VIP Tours and RotR Discussion

dwight16

DIS Veteran
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Well thought I hit the Disney lottery with rise opening on the day we booked a vip tour. I was called 2 months ago said all Star Wars rides would be included but today I was called and said rise would not be included. I am not very happy. Something is up with this ride I bet it’s down most of the time and not ready to go.
 
The ride is opening December 5th. Everything is planned around that. There is a lot riding on this. There are also a lot of moving parts in this ride. Yes it likely will have a good amount of downtime hence why it won't be included in extra magic hours.
 
Well thought I hit the Disney lottery with rise opening on the day we booked a vip tour. I was called 2 months ago said all Star Wars rides would be included but today I was called and said rise would not be included. I am not very happy. Something is up with this ride I bet it’s down most of the time and not ready to go.
That’s really crappy that they specifically told you it was included then at the last minute said it wasn’t.
 
I am on a VIP Tour on Dec. 16th and when my friend booked it, she was told it would be included. She got the same call as well. I was just coming to mention it here. Millennium Falcon is available on our tour, though.
 


I don’t get this decision...are there really enough folks on VIP tours to have a meaningful impact?
 
I don’t get this decision...are there really enough folks on VIP tours to have a meaningful impact?

It's an interesting question. I am wondering if there's a concern about the TIME to get through the ride. From reading, there are 4 separate sections of the ride where you have to get ON and then get OFF and go through another queue. So, there may not be an easy way for a Guide to get folks through the whole ride...?

Because when it came to planning, our hostess nixed Toy Story Mania from our private tour because it stalls/ goes down often enough it wasn't a good use of time.

OR if they are simply trying to make the lines longer to hype it....
 
It's an interesting question. I am wondering if there's a concern about the TIME to get through the ride. From reading, there are 4 separate sections of the ride where you have to get ON and then get OFF and go through another queue. So, there may not be an easy way for a Guide to get folks through the whole ride...?

Because when it came to planning, our hostess nixed Toy Story Mania from our private tour because it stalls/ goes down often enough it wasn't a good use of time.

OR if they are simply trying to make the lines longer to hype it....
Allowing the VIP folks to go through the FP queue would actually increase the regular line I suppose.

Good on Disney if this is an effort to be egalitarian (or at least avoid poor optics). Otherwise a head scratcher...
 


We took a VIP tour over the weekend and our guide told us that tours will have no access to ROTR initially, but that this could change in future.
 
We took a VIP tour over the weekend and our guide told us that tours will have no access to ROTR initially, but that this could change in future.

Many moon ago at DLR, when Alice in Wonderland got its big refurb with the new projections, it got taken off the VIP tour access list. I don't typically pay too close attention to what is available for tours and what isn't, but there does some to be a precedent of not including something new or updated to start?
 
I think the big issue is that a vip group might get the feeling that they will be guaranteed access to a specific attraction and then if said attraction is malfunctioning there might be some angry guests that paid a lot of money specifically to ride it
Even though the tour clearly states nothing is guaranteed most people believe it is, so by taking RotR out of the equation they can cover their backs
 
I think the big issue is that a vip group might get the feeling that they will be guaranteed access to a specific attraction and then if said attraction is malfunctioning there might be some angry guests that paid a lot of money specifically to ride it
Even though the tour clearly states nothing is guaranteed most people believe it is, so by taking RotR out of the equation they can cover their backs
That sounds very reasonable.
Do you think that even though there is no guaranteed access to RotR, that if all is going well with the ride a VIP tour could still possibly get on during their tour?
I’ve never done a VIP tour and probably never will, but the answer to this question is interesting to me.
 
Telling you it was included and then pulling the access the week before is terrible for the guest experience. Besides that bad decision, I disagree with this decision overall, as I did when they initially opened MFSM and VIP didn’t include it either. We have done several VIP tours (But we have also taken many, many trips that don’t include a VIP tour), and we understood (just like on any regular park day) that any ride can go down (or parade get canceled etc), and that you may not then be able to do that ride/parade/attraction. However, just full scale eliminating it from the VIP tours seems short sighted to me. These tours are really expensive, and if Disney is about making money, these are the guests that I would think that they would want to keep engaged and committed to continuing the VIP tours. On any given day, I think someone reported that max VIP tours that can be booked was less than 100 (but someone correct me on that, as I don’t really recall). Think about how many plaids you see with tours at the parks on any given day. It is not 1000’s. So even if every single tour group wanted to ride ROTR (and to be honest, most would), they would not all be trying to do that simultaneously (as most tours do at least 2 parks in the day, some do all 4). So would it really cause that much delay in the ride throughout an entire park day for these groups to ride it?

