Your favorite things about Park Hoppers?

[DisneyFive]

So in our last four trips, we've never bought the park hopper add on (7 to 9 night trips). Didn't need park hoppers, and I really don't think we ever wanted them. We tend to be one park per day people.

However...

This year we know that we'll be getting the water park option , a first for us! Always great to try something new at WDW to keep it fresh.

Adding the park hoppers on top of the water park option is only another $200 for our party of 7. Doesn't seem too bad, but I'm wondering if we will use them.

What are your favorite reasons for getting the park hoppers? I can think of some, but I'd love your input. Thanks!

Dan

 

[Broker]

I've been to Disney dozens of times and I've never bought a park hopper. I just go to one park and stay. I know it's strange but that's just what we do.

 

[figment_jii]

For my family, it's the flexibility of going to more than one park per day. We can split our days however we want (usually morning in one park and then the evening in a different park). We also tend to go to more evening EMHs, so it means we don't have to spend the whole day in the park with the evening EMH.

My family usually stays at one of the Epcot resorts, so having a park hopper also means we can "hop" into Epcot to get a snack or something like that without worrying. It's great being able to walk into Epcot, head to Les Halles and get a snack, and then head back to the hotel.

 

[hakepb]

Going to dinner in EPCOT after enjoying a morning in another park. (EPCOT has better dinner options than most parks, but I really don't want to spend 3 full park days in EPCOT per trip)

In a park that closes early, but still want more park time? Hop to an open park.
(Also hop to a late EMH without having to spend all day in that somewhat busier park)

Is a favorite attraction closed today (ie rain)? Ride it tomorrow and then hop to another park.

Go out with a bang, and do something in all 4 parks on your last day!

 

[lake queen]

We have always 'hopped" almost every day!

We love to take advantage of the AM EMH, then when it starts to get busy, hop to another park that is less busy.

We also really like to eat at EP, not so much at HS, so on our HS days, if we are not staying for F!, we will hop over to EP for dinner.

We never take afternoon breaks in our room, therefore, my DH loves his little bus naps on the way to the other park.

 

[eliza61]

Dan
My favorite reason is flexibility. I have gone to parks on days when they were supposed to be the v park of the day and found it mobbed. Lol, we've had days where we've turn right around and left. Park hoppers allow us to do that.

Also Epcot is usually our favorite park too eat in. I hate the places in MK so park hoppers allow us to leave and eat at different places

 

[wdw&sonny]

With the new FP+ rules, things may be different...

Sometimes the best laid plans don't work out. Rides are down, kids are tired, it's hotter or more crowded than expected. PH let's you flex your schedule and hit a park for the evening when you weren't expecting to.

Mostly, I like the variety. We go to one park for the morning, afternoon break at resort, dinner and then second park for the evening. It breaks the day into 3 unique events. For us, it makes a 7 day vacation feel like 21 days.

 

[tobikaye]

Some of my reasons for hopping:

1. Break up/change the day (sometimes I just need a break midday)
2. Specific parade/show schedule
3. No set plans and just go where I want when I want (then realize I have been to all 4 parks in the same day)
4. Got everything done earlier than expected

There have been other reasons, but these have all happened more than once.

 

[jamieann]

Mostly, I like the variety. We go to one park for the morning, afternoon break at resort, dinner and then second park for the evening. It breaks the day into 3 unique events. For us, it makes a 7 day vacation feel like 21 days.

This is exactly why my husband and I like park hopping. Sometimes we'll hit the park with morning EMH, stay through lunch when the crowds start to pick up, take a quick hotel break if we're tired and then hop to a less crowded park. Plus there's just something about going to MK 3 or 4 times in a week, even if it's just a half day. For $200 I'd say give it a try. If it's not for you, skip it next trip

 

[HopperFan]

- Park we are at has gotten too crowded and we want to go elsewhere.
- Dinners at EPCOT when I want to spend my day at another park.
- Utilize EMH late at night, particularly MK when we spend day at another park.
- EMH in the morning at one park and EMH at night in another park.
- Seeing Wishes or other specific shows when we don't plan to be in that park.
- Park, Pool Break, New Park! Actually kind of energizing.
- Ability to meet up with friends or family just for a meal.
- Ability to go to all the parks even on a shorter trip.

 

[nkereina]

For us, we just like the flexibility. We'll book our FP+ for the park we'll be at in the morning, take a mid-day break to shower and relax, and then head out to a different park at night if we want to. Because of this, I'll keep our TS meals to lunches or stagger the TS dinners so that we have some days free to allow us to take advantage of this. It's the one semblance of flexibility we can retain on a WDW vacation anymore!

Another good reason to have it is if it rains or a park is more crowded than expected. You can hop to another. If Splash is closed on your MK day for some reason, you can hop to MK on another day to ride it if you have time. On our last day before leaving, we'll usually hit a park or two where we want to revisit something. So I feel like we get more done with it.

 

[Pmlocke]

I really do not see how anyone can stay at the WDW for a week and not have the hopper. We always go through two parks each day. We like to start the day at one park, stay for 4-5 hours go back to the resort and have lunch and veg out at the pool. Around 5 we head out to another park, have dinner and enjoy that park at night. That we we are splitting up the parks at day and night and never getting overly tired or bored from just one park per day. I should state that it is my wife and I on these trips as we are in our 60's with no kids to deal with. We also go during the off-time so the crowds are considerably smaller and wait times at most rides are non existant which allows for a quicker walk thru in the parks. We never know where we are going to wind up, even though we have dining reservations. We let the dinner determine the park of the night, but the days are wide open. 34 days til I am back.

