My Universal Private VIP Experience

After getting off a short cruise in January my family decided to add in a quick two nights at Universal Orlando before heading home. Since we would only have one full day to experience both parks at UO, we decided to splash out on a private VIP tour. We’d experienced a Disney VIP around 6 months prior, and none of us had visited Universal Orlando before, so it seemed like a great plan! In hindsight, I wish we had been a little more rested for this special day.

A Universal Orlando private VIP tour offers some great amenities! A sit-down breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all included. The breakfast is at the VIP-only Café La Bamba in Universal Studios Florida, but there are many great options for lunch (including Café La Bamba) and dinner. For lunch and dinner, you get an appetizer for every 2 people (so my group of 6 got 3 for every meal), as well as a main course and dessert. Non-alcoholic beverages are included but alcohol and any extra food is…extra. Reservations for meals are handled in the morning by your VIP guide. You also get true front-of-the-line access to all experiences within the parks (not only rides but also interactive experiences, and reserved seating for shows), this is accomplished either by entering rides through the exits or by setting up appointments for interactions like the Raptor Encounter. If you like a particular ride and want to ride back-to-back or would like to ride in a particular car, you can! You also get included valet parking, backstage access, and your photos from that day included. Not included are your park tickets for the day (yes, you will still need a park-to-park ticket if you want to experience both parks/ride the Hogwarts Express).

Unlike a Disney VIP, UO private VIPs have set prices as well as a set start time and a set starting point. This can add some issues to the start of your VIP day; we had to get up and out around 8 am to get to the check-in by the gates of USF, and we were greeted by a line of around 20 people which didn’t move until around 9:15 am (our check-in time was 9 am). Then you have to check in (which thankfully went fairly quickly) and meet your guide. Here is where you can grab a stroller (which is also included!) for your day. They’ll then take you through a private park entrance and over to the Café La Bamba for breakfast and to discuss plans for the day. That is where you will start deciding how to make the most of your day; do you want to speed through meals (you can eat breakfast at home, and your fastest lunch option is to return to Café La Bamba) or do you want to spend it all immersed in the Wizarding World? They also have a measurement stick that can check kids’ heights against all of the rides for both parks, which is a great way to circumvent any tears/last-minute issues. They’ll also give you VIP lanyards to keep your passes in (once your tour ends you have an unlimited express day for the rest of the day), as well as your dinner vouchers.

While our VIP guide was amazing, she did feel less personable overall than our Disney VIP guide (or maybe she was just having an off day/we didn’t click, which happens!). She did do a great job offering to take pictures all day, which our Disney guide did not do, and she did ride a few rides with us. No mention was made about making up for the time we lost with the check-in snafu, but she did stay a few extra minutes while we squeezed in a few extra rides at the end of the day.

We started in UOS, since we were there, and hit most of the ‘screen rides’ (Transformers, Minions, Race Through NY) first. We also got to meet Optimus Prime before the park officially opened! My husband and our oldest rode the Mummy, while the rest of us enjoyed the street performers and a Starbucks stop. We also took a quick tour through the studio lot, to give everyone a break from the crowds. Since they no longer regularly film there, it isn’t as exciting as the studio tour in Universal Hollywood, but it was still a nice change of pace. I asked about changing our lunch reservation since I was anxious to start experiencing the Harry Potter magic, but the guide said it would be easiest to stick with our original choice since we had a reserved table. Since a sit-down lunch is included (and we were all still recovering from the cruise), we followed her recommendation to do lunch at Finnegan’s. Overall, our experience there was great (the food was decent quality for a theme park, and all the adults needed a drink by this point) but it did take a while to work our way through all of the three included courses.

After lunch, it was finally time to explore the wizarding world! We entered Diagon Alley and rode Escapes from Gringotts, then did some shopping. Once we had wands, we also purchased Butterbeers and wandered around to make some magic. Our guide was great about leading us to the different areas where the kids could use their wands, as well as helping them make the right wand movements. Then, it was time to enter Kings Cross and ride the Hogwarts Express (this was one of my favorite rides) over to Islands of Adventure/Hogsmeade. Here we watched several of the smaller HP shows, and enjoyed front-of-the-line access for Hagrid’s twice! This is really where I started to be thankful for the private VIP since this ride doesn’t have an express pass lane. We also rode the flight of the Hippogriff twice, before my family managed to drag me away. At this point, we headed for the Jurassic Park area and rode the Pteranodon Flyers twice back-to-back also. Our VIP guide also arranged times for us to meet both Raptors, Blue, and the baby raptor, Sierra. We also rode the Jurassic River Adventure, then headed towards Seuss Landing to finish our day. We had time to ride every ride before saying goodbye to our guide and heading toward Mythos for dinner. Mythos has won the award for best theme park restaurant for a record-breaking ten years, and we agreed that it did not disappoint. Despite how exhausted we all were by this point; we truly enjoyed all 3 courses as well as a few great drink pairings. We were all truly exhausted by this point though, and having to make our way to the front of the park was a bit of a struggle for everyone.

At the end of the day, we all agree that Universal Orlando private VIP tours have a lot of great inclusions that made it feel more worth the hefty price tag. I think the inclusion of all meals plus the front-of-the-line access for every ride really took it to the next level. However, I don’t think we’ll be as tempted to repeat this experience (at least until Epic Universe opens) when compared to a Disney VIP. We really did do almost everything during our Universal VIP Day, anything we didn’t hit was something we really weren’t as interested in (with the exception of the shows, we just never seemed to be in the right place at the right time to catch). As soon as our Disney VIP ended, we were already discussing when we could reasonably do another, and listing all the things we wanted to experience/experience again. A lot of what makes a Universal private VIP tour desirable can be replicated with a non-private VIP which is much cheaper (we’re all just waiting for a Harry Potter-specific option Universal!), or even just with an Express Pass (which is complimentary with stays at a Premium hotel).

Are you ready for your next VIP experience? Contact your favorite Pineapple Escapes agent or email us at info@pineappleescapes.com to get started!

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