Curious if they are still going to allow the World of Dreams VIP'ers to fastpass it?
I called just out of curiousity - the World of Dreams VIP tour is allowing 1 ride. Heck of a price to pay to upgrade from a standard VIP tour though!
Curious if they are still going to allow the World of Dreams VIP'ers to fastpass it?
I completely agree with you. My hostess booked this VIP tour after the announcement of when ROTR would open and was told it would be included with the understanding that we could only ride each ride in GE once (rather than returning to ride a 2nd or 3rd time). And then yesterday was told NOPE. It's a bit of a bait and switch in my personal opinion. And that is a bad business model on Disney's part IMHO.
That said, I know our group will have a GREAT time.
I’m happy it worked out for your friend, but to me a VIP tour means sleeping late and still being able to do everything in the park, not being urged by the guide to get up at the crack of dawn in order to join a virtual queue. I expect that Disney will get quite a lot of feedback to that effect and at some point will allow VIP tours to grab a boarding time even if they don’t arrive early.For those of you with VIP tours booked, I would consider starting your tour early in the morning to be at DHS at RD (or just before), so you can get a boarding time in the VQ. I have a friend who did a VIP tour today. She was picked up at 7 am, went directly to DHS and got a boarding time. The VIP guide then took them to Toy Story Land and Smuggler's Run while they waited for their time to open. They were off RoTR around 9:30 am. Starting the tour at 7 am was at the suggestion of the VIP department (she got the call yesterday) so they could try to navigate her group through the VQ system and it definitely worked for my friend. If RoTR is a goal for your VIP tour, I would definitely consider starting early and discussing this strategy with the VIP department prior to your tour day.
I’m happy it worked out for your friend, but to me a VIP tour means sleeping late and still being able to do everything in the park, not being urged by the guide to get up at the crack of dawn in order to join a virtual queue. I expect that Disney will get quite a lot of feedback to that effect and at some point will allow VIP tours to grab a boarding time even if they don’t arrive early.
Those who have received a call, is this for a private VIP tour or another like the Ultimate Day of thrills VIP tour
• Your VIP Tour Guide has direct access to attractions that feature Disney FastPass+ service* with a minimal wait in the FastPass+ queue. VIP Tours utilize the main queue for other attractions.
*Please note: Disney FastPass+ service is unavailable for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
For the prices we are paying for the tour, they should just assign specific times that are made available throughout the day and tours can opt into one of those times. Similar to them asking if you want to see the parade or not. I’m booked for the 28th and like DisneyWishes14, we start late and finish with the fireworks. Hopefully with a couple of weeks for Disney to work things out they will open it up a bit.
I received an email from Disney Signature Services today regarding the tour. There's no mention of not being able to do RotR. All it had was:
Which seems to say they're using the main queue similar to other non FP rides.
Andy
They let Neil Patrick Harris and his family VIP access the ride TWICE this week.
How much are we talking per person here?
As all things Disney the top range went up about $100 for the peak times. On top you need to purchase park tickets for each person.It is an hourly rate and the minimum is 7 hours. Prices vary by date.
This is from late 2018 but gives a good overview. At that time the range was $425-$625 an hour.
https://wdwprepschool.com/disney-world-vip-tour-guide/
I would think it should work like any other VIP tour access: when you are ready to ride ROTR, you could join the line (since there is no FP line; you would not need a pre-booked boarding group to join the line, just like you don’t need a pre-booked FP to join the FP line on a regular VIP tour). I don’t understand why Disney is not doing this. VIP has never been “front of the line” access to any ride, so just letting the VIP tours join the line at whatever time they arrived at the ride would be in line with how the rest of the tour runs.
I thought some OPs said they WERE promised ROTR on their tours, and then it was later removed from the tours? If I had a tour booked in the near future, you can bet I would be calling Disney to see how they are going to accommodate riding ROTR on the tour.
I agree that assigning a pre-determined BG to the tour would work well for now.
RoTR is not running like any other ride or attraction in WDW. I'm assuming that just having VIP tour guests show up whenever they want to join the line would impact how they are handling crowds at the ride because they can't predict how many people would show up. Given that WDW was handing out 1-day tickets and RoTR FP+ to guests in boarding groups who ultimately couldn't get on the ride in the first days of opening, I would think they want to control numbers as best they can to not put themselves in that situation again. Let's say 1000 VIP guests show up for the ride at 3 pm (not likely, but unpredictable if you allow them to ride whenever they show up). That would significantly impact ride operations for the rest of the day.
Perhaps when crowds die down a little, they will change the policy. I, personally, wish they would just pre-assign VIP guests into boarding groups based on the time their tour starts. That would solve the problem - VIP tour guests still get access and it doesn't impact ride operations in terms of numbers of people predictably showing up at any given boarding time.
Our tour falls into the top tier of hourly pricing as we are going during Christmas week and while this is disappointing, I realize we were never promised access to RoTR. I think it may be short-sighted on WDW's part to not include access even if it's limited (1 pre-reserved, boarding time per tour) and if it affects their bottom line, I suppose they will change the policy.
There is almost certainly a very spirited dialog going on right now between VIP Tour Services and Ride Operations regarding access to RoTR, given that a great many people will be unwilling to spend thousands of dollars on a "premium" tour which does not allow them to ride the hottest attraction of all.I don't know about other PP's, but we were told back in early September that we would get priority access to Smuggler's Run and that was it. We were never promised RoTR. I think I just assumed RoTR would work like Smuggler's Run, but you know what happens when one assumes, LOL! Honestly, I feel like ride operations are ultimately out of the control of VIP tour services. They only thing ever promised was we would get into the FP+ line of any ride or attraction with FP+. The fact that Smuggler's Run does not have FP+, yet we will be granted priority access is still nice. Crossing fingers for RoTR, but not holding my breath and will adjust to accommodate if need be.