The BEST Day I’ve Ever Had in a Theme Park!
Clients are always asking me questions like “when is the best time to go to X location” or the “best tips for such park” because the truth is that every vacation is an investment and they want to have the BEST experience possible.
Well I want to tell you how I had my BEST theme park day ever as someone who has visited the parks hundreds of times and goes quite often.
My best theme park day ever was doing a private VIP tour at Universal Orlando resort. I did a tour that included Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure because the 2 parks are just steps apart and I was able to do this tour with Amy Blades, our agency owner, my good friend, Kayla and a few of Amy’s adult children. There were 6 of us total on the tour and with a private tour we had our own guide to curate our magical day.
As someone who has been to Universal multiple times and done the majority of attractions and experiences at Universal, I wasn’t sure what a VIP was going to offer that was going to be different from a normal park experience, but I was pleasantly BLOWN away.
VIP tours at Universal will always start with your party checking in for your tour and at Universal Studios Florida, we were then escorted by our guide from the check in area back to the private VIP lounge at Cafe La Bomba where we has access to a breakfast buffet. The food was surprisingly good and had a nice variety for a small buffet. They had pastries and cereals but also hot items like eggs, meats and more.
Our guide has escorted us to the lounge and chatted about some of the things that we might want to do that day. When we had finished breakfast, we chatted more to formulate a plan for the day. Our guide was even checking the weather because there was a chance of rain showers during the day so he helped us plan our order for attractions to help us get the most of our time even if it ended up raining (we got lucky that it actually didn’t rain but it sure was warm).
Because of the threat of rain, our guide took us from Universal Studios Florida over to Islands of Adventure to start the day and he showed even filmed us getting onto Platform 9 and 3/4 at the Hogwarts Express. He took us straight to the exit of Hagrid’s and held our bags (normally you have to put these in a locker) while we rode one of the most popular coasters at Universal (the ride wait time was already over 90 minutes when we arrived but we waited less than 5). Some of our party even had the chance to ride a second time in a row and our guide collected our ride photos for us at the end (you get Universal Photos included with your tour!).
We spent the morning leisurely going from attraction to attraction, getting front of the line access and we even got to see a special area of the ride queue for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (best ride queue EVER in a theme park). We were getting so much accomplished and yet we kept a casual walking pace, didn’t feel rushed and even had someone in a wheelchair (which our guide was amazing at accommodating).
Our lunch was included and we chose to dine at Mythos which is one of the most popular restaurants at Universal Orlando. We didn’t have to make a reservation in advance, our guide took care of everything for us that day (you can make reservations in advance to dine here as a regular guest or even as a VIP tour guest but we didn’t know until that day what we wanted to do and that was no problem).
My boss and I actually had to step away from the tour for a few minutes that afternoon for a work task and the guide was able to continue to show the rest of our party around so they could make the most of their day! We wrapped up the day by getting to enjoy tour exclusive experiences like going underneath the Mummy rollercoaster and going down on the floor of the Men in Black ride (regular day guests can ask to go down on the floor but it is dependent on staffing and other factors at the time).
As we wrapped up with our guide after 7 amazing hours, he helped us make sure we could download all our photos and gave us our information for dinner as well (and helped us set up our dinner reservation). We did dinner at Big Fire Grill and it was amazing! I love that we had all 3 meals for the day included with our tour, that our guide was able to share amazing details and facts that a typical park guest just can’t see or experience and that the entire day, we all just felt relaxed- there was no need to rush, no waiting in lines, no stress.
Private VIP tours do start around $3500 for the day for 5 guests and then there is an additional fee for each guest beyond 5.
I’ve helped multiple clients also book and plan their VIP tours at Universal Orlando and I would love to help you plan your best Universal Orlando visit.
Want to know more about VIP tours? My friend Kayla made an amazing YouTube video which you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqyf78x8qWA and you can check out our Goofy Getaways Podcast episode where we talk about our amazing tour: https://youtu.be/n32_eH-EME4?si=6R0cyuzLkEFNSy0H
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