We booked a Disney Tour with VIP Tours via the hotel that we were staying with, Crown Plaza of Redondo Beach. We made the booking on Saturday, 4th October 2008 as soon as we checked in to the hotel that evening with the intended tour date the next day (Sunday, 5th October 2008). The hotel informed us that the tour had 2 options available, (1) Disneyland All Day (8.30 am to 6.30pm) for the price of $110 each or (2) Disneyland All Day & Evening (8.30am t0 10.45pm) for the price of $115 each. We decided to go with option 2.

The next morning, the tour company picked us up from the hotel and the driver took us to the company location to pay for the tour. When we arrived at the tour company approximately an hour later, we were informed that only option (1) was available and the company offered us no other alternatives (i.e. deferred the Disney tour to another day or refund, etc.). There was a special event on that day and therefore, Disney closed early. Being leave with no alternative options, we paid $110 each.

The point was, we were very disappointed that we were told this information on the day rather than the night before when we made the booking. When we contacted the company, they insisted that they only receive the information the day before (the day when we made the booking) and therefore, they accepted no responsibilities whatsoever about the changes. The story changed when we escalated this complaint further to the owner of the tour company. He advised that he only realised about the closing time on that Sunday (5th October) rather than the day before (4th October).

We also spoke to Crown Plaza of Redondo Beach where we made the booking. Initially they understood our disappointment and tried to resolve this to our satisfaction. Strangely enough, they decided to change their position the next day. They argued that we went to Disneyland and we get what we paid for ($110 each with pick up time at 6.30pm). We tried to explained that was not the original booking that we made and we would understand should the information was disclosed when we made the booking rather than on the same day when we made the payment on the location. Had we known this information earlier (the day we made the booking), we could have changed our Disney day to another day and work our holiday days in LA around it.

We checked with a Visitor Information Centre about this and they showed us a Calendar that Disney sent to tour companies and the Calendar shows the opening and closing time including the Disney shows that were available for the month. The calendar clearly showed that Disney had disseminated this information long before the due date and therefore, it was obvious that this was a negligent from VIP Tours for not reading the information carefully and disclosed it to the customers.

VIP Tours didn't offer us any compensation whatsoever and accept no responsibilities. Additionally, they were unbelievably rude. We concluded that the tour company was a bunch of scam especially to tourist, who had no time to deal with this matter further due to the time limitation.

Don't book your trip with the VIP Tours for sure.