Which is better park hopper or extra day???

[Ouida]

Does anyone want to help us decide, if park hopper would really be used on our upcoming trip. Or if we are wasting funds that could go to an extra day?
So looking at our plans, I don't see a lot of times to park hop, with the exception if rain, crowds, or down rides, cause us to flee to another park. We are going beginning of November, so less likely to rain, but it's still Florida. Also, I've been seeing a lot on here about rides being down for long stretches.
However that hopper option could pay for an extra day. Which would be better? I still haven't called WDW to inquire about an extra day stay, since Irma has so many people trying to fixes their plans. But it seems from here that I should be able to add a day to our FW cabin stay. Thanks for any help.

 

[MidgeD79]

park hopper

 

[DekrRini]

If you're absolutely sure that you would just stay in one park AND that you can add an extra day to your trip, I might go with the extra day. But I think there are too many things that could happen that would make you want to switch parks so I'd go with the park hoppers to be safe.

 

[katmatry]

Extra day!

 

[elaine amj]

Extra day all the time. I have used hoppers a fair bit recently (mostly because I have had to get them for other reasons like package deals) but would be totally happy with base tickets instead like we used to always do. And that would save a ton of travel time. The one nice thing about hoppers is getting a couple of extra hours by switching to an EMH park but that's not worth the extra cost to me.

To me. An extra day's worth of entertainment is much more worth it.

 

[StormyCA]

We've only been to WDW once and we had hoppers. That being said, we only 'hopped' once when we went to AK during the day and to Epcot that night for Illuminations. If we had it to do again, I think we'd get 1-park/day tickets since you can always upgrade to a hopper if you change your mind. At least you can at DL, I assume it's the same at WDW.

 

[Maxie86]

You don't have to decide now. You can upgrade to the hopper after you are there or add the extra day whichever you decide to do. How many days do you have now? It only costs a few dollars to add days after the 4th, perhaps you could do both...unless you have a special ticket that can not be upgraded.

 

[Ouida]

If you're absolutely sure that you would just stay in one park AND that you can add an extra day to your trip, I might go with the extra day. But I think there are too many things that could happen that would make you want to switch parks so I'd go with the park hoppers to be safe.

What usually makes you want to park hop? Disney dining reservations and fastpasses, seems to limit our ability to get to another park midday.

 

[Ouida]

You don't have to decide now. You can upgrade to the hopper after you are there or add the extra day whichever you decide to do. How many days do you have now? It only costs a few dollars to add days after the 4th, perhaps you could do both...unless you have a special ticket that can not be upgraded.

We have 7 nights with 6 park hopper tickets and one MVMCP ticket. We are driving there, so arrive saturday and stay at the cabins, too tired to go to a park. We decided that it's best to take it easy on the christmas party night (tuesday),and not go to any parks in the morning, so we have extra tickets and would only need the cabin rental. As far as decidin now, it's mostly for our budget.

 

[stinkpickle]

We have 7 nights with 6 park hopper tickets and one MVMCP ticket. We are driving there, so arrive saturday and stay at the cabins, too tired to go to a park. We decided that it's best to take it easy on the christmas party night (tuesday),and not go to any parks in the morning, so we have extra tickets and would only need the cabin rental. As far as decidin now, it's mostly for our budget.

If you already have park hopper tickets, the decision has been made. I would add an extra day, too. Adding a 7th day isn't very expensive.

 

[Ouida]

We added it, but it was an after thought, and I don't think part of package, all I'm getting is 15% off the cabin. So last question, when you're in the park with a full schedule, what makes you go to another park???

 

[Day-Day]

We added it, but it was an after thought, and I don't think part of package, all I'm getting is 15% off the cabin. So last question, when you're in the park with a full schedule, what makes you go to another park???

• Various night time shows that we may miss initially due to timing or weather.
  
• Dining reservations or different dining options (EPCOT comes into play often on this)
• Catch up on rides or attractions that we may want to repeat but not spend a full day at the particular park
• We often go back to the resort mid-day so going to a different park later is not a big deal (especially on long, hot days, maybe not so much in November)
• We may take advantage of early morning hour and then go to another park as the the EMH park often gets very crowded late morning and early afternoon
• We may visit a park that closes relatively early and can go to another park that closes late.

