VIP Tour/Nightime Thrills

For my May trip I am toying with which tour I want to book for my DH and I. I love the idea of the evening Animal Kingdom tour. If we didn’t do it, I would probably still book an evening safari.

Or should we just do the 7 hour VIP tour they offer? 3 parks and lunch? All the rides?

I mean, I have a pretty good FP plan in place, so I’m not worried about the rides as much. I just think it would be fun to take one of the tours. My husband and I haven’t been on a vacation since our 2-day honeymoon 8 years ago. So I MIGHT be going a bit overboard on this one!

DH has only been to WDW twice before, and both times were “mandatory” (the second time he was more of a babysitter), so his memories aren’t the best. I want to make sure it’s a great trip. It’s anniversary, his birthday, and also celebrating a HUGE accomplishment for him with his job. (and a sigh of relief as well!)

Thanks! It’s getting real now that FPs get booked next week!!

We are going to do the Ultimate Thrills tour at Animal Kingdom this coming Sunday. I’m so excited! I will report back on our experience. (We are a party of 5 adults.) Some of us get a little motion sick so that is the only thing I am worried about. More news soon!

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Yay! I’m excited to hear your thoughts!

I am almost leaning towards doing both tours. I may have gone insane.

Ha! Your shoe and purse obsession has certainly changed since your first WDW trip, huh? :wink:

Well…it’s more complicated that just shoe/purse/dress obsession. Spending more money than I should even ADMIT over nearly 20 years with a single brand, only to have them change policy and NOT guarantee their merchandise, guarantee that your order will ACTUALLY GET DELIVERED (once they ship, they “wash” their hands of it. WHAT?!), and the MASSIVE turnover of knowledgable sales associates who leave for higher pay (can’t blame them!), well I will take my disposable income elsewhere! LOL

Oh and my closet is bursting. In fact, I’ve taken over two other closets in our main house and half of my husbands closet in our LA place. LOL!!!

So it’s a trifecta of a perfect storm! Plus the kids are a bit older so it’s easier to travel and go and do things.

Anyway, I have to support my stock portfolio as well right?!

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:smile:

Thoughts on the Ultimate Nights of Adventure Tour, Animal Kingdom
We met the tour by Dinosaur at 4:30 PM and met our plaid-clad tour guides. They had one to lead and one to follow and make sure that everyone is keeping up. They asked us what dessert we wanted for our “snack” and they had water for us too. The guides were charming and professional as per the usual Disney standard.
Having done Disney tours in the past, I was kind of expecting the headsets and lots of information about Animal Kingdom. But on this tour, you are basically running after your guide to get from ride to ride. There is some chat about the park, but not a lot and there are no backstage experiences. In the middle of the tour, they surprised us by serving us a full-on dinner, with meats, veggies, rice, tofu, fish and yummy sauces from the Satu’li Canteen in Pandora. Plus dessert. There was about a half hour break for this and we enjoyed the food and talking with some other people on our tour. We have a celiac and vegetarians in our group but everyone had a lot that they could eat. The food was GREAT!
The tour covers Dinosaur, a sunset ride on Kilimanjaro Safaris (we had a great safari ride and saw the baby hippo, lions “wrestling” and tons of other animals) Everest, Navi River, FOP and nice seating for Rivers of Light. It costs $250. FOP! Even if you are prone to motion sickness, do this at least once. So much fun and did not mess with anyone too much. After Rivers of Light, we went back to see Pandora at night. If you can fit this in, do, because it is gorgeous. Pictures don’t do Pandora justice. It really is an experience.
All in all, we all really enjoyed the tour. If you want to get all the major attractions done in Animal Kingdom in one evening, with no lines, then this is for you. In our situation, a delay of getting our tickets through the military meant that I could not get fastpasses at the 60 day mark. Knowing I would not need any for Animal Kingdom took much of the worry about that away. (I did not have an issue getting any of the fastpasses we wanted for anything else at the 45 day mark.) Also, we just had four days in the parks total so it was worth the money to take the tour.
We are a bunch of 50-somethings and really into Disney details. If I was to make the tour more to our taste, I would add in couple of hours to allow for more information about the park and the animals, and to slow down the pace a bit. If you have the time to spend, don’t do the tour–just do everything on your own. There is no real reason to do the tour other than the time savings.
There was a big family with toddlers in strollers on our tour, which seemed a bit odd, as the kids were too young for the rides, meaning half the adults in the party (in this case, the moms) would not get to ride either. Seems like a lot of money to pay out, but maybe they decided the dads should get a special thing just for them during their vacation?
Hope this is helpful for anyone on the fence about this experience.

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