Yes the ride could go down and then the tour guide takes you to ride something else and they get a call/text usually when a ride comes back up and then the group decides if they want to go back to that ride and try again. Happens all the time when it rains and an outdoor ride closes, etc. It has never ruined our VIP tour when a ride goes down, as it usually comes back up at some point during the 7 hours of the tour. So fear of the ride going down and disappointing people on the VIP tour pales in comparison to the disappointment of paying for a VIP tour and not even getting a chance to ride it with your tour, IMO.

Again, I don’t understand this as a business decision, since no matter how much merchandise and food a guest purchases, most guests won’t spend the amount per person per day that a person spends on the VIP (though some people do love their merch :)). I can’t see how letting VIP tours on the ride (maybe limiting it to 1 ride only or something?) would impact the wait time for guests by much at all. So making the ride unavailable during the tour seems like a bad business decision to me. Obviously others disagree...
 
I called today to book a tour for next June. At this point they told me it’s not included but that could change before we go.
 
Telling you it was included and then pulling the access the week before is terrible for the guest experience. Besides that bad decision, I disagree with this decision overall, as I did when they initially opened MFSM and VIP didn’t include it either. We have done several VIP tours (But we have also taken many, many trips that don’t include a VIP tour), and we understood (just like on any regular park day) that any ride can go down (or parade get canceled etc), and that you may not then be able to do that ride/parade/attraction. However, just full scale eliminating it from the VIP tours seems short sighted to me. These tours are really expensive, and if Disney is about making money, these are the guests that I would think that they would want to keep engaged and committed to continuing the VIP tours. On any given day, I think someone reported that max VIP tours that can be booked was less than 100 (but someone correct me on that, as I don’t really recall). Think about how many plaids you see with tours at the parks on any given day. It is not 1000’s. So even if every single tour group wanted to ride ROTR (and to be honest, most would), they would not all be trying to do that simultaneously (as most tours do at least 2 parks in the day, some do all 4). So would it really cause that much delay in the ride throughout an entire park day for these groups to ride it?

Yes the ride could go down and then the tour guide takes you to ride something else and they get a call/text usually when a ride comes back up and then the group decides if they want to go back to that ride and try again. Happens all the time when it rains and an outdoor ride closes, etc. It has never ruined our VIP tour when a ride goes down, as it usually comes back up at some point during the 7 hours of the tour. So fear of the ride going down and disappointing people on the VIP tour pales in comparison to the disappointment of paying for a VIP tour and not even getting a chance to ride it with your tour, IMO.

Again, I don’t understand this as a business decision, since no matter how much merchandise and food a guest purchases, most guests won’t spend the amount per person per day that a person spends on the VIP (though some people do love their merch :)). I can’t see how letting VIP tours on the ride (maybe limiting it to 1 ride only or something?) would impact the wait time for guests by much at all. So making the ride unavailable during the tour seems like a bad business decision to me. Obviously others disagree...

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.
 
The Falcon has had VIP tour access since opening day.
I recall reports here that said it was not initially included, but I looked at my prior posts, and that was at DLR during the opening 3 weeks, their “reservation period”. At DLR during those 3 weeks, SWGE was EXCLUDED from VIP tours, including MFSR. After the reservation period ended 6/24/19, they started to include SWGE and MFSR on the VIP tours. I have not read if ROTR will be included in VIPs at DLR when it opens on 1/17/20.

In any case, I think the last minute removal of ROTR from the tours is terrible for these guests. Why does Disney think people are willing to pay the insane prices of the VIP, if it is not for access to the rides (and access to the rides with the longest waits is the most important access that guests want)?
 
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I recall reports here that said it was not initially included, but I looked at my prior posts, and that was at DLR during the opening 3 weeks, their “reservation period”. At DLR during those 3 weeks, SWGE was EXCLUDED from VIP tours, including MFSR. After the reservation period ended 6/24/19, they started to include SWGE and MFSR on the VIP tours. I have not read if ROTR will be included in VIPs at DLR when it opens on 1/17/20.

In any case, I think the last minute removal of ROTR from the tours is terrible for these guests. Why does Disney think people are willing to pay the insane prices of the VIP, if it is not for access to the rides (and access to the rides with the longest waits is the most important access that guests want)?
I was referring to World but I should’ve been more clear there.

They basically pulled the rug out from everybody with a tour that day. Seems they knew about this 2 months ago and only decided to inform people now (although the info slipped out last week). The decision was made very high up. They’ve gotten a lot of angry calls and emails about it.
 
Curious if they are still going to allow the World of Dreams VIP'ers to fastpass it?
 
We're scheduled for a tour on the 16th and haven't received the 'not included' call yet.......
 

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