 

[Laketravis]

We hop every day. An example would be hitting EP at rope drop, have lunch there around noon, head over to HS until 4 or 5, then have dinner at one of the Epcot resorts, then maybe even head over to MK for fireworks.

Other days might be AK in the morning (we are usually done there by 11am) and then head over to another park.

We didn't always do park hoppers, but the one time we decided to go ahead and get them we were hooked.

 

[ms tom morrow]

We usually stay at an MK resort and almost always hop to MK to finish the day with Wishes. The other reason we get hoppers is because AK and HS aren't full days for us. If we didn't get hoppers, we'd probably skip one or both each trip.

 

[BuzzinDownToDisney]

With the hopper my DW and I managed to accomplish the 4 park challenge in one day this past August.

AK -Breakfast at Tusker, Safari, Dinosaur
Epcot - full park afternoon, half of World Showcase
DHS - Dinner at ABC, Muppets, Fantasmic
MK - EMH from 10-2am.

Love hoppers. My upcoming trip is only 3 days and we aren't getting hoppers because we need 3 days at MK to get everything we want done there, and I'm kind of bummed.

 

[JanaDee]

We get them to allow flexibility. We typically go to one park in the morning, have a long break/pool time in the afternoon/early evening and then head to MK every night.

So it gives us more options on what we'd like to do.

 

[Disney Dynamite]

- Park we are at has gotten too crowded and we want to go elsewhere.
- Dinners at EPCOT when I want to spend my day at another park.
- Utilize EMH late at night, particularly MK when we spend day at another park.
- EMH in the morning at one park and EMH at night in another park.
- Seeing Wishes or other specific shows when we don't plan to be in that park.
- Park, Pool Break, New Park! Actually kind of energizing.
- Ability to meet up with friends or family just for a meal.
- Ability to go to all the parks even on a shorter trip.

All of the above. We've gotten hoppers on every trip, and they've always been worth the investment for us. I think we used them every day on our last trip.

 

[JennaDeeDooDah]

Most of my reasons have already been listed. Like many others, we love the flexibility. With FP+, we actually are finding the hoppers to be even more valuable with how our family vacations. I'm not sure if this is going to be well explained, though. Due to not being able to do certain rides multiple times at Epcot and DHS, we find that we get more out of those parks if we break them into 4 half days each rather than 2 full days each. It's the same amount of time, but broken up to where doing the same things over and over isn't as monotonous.

Also, as another poster said, we love dining at Epcot. That park has the majority of places that my family will often request to eat between Garden Grill, Akershus, Biergarten, Coral Reef, and often one or two other World Showcase restaurants. There are three we enjoy at DHS (Sci F, Mama's, and 50's Prime Time), none at Animal Kingdom, and none that we consistently request at Magic Kingdom. It's nice to be able to hop over to Epcot for dinner after spending the day at Animal Kingdom. DHS, conversely, has terrible counter service options. If we have the dining plan, it's nice to be able to get a table service meal at DHS and then go ANYWHERE else for a counter service meal.

And then, some parks just handle crowds better than others. Even going off of crowd calendars, there are times when a certain park is unexpectedly busier than another park. It's nice to be able to hop to, say, Epcot, if DHS is just busier than we had anticipated. Or, if one or two of our favorite rides at a park that is already lacking in attractions happen to go down, it's nice to know we can hop over to another park and enjoy those rides and attractions without the day either being shot or us spending the day doing a bunch of activities we are indifferent about.

 

[Broker]

So I'm the only oddball out huh?

 

[DisneyFive]

These responses are super helpful. Please keep them coming. Thank You! I’m sold on park hoppers for our upcoming trip!


I think the things that really make a difference for us(in order of priority):

1) - After 4 years in a row of WDW, we need new and different things to make our trip more memorable and enjoyable.

2) - I love the idea of the flexibility with ADR’s. I’m so used to planning out our ADR’s 180 days in advance, pretty much locks ourselves to a certain park that day. Having the ability to make ADR’s wherever we like, even if it’s in a different park, like EP, is great!

3) - I love the idea of heading over to MK to see Wishes multiple nights. What if it rains on our first MK night? Oh well, we’ll come back a different evening when we know the weather is great. (same goes for Fantasmic, or Illuminations…)

4) - LOVE the idea of hitting MK on a MNSSHP day (without buying MNSSHP tickets) when crowds are super low, and then heading to another park to finish the evening.

5) - Those early AK days (5pm close in Sept) have always been interesting. Typically we’ve headed over to DTD, our resort to swim, or for a show like Hoop-Dee-Doo Review (awesome by the way). Heading to a EMH evening park would be a cool option!

6) - Love the idea of hitting a park with EMH morning (if we can get up that early , and then heading to a different low crowd park in the evening.



A couple of questions:

How good are the buses between parks? Between MK and EP, I imagine the monorail is the way to go, and EP to HS either walk or take the friendship boat correct? How about all other park to park options, are buses readily available?

Can FP+ be scheduled for multiple parks in one day? I don’t remember the details on this since we never worried about it.


Thanks again,
Dan