Universal Studios Orlando - Private VIP tour

After spending 7 nights on a cruise, we decided to do a single day at Universal studios before heading back home. Because we only had 1 day at the parks and wanted to maximize what we could do, we decided to book a VIP tour through Universal. When I first heard about VIP tours I immediately thought of a guide walking you through the parks talking about the history and giving behind the scenes access. While that sounds great, and its absolutely something your guide can do, the real benefit comes with access to the attractions. With a VIP tour, you get front-of-the-line access to EVERY ride and attraction in the parks. I'm not talking about access to the Fastpass lane. I'm talking the front of the Fastpass lane! Even on rides that have no Fastpass, like Hagrid's Motorbike adventure, you go straight to the front. Even better is that you can ride them multiple times! I'll talk more about that soon.

Before I get into the details of the day, I want to give a little more info on the VIP tours. Universal actually offers 2 different types: the VIP tour and a private VIP tour. A VIP Tour will include multiple parties in the same tour group (and promises a minimum of 10 rides during the day), whereas the Private VIP Experience is exclusive to you and your party. Additionally, during a Private VIP Experience, you can customize your itinerary to do what you want, when you want. With the regular VIP tour, the group will vote on what rides they want or have the tour guide select an itinerary. The private tour also includes dinner. Given that we had 7 people in our party (7 or above must book a private tour) and we wanted to pick our own itinerary, we opted for the private tour. I've included a comparison of the different types below:

Now that we've discussed a little more about the VIP tour options, lets get into the day. Check in for all VIP tours is done in a special area just after walking through the iconic Universal Studios Arch. The process was seamless and quick. We got our VIP Tour lanyards, some Universal branded sunscreen and hand sanitizer and was introduced to our tour guide, Todd. We were escorted to Cafe La Bamba for the complementary breakfast buffet. We had eaten at the hotel already so we didn't spend too much time at breakfast. What we did have tasted great, though. We mentioned to our guide that we wanted to get a stroller for our 5 year old twins and while we ate he went and got one for us.

VIP pass

Map to check-in area

I'll get this out of the way now because I'm sure everyone is wondering. The private VIP tour is not cheap. If fact, my Visa is still smoking a bit. But I'll tell you that within the first 30 minutes of the day, I knew it was worth every penny for us. The first ride we went on was Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure. As I mentioned before, this ride doesn't participate in the FastPass system. When we got to the ride, the wait time was 120 minutes. In about 120 seconds we were walked through a special exit door and escorted straight to the front of the line. The ride was amazing, but what truly brought a smile to my face was when we got off, Todd asked if we'd like to ride it again. Heck yeah, we would! So in the span of about 20 minutes, the VIP tour saved us 4 hours of waiting! That's just incredible. One thing to note is that only private VIP tours are able to ride a ride twice in a row. Below you'll find a few more pictures of Todd escorting us through special entrances/exits to skip the line. Not pictured: My smile growing more and more to Grinch-like proportions.

The morning was over and we had ridden the following: Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure (x2), Flight of the Hippogriff (x3), Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (x2), Hogwarts Express, Skull Island:Reign of Kong, Jurassic Park River Adventure, and Jurassic World Velocicoaster. That's 12 rides all before lunch!

Speaking of lunch, one of the perks of the VIP tours is that it's included. You can choose any restaurant in the park and get the following for free - 1 appetizer for every 2 guests, 1 entree per guest, 1 dessert per guest, 1 non-alcoholic drink per guest. I did my research ahead of time and had reservations made for us at the famous Mythos restaurant. Its been voted the best theme park restaurant and it certainly didn't disappoint. We actually invited our guide Todd to join us for lunch and he was very appreciative. His lunch ended up being covered under our tour so there was no additional payment needed.

After a wonderful meal and a much-needed break from the heat, we continued on exploring the rest of the park for the afternoons. We completed the following rides before our tour was up: Cat in the Hat, High in the Sky Suess Trolley Train, Amazing Adventures of Spiderman, Villain-Con Minion Blast, Despicable Me Minion Mayhem, Transformers: The Ride-3D, Revenge of the Mummy, E.T. Adventure, The Simpsons Ride, Men In Black: Alien Attack. That's another 10 rides!

Along the way between rides we had a chance to see some of the scenes from movies-- the actual train used in Back to the Future Part III, a replica of the Delorean, 12 Grimmauld Place from Harry Potter, and a fire-breathing Dragon on top of Gringotts Bank just to name a few.

It was now just after 5pm and our formal tour was over. We said our goodbye's to Todd and sent him a nice tip via Venmo. There was only one thing left to do at this point. You guessed it. We headed straight to Olivander's wand shop and spent $37,000 on wands for my kids. Before you say this was a foolish waste of money, I'll add that these were interactive wands that performed special magical spells throughout the Wizarding world of Harry Potter. In the video below, you can see my son casting the Aguamenti charm. Unfortunately we only had time to do this one spell before having to head to our dinner reservations. Now we've got to come back to Universal some day to get our money's worth from the wands. Well played Universal. Well played.

At this point the kids were tired, hungry, and in need of more sugar than any one person should ever consume. Luckily, Universal Studios has just the place. We had reservations at Toothsome Chocolate Emporium. I honestly can't remember what I had for dinner but I'll forever dream about their desserts.

Unfortunately by the time we finished with dinner the park was closed and the diabetic coma was hitting hard. All in all, it was a wonderful day and the VIP tour made it even better. I'd highly recommend the VIP experience to anyone traveling to Universal Studios, especially if you're trying to get as much done as possible within a single day.

Have any questions or comments? I'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!