With our morning and afternoon in Animal Kingdom in the books, we head back to the Poly so we can “hop” via monorail back to the Magic Kingdom. For the uninitiated, “hopping” is theme park parlance that means roughly: “moving from one park or resort to another park or resort during a single vacation day.” Well, that’s in the neighborhood of accurate, anyway. On a base ticket a guest to Walt Disney World has to decide which of the theme parks they want to visit that day. And then that’s it. You can re-enter the same park you went into first, but if you want to visit a different park in the same day, then you’ll need to have either a special park-hopper ticket (which costs a little more) or be an annual pass holder (exactly how expensive that is kind of depends on how many days you spend in a Disney World park over the course of the year.)
For a first-time visitor staying for a decent number of days, park hopping may not be all that necessary. I never used to do it at all. I’d just decide on which park I wanted to visit each day and be done with it. Of course that was before Hollywood Studios started closing attractions like wildfire and before I bought my annual pass this year. We’ll see how I feel about it when I let my pass expire. I might really miss being able to park hop after having the ability to do so for just one year.
On this trip, park hopping became really necessary for a couple of reasons: the new fireworks show in the Magic Kingdom “Happily Ever After” and the dinner reservation at ‘Ohana that had popped open when I was searching out dining arrangements. If you have ever sat down to get dining reservations for your Disney vacation then you know this is the sort of spot where you grab the table and ask questions later. Only a few places like Be Our Guest, Cinderella’s Royal Table, and California Grill are perhaps more difficult to get good tables at than ‘Ohana. What this meant was that since our Magic Kingdom day was on the same day as that dinner, if we wanted to see “Happily Ever After” we’d need to go over for it on a different day. And that meant park hopping.
Join us, won’t you?
We have alternated between using the hopper option and not hopping. It was nice when it was included in the price of the ticket. Now that it costs extra, I think you really have to examine whether or not you will hop enough to get your money’s worth. The threshhold for being “worth it” will go up for each member of your party. Flying solo, the added expense isn’t that much. Multiply that by four and it’s something to consider. At a high level, hopping is inefficient in that transportation from one park to another will consume roughly an hour… Read more »
The first time I park hopped at Walt Disney World (it’s an absolute no-briner in Anaheim), was in fact exactly a year ago when the group I was traveling with wanted to see the Main Street Electrical Parade one last time before it left WDW “forever” (we’ll see if that holds up). While I was happy to upgrade my ticket to go along with the crowd, it’s probably not something I would have done on my own at the time. I did enjoy the feeling of freedom it gave me, though. I bought my annual pass on my very next… Read more »
I’m thinking back on our history with park hopping: 2003 – Pre-“Magic Your Way”. Park Hopping was not yet an upcharge 2007 – We were comped Park Hopper tickets 2008 – Also comped Park Hopper tickets 2010 – We paid for the Park Hopper option that year 2012 – Decided we didn’t need to hop 2014 – Stuck with no hopping So, we’ve done some hopping, but only paid for it once. I think all of the free park hopping kind of had us taking it for granted as essential. But then when I started looking at how frequently we… Read more »
Yeah, there are people I know on line who pretty consistently do split days between parks. One guy does it almost every day of his trips. All I can say about that is that if it works for you then you should do it. My 6-day April trip last year took advantage of park hopping exclusively through the now-defunct express bus service, which as you know I liked a lot. But there was really only one day on which hopping really helped make my planning easier. That day I spent my morning in DHS and had lunch there before hopping… Read more »
It’s definitely not a one-size fits all decision. My best advice to someone who is uncertain about hopping is that you can always upgrade your tickets later if you decide you need to hop. No reason to pay for it up front if you are not sure you will get your money’s worth.
As AP holders, we hardly ever park hop. Maybe to see a fireworks show…but not as a habit. Quite frankly, I think the Fast Pass + system has made that almost impossible…especially now that they’ve changed it so that your fast pass times cannot overlap at all. To do three fastpasses as a park takes at least a 4 hour time window for scheduling. That makes it a little difficult. There’s always the get to one park at rope drop, ride everything you can and then get over to the 2nd park where your fastpasses are. That seems sort of… Read more »
I agree that not being able to have any overlap is frustrating. Even a fifteen minute allowance for overlap would make a real difference (though I would prefer 45). I will say that the second day of my April trip worked pretty well for me. I showed up to DHS at rope drop and knocked out most of the main attractions prior to lunch. then I hopped over to the Magic Kingdom where I’d arranged for all of my FastPasses. When I left Kona Cafe that night I went back to the MK to see “Wishes” for the last time.… Read more »
Disney plans to make some big changes to FP, but you probably won’t like them. Inside sources say that paid FP is coming. The details are being hammered out. What that means for “free” FP is uncertain. Maybe everyone will continue to get three free, but I won’t be surprised at all if Disney does away with it entirely. There was a time when they were looking into 4 or more FPs but with monetization on the horizon, I don’t think we will ever see that.
You are right. I’m going to be really po’d about that change.
It won’t be a popular decision when it happens. I am actually okay with it depending how it is implemented. One thing my family likes about Universal is that we have the option to buy Express Pass (or stay somewhere it is included). FastPass isn’t really much of a benefit since it just redistributes existing capacity rather than actually reducing overall wait times. If I had the option to pay for extra FP, I would have to consider it depending on the price. Apparently Disney is looking to create FP tiers. Guests at different tiers would have access to different… Read more »