Park Hopper confusion - advice appreciated

[Melrosgirl]

Family of 4 going for 4 days in January. Confused as to what ticket to get. ( I want to order them ASAP so I can reserve fast passes.)

Would you recommend the 4 day hopper? Another option? I feel like there's a ticket that I'm forgetting about it. I do like the park hopper option. Thanks!

(Also...I must have tickets in hand in order to reserve fast passes 60 days ahead is that right?)

 

[Robo]

Family of 4 going for 4 days in January. Confused as to what ticket to get. ( I want to order them ASAP so I can reserve fast passes.)

1. Would you recommend the 4 day hopper? Another option? I feel like there's a ticket that I'm forgetting about it. I do like the park hopper option. Thanks!

2. (Also...I must have tickets in hand in order to reserve fast passes 60 days ahead is that right?)

1. Only you can decide if you will need to use the Hopper option.
It is now quite expensive to purchase the Hopper, so consider that.

(I always buy Hoppers, but we are at WDW for over a week at a time.)

2. Right. (Well, not necessarily "in hand," but ordered and listed in your MDX account.)

 

[hllb]

Are you staying on site? That is required for 60 day fast pass selection, in addition to having tickets linked to your MDE account.

As for park hoppers, we consider it more like "insurance" so we have the option of going to another park if one is more crowded than expected or rides break down (which has been a big issue lately!). Are you planning on 1 park per day for your 4 days? Or do you want 2 in MK, and then split a day between AK and HS and a full day in Epcot? We really want to ride FoP at AK, so our last day we plan on starting there to ride that (hopefully with fast passes) and then hop to 1 or even 2 other parks for the remainder of the day.

 

[kniquy]

It really depends on your family make up. If you have young kids (under 6) it might not be useful because they can not handle the open to close touring. If your family is older then hoppers are helpful if you are staying on site to take advantage of EMH it can be a great way to hit a park for morning EMH get in some rides before the park gets busy - you then can hop over to anther park for the rest of the day and use your FP for that park. And the opposite hit a different park in the evening for the evening EMH.

With HS being a less than half day park it is helpful to have the hoppers. Only you can really know if you will get any value out of the hoppers. We opted for them on our upcoming family trip because I stumbled upon a great deal from undercover tourist where the 7 day hopper was the same as a base ticket. Check out that website to see if there are any deals.

Edit -- we first park hopped when our boys were 9yo and they did great. We pretty much did rope drop to close almost every day of a 6 day trip with very little breaks during the day. Just know your party and if they are up for the challenge

 

[Gehrig1B]

As Robo mentions they do cost a bit and it just depends on your touring style. We always hop, sometimes 3 parks in a day.

It allows us to get ADRs without worrying about which park we will be in as well. Having said that we stay a minimum of 8 days so they way I look at it I'm only adding $10/day per ticket to the overall cost. Freedom and flexibility are worth it for us.

 

[Gentry2004]

It really depends on your family make up. If you have young kids (under 6) it might not be useful because they can not handle the open to close touring. If your family is older then hoppers are helpful if you are staying on site to take advantage of EMH it can be a great way to hit a park for morning EMH get in some rides before the park gets busy - you then can hop over to anther park for the rest of the day and use your FP for that park. And the opposite hit a different park in the evening for the evening EMH.

With HS being a less than half day park it is helpful to have the hoppers. Only you can really know if you will get any value out of the hoppers. We opted for them on our upcoming family trip because I stumbled upon a great deal from undercover tourist where the 7 day hopper was the same as a base ticket. Check out that website to see if there are any deals.

I agree with this. If your kids are small, park hopping can be time consuming and small kids are often worn out before getting to the second park. We bought hoppers the first time we took our young daughter and only used it 1 day out of 5.

If no little kids and you are go go go type people with loads of energy, you may enjoy hoppers.

 

[Anabelletoronto]

You can add or drop them later so you don't have to decide today.

 

[Wubar]

We are going in January as well with a toddler, and as much as we would like the option of hopping...we decided to save the money. Our pre-planning has us in one park per day, and in January there aren't a lot of late hours (one night each of EMH pm for EP and MK) to take advantage of once most of the other parks close. Plus the time spent hopping from park to park adds up when working with limited hours. Now, if the express transportation buses were still around, we would definitely have sprung for those. But now it's just the regular buses or Minnie vans.

 

[Gehrig1B]

You can add or drop them later so you don't have to decide today.

Although this is very true, your FP+ strategies and advanced dining reservations will be much different based on whether you have hoppers or not. I make my ADRs at 180 days already knowing we will have hoppers and my reservations are not affected by park hours, EMH, etc. because we can always leave one park and dine in another.