 

[mousefan73]

We have 7 nights with 6 park hopper tickets and one MVMCP ticket. We are driving there, so arrive saturday and stay at the cabins, too tired to go to a park. We decided that it's best to take it easy on the christmas party night (tuesday),and not go to any parks in the morning, so we have extra tickets and would only need the cabin rental. As far as decidin now, it's mostly for our budget.

I would check the price difference but adding a. Extra full day of fun and add that party too. In the day of the party, if you feel up to it, you can use that day in the AM in another park then MK for party. Party tix are valid too from 4 pm. If you know you are sleeping in and not planning a morning then dont hop

 

[CrazyHare]

The only thing that made us hop when we were there last week was my daughter saying she wanted to see the castle when we got there. I had a late lunch planned in Epcot and we got there early enough to go to Magic Kingdom at opening and see the castle and do a little stuff before hopping to Epcot for lunch.

It was nice because we got to do a little in both parks to get us ready for our week.

 

[emsstacey]

We never hopped until this summer... we have loved both ways. I will say, with a hopper, we felt like we "needed" to go do more each day because we could, and we ended up much more exhausted. If you can have at least 1 day in each park (5 ideal- so you can go back to your favorite twice), then I would say extra day and no hopper. If you only have a few days, then hopping lets you do all your faves!

 

[kollerbear]

My family used to always do hoppers, but I kind of feel the way that they have configured the Fastpasses makes extra days way more valuable than hopping. I have switched to NOT having a hopper. I think the biggest mood killer on trips with my parents and sisters is when expectations don't get met. I think park hoppers make you feel like you CAN go back and do almost anything, so you kind of feel like you have a ton of flexibility. Well, with scheduled Fastpasses and dining reservations, unless you are really really careful to build in flex time, it's really easy to put something off and never get around to it. I like how having specific days at each park makes it really clear what the trade-off is of changing a plan. If we decide to leave and skip Buzz, for example, we're skipping Buzz for the trip. For me personally, this puts me in a much better mood since, as a planner, I feel like there is less I have to communicate to the group and less I have to keep track of. I always say that if we decide we want hoppers we will add when we get there but we haven't in 5 trips so far. ETA we also like to resort hop so that we are usually close to each park over the course of our trip, so adding a ton of transportation onto our plate isn't really attractive, either.

 

[Maxie86]

What usually makes you want to park hop? Disney dining reservations and fastpasses, seems to limit our ability to get to another park midday.

For us a lot depends on where we are staying. When we are staying on the MK side we will often go to the MK for awhile at night after spending the morning in another park. When staying on the Epcot side we will go to Epcot or HS at night after going to another park in the morning. Staying in a mod or value we probably wouldn't hop at all. We also don't stay in any park all day, we usually go at rope drop or shortly after then leave sometime after lunch, go back to the resort for awhile, then usually go to a park at night. If you are planning to be in the parks all day there are less reasons to hop.

 

[DekrRini]

I like to hop when one park is busier than I like. I also like to start the day at the park with EMH and then hop to a different park when it starts getting busy.

 

[Nohal]

We have never gone to Disney without park hoppers. We don't think there is enough for us to do in Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom to spend an entire day. Also we usually go in September (just cancelled our trip Sept 8) and have the free dining so most of our diners are in Epcot so we need to hop. With that being said we have gone every year for the last 15yrs and many years before that so there are many things/rides we don't bother with. Only you can decide what is best for your family.

 

[Long Beach Mike]

For my family (me, DW, DDs 11 and 12 years old) the extra day is hands down the better option. On our 2 previous trips we had park hoppers. We barely used them, and the few times we did we felt our day was disjointed and we got burned out. Our trips are usually 8 or 9 days, and we find its hard enough preventing burnout going to one park a day. DW is enormous, and too much travel always leads to burnout by day 5.

For our upcoming April 2018 trip we are going for 9 days and staying at Poly, spending 3 days at MK, and 2 days each at EP, MS and AK. We were originally going to go for 8 days and possibly use park hoppers, but decided to go the extra day and not hop. We are on DxDP. Each day we have a TS breakfast at either Poly or GF, pool time, get to the parks at about 1PM, and a late signature dinner. With our schedule, hopping would just give us a couple hours at each park.