Is park hopping worth it?

[Zippa D Doodah]

We have always hopped until our recent trip in May. We were there four days w/o hopper feature and did great. We scheduled two MK days, one MGM day, and one Epcot day. Having said that, we may well go back to hoppers next time . I guess it comes down to whether that extra money is going to matter. (It sure did with us on the May trip)

 

[dudedisney]

That was my question also. 4 x $35 is a bunch of extra so I asked the 'experts' who are planning our trip and they have too much planned all over the place so if we want to participate, we have to 'hop' too.

 

[RADOPT]

It depends on your family and your budget.

We hop because my daughter loves parades and we will do a few a day - our max was 4 in one day. We also stayed at WL and liked to be able to get a last minute PS at MK without worring about how many parks we had been at.

I'm sure you can have a wonderful time either way.

 

[DisneyJen0504]

We wouldn't go without them. I can't remember a single trip when we weren't in more than one park in a day. Hoppers cost more because they let you DO more. And they let you do it when you want to.Examples -
You get to MK and it's more crowded than anyone dreamed it would be. Leave and hop to another park and come back later in the afternoon when it'll probably be less crowded.
It's your "Epcot day", but you have ressies in the MK for Cinderella's Table at 5 pm (the only time you could get it). Hop on back to the MK for dinner. Then, if you want, you can grab the monorail and hop back to Epcot for Illuminations!
You're in Epcot and you want to see Fantasmic. Just grab a boat and hop over to MGM
You get to AK and find it's okay but not really an "all-day" kind of thing for you. Hop to one you like better.
You've spent the day at MGM but want to see the Spectromagic parade (it's only on certain days). Just hop back to the MK.
The combinations are endless. With hoppers, you won't have to miss anything because you can't get to another park when you want to. And, if you aren't among the lucky people who do WDW several times a year, how often are you going to have the chance to do all this?
DisFlan

Thats exactly how we feel. We could not go to WDW and not park hop!

 

[DisFan2]

I'm sure someone will tell me if this will work or not. We've got about eight days coming up in October in WDW. If I buy a 10 day MYW pass, can I, for example, go to MK in the a.m. (burning one day off the pass) and then MGM in the p.m. burning a second day? Or can I only use the pass once a day, period? If I can use it more than once, the 10 day works out cheaper than a 7 day with the park hopping option (which is why I suspect they won't permit it!).

 

[Amyg]

I read a threat a few days ago with the same question. Someone answered replied and didn't think you could because when you pass your ticket though, it "reads" that you've gone into, say MK that particular day and won't let you go into another park on the same day unless you have a hopper pass. Hope that helps.

 

[scootch]

Even if only 1 or 2 days you hit more than one park, the park hopper is worth it. I looked to park hop ticket 2 days and get a 3 day nonhopper... but to get a 5 day hopper what cheaper as the longer you get the ticket for, the cheaper each day becomes.

 

[Mom2three]

We are hoppers also. I wouldn't do it any other way. We just like to be able to do whatever we want.

 

[Foxfiregrrl]

I have been twice in the past and had park hoppers both times. They were nice and it is good to be able to move park to park if you want. We did not use ours much though as there is plenty to keep you busy for a full day in all of the parks, except maybe AK.

This trip will be my DH's first so we decided not to do the park hopper. Instead we will do each park one day and return to Epcot and MK for our last 2 days. (We have 6 days). I think we will be fine with this plan. We also picked our resteraunts for the park that we plan to go to on that particular day. Epcot seems to have the most interesting dining selections, but since we will be there two days that should be plenty of Epcot dining for us. The day that we do AK I am hoping that we will get done early. We can then either relax at our hotel or go to DTD. I think if we had the hopper option I would feel like I had to go to another park. This way we will get a slight rest in the middle of our week.

I think that if you have been several times it might be nice to have the hoppers, but I think on a first or second trip you may end up wasting a lot of time "hoppng" and not enjoy as much as you could if you just stayed in the same park. Just my opinion.

Hope that whatever you decide you have a Wonderful trip!

 

[ARCard]

My mom looks at it this way, she "browses" the shops our entire vacation and then on the last couple of days we are running from one park to another buying all of her finds. She says she saves money, not worrying that she can't hop back to one store or another to get things she really "needs." Last trip it was cookie jars, I can't wait to see what it is this time Really, we just like it, as one poster said, you don't feel like just because the only PS you could get for CRT is on a day you really didn't want to go to MK, you hop to eat and hop back and don't have to stay if it is crowded, etc.