 

[TiffanyA]

Since you have a four day trip planned, you could conceivably go without and just do one park a day. For me personally, I would never go without, but I have been to the parks many many times and know what I like and what I want to do (like eat at Le Cellier even on a day when I go to MK).

If it's anyone's first time, I would probably tell you not to bother with them. Yes HS is a half day park, but you can go to Disney Springs or the Boardwalk once you're ready.

 

[North of Mouse]

Family of 4 going for 4 days in January. Confused as to what ticket to get. ( I want to order them ASAP so I can reserve fast passes.)

Would you recommend the 4 day hopper? Another option? I feel like there's a ticket that I'm forgetting about it. I do like the park hopper option. Thanks!

(Also...I must have tickets in hand in order to reserve fast passes 60 days ahead is that right?)

People do not tour the parks the same, so only you can know if PH's will be useful. We would never go without them as we love the freedom they give us, but only you can make that decision.

 

[loves to dive]

As others have said it's a personal preference. I will say we have always had them and we have been going since my son was just shy of 3 so I did it with a small child. You can always just plan on one park a day and if you see you might want them later, just add them on while you are there. We enjoy the freedom to eat where we want and move to another park if the one we are in is crowded. In over 30 years of going we have only stayed in one park for a day once.

 

[Indio]

For short trips, we usually don't get the park hoppers. For longer trips, we do. I would go with the 1 park a day for only 4 days and not do the hopper.

 

[SA mom]

The one time we did not have hoppers, we really regretted it. We ended up in AK with a torrential downpour that cancelled all afternoon activities and the park closed at 5. We couldn't go to any other park and it was only 3pm. We decided to resort hop instead, which was fun, but we really wanted to go to a park.

 

[Robo]

The one time we did not have hoppers, we really regretted it. We ended up in AK with a torrential downpour that cancelled all afternoon activities and the park closed at 5. We couldn't go to any other park and it was only 3pm. We decided to resort hop instead, which was fun, but we really wanted to go to a park.

To be clear, you could have, right then, upgraded your tickets to Park Hoppers and hopped over to another park.
I'm not commenting on the economy -or lack thereof- of the cost
(which is the same price whether you add the Hopper before your trip, or during...)
I'm just pointing out that the Hopper option can be added at any time during a ticket's life.

 

[Melrosgirl]

Thank you! We will get park hoppers. Appreciate the help!

 

[djc9699]

Family of 4 going for 4 days in January. Confused as to what ticket to get. ( I want to order them ASAP so I can reserve fast passes.)

Would you recommend the 4 day hopper? Another option? I feel like there's a ticket that I'm forgetting about it. I do like the park hopper option. Thanks!

(Also...I must have tickets in hand in order to reserve fast passes 60 days ahead is that right?)

I would buy the base ticket if only going 4 days and then add park hopper later if I decided to hop. It won't cost any more (or less) either way, but you will not be out the hopper cost if you wind up not using it. We always get hoppers but we stay for at least 10 days and hop several times while there.

 

[bladiator]

(I always buy Hoppers, but we are at WDW for over a week at a time.)

This is me, too. When you go for 7+ days, you can do your whole day touring, and then get some freedom at the end. I'm not sure I would hop in 4 days unless it was a holiday season (to get the most out of going to say, MK on a party night for the lower crowds then hopping for the evening entertainment.)

 

[ZoZo]

You can add or drop them later so you don't have to decide today.

You can add the hopper option any time, but you can't necessarily DROP the hopper option after you've purchased it. Especially if you buy your tickets separately, not as part of a Disney package. It's my understanding that you can't get a refund after purchasing the hopper part of your tickets. Add, yes. Delete, probably not.

As someone else mentioned, you can look at it on a "cost per hop" basis. On a four day trip, if you hop once, that ends up being about $65 or $70 per hop. But on a longer trip, if you hop multiple times, the cost per hop goes way down.

 

[SA mom]

To be clear, you could have, right then, upgraded your tickets to Park Hoppers and hopped over to another park.
I'm not commenting on the economy -or lack thereof- of the cost
(which is the same price whether you add the Hopper before your trip, or during...)
I'm just pointing out that the Hopper option can be added at any time during a ticket's life.

We were aware, but it was our last day. As you said, the economy of it did not make sense. Since there were 4 of us, it was going to be a nice chunk of change to hop. We had a nice dinner instead. I must admit, there were several times throughout the trip that I was tempted. However, we had other folks traveling with us during the first few days that could not afford the hoppers.