Disneyland VIP Tours are the gold standard (or the plaid standard) of the theme park experience. It’s custom, it’s VIP, it’s expensive and it’s a ton of fun.
And yes, you will get to skip most of the lines with your own personal tour guide dressed in the recognizable Disneyland plaid. Here’s what my experience was like on a Disneyland VIP Tour in 2025 which was sponsored by Visit Anaheim.
Prices & Basic Info
- $3500-$5600+ per day for up to 10 guests, not including theme park admission or gratuity.
- Tours last from from 7 to 10 hours.
- Reservations can be made by sending an email or calling (714) 300-7710 from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm PT.
VIP Tour Coordinators will help you preplan major items before your trip such as start times, special celebrations, specific family priorities for the day and special dining needs and dining reservations.
Do not expect the tour guide to have a minute-by-minute itinerary, but they will guide you to desired attractions and allow the flexibility to make impromptu changes along the way.
Tour lengths are customizable to your needs, but require a minimum of 7 hours with a maximum of 10 hours. VIP Tour Guides are available during normal park operating hours only.
10 guest includes all ages. If you have more than 10 guests, you can hire 2 VIP Tour Guides but the same rate for the second guide will apply.
Start Your Day
We started the day at the Grand Californian Hotel & Spa lobby and met by the fireplace with our group.
Around the corner, there is a desk area for VIP tours to look at the exclusive merchandise, only available for purchase when you’re on a VIP Tour. Most of the items are marked with the iconic plaid and I couldn’t resist the headband ears.
While merchandise offerings can change, these ears are designed by Loungefly and feature a removable bow as well. The price was about $50 which is very comparable to other specialty Minnie Mouse ears at Disneyland offered throughout the year.
While we looked, we didn’t need to to decide right away if we wanted anything. We had time to think about it because we would later buy it with the help of our guide and have the products waiting for us. More on that later.
We all received complimentary travel-size sunscreen and lip balm for our day outside. Our guide introduced herself and confirmed what we wanted to do for the day based on a form that our group filled out earlier.
She gave us an initial game plan and we followed her to the Grand Californian entrance to California Adventure Park.
In the Parks
We were a full group of 10 people which is the max amount for 1 VIP Tour Guide. This allowed us to stay close together while walking through the park.
We were able to do Soarin’ Over California (during Food & Wine Festival) in the Lightning Lane queue—which is the usual access point for VIP Tour Guide groups. Your group will not need to purchase Lightning Lanes during your time with your VIP Tour Guide, it’s essentially included in the time you spend with them but is not loaded to your ticket.
When an attraction does not have a Lightning Lane queue, the VIP Tour Guide often uses other expedited entry methods for their tour groups allowing you to wait in much shorter lines, usually no longer than 20 minutes.
Our guide stayed with us in each queue until we were on the ride and then met us at the exit of the ride. She was able to take any items that we didn’t want on the ride and would return them to us after we got off the ride.
Later in the day, while we were waiting in line for Guardians of the Galaxy, we were able to order our VIP merch items through our guide on our phones. Once we bought them, we didn’t have to worry about picking them up and carrying them around.
Another Cast Members would deliver them to lockers for us at California Adventure as a complimentary service, and we could pick up our souvenirs at our connivence later that day.
We then did some Food and Wine Festival sampling and since our group was bigger, we split up to get food. Our guide was also able to get some of the food and grab water bottles for us.
After lunch we had a fun surprise when our VIP Tour Guide took us to meet Iron Man at Avengers Campus. It felt very VIP as a line had already formed to meet him, but we were brought to the front of the line and spent as long as we wanted with him to get all the pictures we wanted.
Park Hopping
If you have a Park Hopper ticket, which is highly recommended with a VIP Tour Guide, you can park-hop over to Disneyland. Our first stop was the beloved classic, Peter Pan’s Flight. We went on it twice with expedited access via our VIP Tour Guide.
Our guide was open to talking with us, telling us background information, facts and all kinds of things about the theme park, imagineers and attractions. We could ask her questions and we had lots of enjoyable conversations.
She had our day-plan down and we were on ride after ride. Everything felt smooth and we could also go on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Radiator Springs Racers via the Lightning Lane queue. She went on a couple of rides with us, but for most, she would meet us at the exit when we were done.
Her presence was a good blend of being there when we needed her but not overwhelming or intrusive on our own group time and conversations.
Characters
The meet and greet perks didn’t end with at California Adventure. This time we met Mickey Mouse in Mickey’s Toontown. Meeting Mickey is a must for any Disneyland vacation and we loved that we didn’t have to wait in the regular line to meet him, that queue is a ton of fun exploring his house but afterwards can be quite the wait.
Once we got to the room before we met Mickey, our guide let us know that we were going to be able to meet Mickey with just our group and take all the time we wanted with him as well.
We then went over to Minnie’s house and took pictures with her alone for as long as we wanted.
Next up was meeting the Princesses—and if you’ve ever had little ones who adore Disney Princesses you know how much strategy and time goes into meeting them!
We had the whole place to ourselves to meet the three princesses, the time was well spent!
Shows & Fireworks
Even though our tour ended at 5:00 pm, your VIP perks don’t end there! First, she asked us if we wanted any dining reservations and if we wanted to dine at Blue Bayou. She said she would try to get that, but if we couldn’t we gave her our second choice. We were able to get Blue Bayou for dining later that evening—what a magical surprise!
We also had exclusive spots right in front of the castle for fireworks, with actual seats! We departed with our check in instructions for fireworks viewing and said our goodbyes. Now the only problem, is one many people ask after doing a VIP Tour—how will I ever do Disneyland again like a normal person?