 

[LeesyUD]

I personally feel that Disney is not the same without park hopping. There are times when a park might get crowded so you can leave and go to another park. Or even go in just to watch a parade or fireworks show to a different park that night. I think I would feel trapped w/ out the hopper but every1 is diffferent. I think one of the biggest things is if you get a park like animal kingdom done which only takes a half day then you would either need to stick to something outside the parks the rest of the day or drag the day out at AK out. Also if a park closes early one day that you are at, say 6, if you have the hopper you can go to another park that night and get another 3 hrs in the parks if one is open til 9.

 

[sanibelover]

You can always add the hopper option when you are on vacation. If it seems like hopping would be a good idea, just add that option. I think it all depends on when you go, how many times you have already been, what you plan to do, etc. I honestly don't think we did any hopping the first couple of times we went to WDW because there were so many things in every park that we hadn't done. For our next trip, we will definitely be hopping - mostly over to EPCOT in the evenings.

The other consideration now is evening EMH. Hopping may be worth it to go to the EMH park if you are going at a less busy time of the year. Good luck figuring out the best option for you.

 

[poohluvr]

On our last day, we were planning on going to MK to see Wishes. My son bought an item the previous day in Epcot that happened to be broken. Because we had the hopper option we were able to do MGM in the morning for Star Wars weekend, then we hopped one of the ferries to Epcot to exchange the item and stroll around World Showcase and then took the monorail to MK for some rides and fireworks. It came in very handy for us!

 

[Tinkerchele]

I always found that when we went to MGM or AK, we didn't spend an entire day there, we would go back to our room in the late afternoon for a swim, rest, etc and then we would spend our evenings in MK. I love park hopping...I feel like I'm not wasting a minute of my vacation!

 

[bubba73]

We love to park hop. We have done it every time that I can remember. It is a huge advantage especially if the park you go to is really busy. You can go to a park that is not as bad. Plus, AK closes early so you can go to another park afterwards and still have lots of fun.

 

[becca011906]

This will be our first trip with out hopping... We have a group going and really can't afforid it this time so we are going to try it with out. We are getting 5 days though. So 1 day at each park and prolly a second at MK for the kids. With 3 small kids we think it will be nice having the AK day end early so we can have an evening at the resort. I think MK and MGM both close at 8:30 when we are going so that will give us a nice evening to get the kids off to bed at a fairly desent time and get up and going the next morning too.

 

[imwithgoofy]

I figured out the price was $175 for 5 of us to park hop. Seems to me, it's just as easy to pick a park each day.

We're staying at the CO, so we'll be able to see the MK fire works each night.

What do you think?

Hopping is nice, but you will still have a great time without hopping.
Like you said pick a park each day...look at the schedule for which park is open late/if you will be staying late...and go there.

There is also the water parks and downtown Disney to explore. We usually go to Downtown Disney after a day at the Animal Kingdom park.

Either way you'll have a grand time. Hopping is fun but not necessary at an additional $175...

 

[HappyLawyer]

we do not hop, we skip epcot it is not our thing but we found out in Dec that you can spend an entire day at animal kingdom, which was fun. then we do two days for MK, and we will try to use up 1 day at MGM, after that the rest of our time is at UVS, IOA, Seaworld, BG and other stuff

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

I like to have the option of park hopping. Back the first few trips I really didn't want to waste TIME going from park to park in one day... but I have come to realize that sometimes it's better to have that option open. In case the park gets packed and you'd rather go to another park and see if it's not as busy... if you go back to the resort midday and decide you'd rather go to a different park instead of back to the same one, etc. Especially this last trip where we slept in, went to the NON-evening EMH park then hopped over to the EMH park only later when evening EMH was starting. It seems like a lot of people don't have park hopping on their tickets so they are at the evening EMH park ALL day. It worked well for us going to another park then going over to the EMH park later in the evening.

I didn't realize how much I prefer parkhopping option there for me if I want it, even though we didn't really park hop a lot until this last trip (because of how I mentioned above- how we took advantage of evening EMH this time, evening EMH didn't exist our last trip) until this trip when we had added the dining plan and therefore had one day ticket per person on our room keys... no park hopping. It was hard picking a day we FOR SURE wanted to stay at that park all day- in order to use the non-parkhopping room key ticket that day. LOL
I guess I may not park hop a lot but like the option there just in case.....

 

[swilphil]

I looked at it that with our 10 day no expire tickets, each person only paid $3.50 more per day to add park hopping. I guess it's the glass is half-full mentality. I like being able to park hop because of the crowds. We spend the mornings at MK (stayed at the Contemporary so it was easy to walk over), then we hopped to a different park when it got crowded. My kids would go nuts if they could see the castle from our resort but couldn't go to MK at least once per day. If you are going during a slow time of year, you probably wouldn't miss park hopping and think what fun you can have with that extra $175.