Hi Kevin,

The timings do depend on which time you book as they stagger things out throughout the day, otherwise the Lunch Venue would be overly busy. On the early tours (9am) we had lunch around 12pm and on the later tours (10-11) lunch was later on, around 1:30.

Again the tour end is a little dependent on if you do the Studio tour first or the Park Tour. On or last tour our tour finished at 4:30 (park closes at 6pm), this was a later tour (10:30 start) and when we did the earlier tour this wrapped up around 3:30. This does not give you a huge amount of time to use the Express Pass afterwards, but we do find the tour of the ark gets you on most of the big rides and we find we don’t spend that long in the park after the tour. If you are going to do it in October definitely make sure you do as early as possible start time to maximize the day.

We tipped $20 per person for our tours, and this seemed to be the going rate, we went last and clocked what others were tipping. Some might say that is too much, other too little, it’s very subjective. And while all guides are amazing, some are more amazing than others…

Have a great time what ever you choose.

Steve

Hi Brett,

Yep totally agree, we loved out guide, and we can see if you had a mediocre guide, the experience would not be quite as good, but it still is pretty awesome. We are back in May, and just couldn’t bare doing it the “basic” way. It really isn’t that much more than Entry+Expresspass and what you get for the xtr is awesome.

Steve

Hi,

Oh yeah, we know all about the exchange rate, it’s so bad for us right now as we have a weak £ and a strong dollar so it’s a double whammy!

We understand everyone is different so the best way to show you if it’s worth it is just to explain honestly what you get and you can make the decision. We really love the VIP experience and think it is definitely worth it, BUT it is a big chunk of cash for just one single-day experience!

We are still trying to decide if out next visit in May will be VIP or Vanilla!

Hope you have a great trip, whatever you decide

Steve

We did the tour of the themepark first, and did all the rides once. We stayed together but the tour guide walked you onto the rides, so if you did want to skip one, you would just have to wait 10-15 mins while everyone did it. Its worth it just so the guide can walk you on the rides, zero queue

After lunch we did the tour, but it can be the other way round, if so you “could” leave the group and do your own thing, but dont, having that walk on and guided tour is well worth hanging round out side any rides you dont want.

After that you get the best seats at waterworld.

Finally after all that you get VIP passes and can go back and do anything you want to do again. VIP passes are not as good as the walk-ons the guide gets you but stil very short waits.

Its such a good day, and such a good way of visiting a park, we struggle to do it the old way now!

I think it’s totally worth it.