. My friend read the blogs. She read that the Ayres hotel Orange was a good place to stay near Disneyland (Universal Studios was part of her trip too) and she rented a car and parked at the resort on the days she went to Disney parks. When I went to book, this hotel was already full so I booked the Westin across the street from Disneyland with my Amex card because we were only staying two nights and we walked to the park the day we went.
My friend had also already booked her days at Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure Park by the time I booked because she was staying longer than we were and didn’t know we would be joining. My family was only staying for two nights.
So as I was booking we were talking about blogs she’d read that said the best way to do Disneyland would be to do the VIP tours. It was definitely spendy at $500-700 an hour for a minimum of 7 hours and gratuities are not included. (I think this might have gone up a little since we went in October 2022 too) We had 8 guests total between us so we would split the cost. Because you can only cancel 48 hours ahead without forfeiting the fee we decided we would try to do the VIP tour on the Saturday just in case my families flight was delayed on the Friday we were arriving from Seattle to Orange County. We were excited about going to Disneyland and thought we’d do the VIP Tour because when else would we ever go here together and we might as well splurge.
And then I couldn’t book California Adventureland for the day we wanted to go.
Did you know Disneyland resorts can sell out? I don’t remember this happening before 2020 but resorts are starting to sell out. I’ve seen updates from places like Legoland and Knott’s Berry Farm on twitter as well where the resort is at capacity and cannot accept any more visitors. Many places are booking ahead and you can not count on just showing up and getting in to the places you want to visit. Also this happened almost overnight two weeks before we wanted to go. I had told my friend I was going to book our tickets and it got too late that night when I put them in my cart, so the next morning I wasn’t able to book California Adventure anymore.
We also couldn’t figure out if we could change her passes to dual passes for the day and if I got dual passes for the day would we be able to go to Disney California Adventure Park and bypass the sell out. This took too much effort so we ended up booking Disneyland for the Friday that we arrived in California (By the time we got our rental car and checked into the hotel we were at the park around 10am.) so we could hang out in the park together.
This trip was taking way more research than any of us usually do for other types of trips. It was also starting to feel like it was could cost way more money. And going on a trip is supposed to be fun.
We both added the Genie+ passes and decided we just show up at Disneyland and wing it and stop wasting time.
We ended up riding all the rides in Disneyland that we wanted to go on and had a great meal together at the Star Wars area of Disneyland. We barely waited for rides and we just caught up and chatted in line during the long ones like we would have done over coffee in each other’s houses. The firework show which was the main reason why we wanted to book the VIP tour ended up getting canceled and I don’t think you would get a refund for the VIP tour for this kind of cancellation even if it’s the main reason you book. We were so exhausted by the time we got to dinner that we ended up heading back to our hotel, ordering takeout and thought we’d just watch the fireworks from our balcony (that’s how we found out they were cancelled)
We saved ($500-700 x 7 hours)/2 plus whatever the gratuity would be as well as potentially having to pay for a dual park pass.
This could probably pay for part of another California trip for a family of four, like back and forth from Seattle to any of these Central California Coast places and two nights hotel. You could even bring another family with you to Disneyland (like my friend. This is ultimately why we had the best time)
My family went on to buy passes at Universal Studios so we could hang out more with our friends and they ended up having an interesting buy one get one free day special too so we only did two mornings at Universal Studios and it ended up being more than enough and we went to the beach and the Getty Museum one afternoon (this is something you need to book ahead as well-it’s free except for parking). I’m really thankful that Disneyland sold out on the day we originally wanted to go and book the VIP tour or we might never have realized that we didn’t need that experience at all.
Maybe it would have been the best time ever, but I’m pretty happy with the good enough magical and not overly spendy experience that we had.
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)