Park Hop or Not?

misseskb · Jul 6, 2015

We will be at WDW in early October during MNSSHP and Epcot Food and Wine Festival. Husband, myself, and DD almost 3 at the time. We have Park Hopper Passes and tickets to MNSSHP. I am concerned about the crowd levels at Epcot while there. I have reviewed the crowd calendars and need help deciding if we should hop or stick to one park per day. Right now I am looking at:

Crowd levels are in () but EP does NOT take into consideration the Food and Wine Festival:
Thu - EP(3) or HS(2) in the morning and MK for MNSSHP (tickets purchased)
Fri - AK opens at 8am(3) or EP(3) in the morning and EP in the evening
Sat - HS(3)opens at 8am or MK(4) in the morning and MK in the evening
Sun - MK(4) in the morning and HS closes at 9:30pm(5)

If we do not park hop I am thinking
Thu - Epcot and MNSSHP
Fri - Animal Kingdom
Sat - MK
Sun - HS

This is the first Disney trip for us. I am unsure (reading mixed reviews) on if we need a full day at HS. I do intend on doing rope drop and taking a mid day break at our hotel.

Thanks in advance.

uccats97 · Jul 7, 2015

If you paid for park hoppers, you might as well take advantage of them. You should also know that you can enter MK at 4pm for MNSSHP, even though the party is 7-midnight. Overall, I wouldn't worry about the crowds. During Food and Wine, Epcot gets crowded on the weekends. try going on Sunday night. Just have fun and enjoy your vacation!

AshleeH · Jul 7, 2015

As far as park hopping - if you think you'll use it, it's worth it. We got them (against my wishes) our first family vacation and never used them. I hated wasting the money and told my husband we could add them if needed, but he wanted to get a jump on it and add it before we left. I had our schedule perfect and they were never used - with that money we could have gone to a second MNSSHP that week. Oh well, it was a learning experience. In the following years we use them all the time, so it just depends on what you want your trip to look like.

As far as Epcot goes, it does get crowded on the weekends during F&W, but crowds don't bother me at Epcot. It's the biggest park for guests (AK is the biggest, but in land only, for the animals) so EP handles crowds really well. I try and go during the week, but we've gone several times on Friday night or Saturday and still had a good time.

I would definitely take a full day (or two half days) at HS. It doesn't get an exorbitant amount of love around here, but it's my kids' current favorite park. Your daughter will love the shows and meet and greets. Lots of people consider it a half day park - we spend two days there. Sure, we do a lot of stuff twice, but that's part of the fun too. She'll enjoy HS more than EP (although make sure you take her on the Nemo ride in Epcot - very cute and it's air conditioned), but EP is fun for the parents - we need some fun too

. Have a great trip!

amygphillips · Jul 7, 2015

We don't park hop. We just don't see the need. We pick a park each day and I set up our schedule. For our family there is a lot of time wasted to switch parks plus a lot more money spent. We usually get 6 days and last year we went 1/2 day to mk after downtown Disney and lunch and spent 2 other whole days there during the week. And the other 3 parks all get 1 day. It works great for us! We are pretty much open to close kind of people. We go to Disney every 1 to 2 years so we know our way around pretty well :tongue:

but I've learned everyone does Disney differently! Enjoy your trip! Also if you already have park hoppers I would try the 1st day and see what you and your family thinks! I have friends who wouldn't go without them!

mcjaco · Jul 7, 2015

Once we had kids, we skipped the Park Hoppers. It's too much of a hassle to go from park to park.

As for crowds, in October you'll be fine. Stay away from F&W during the weekends. That's when the locals come out. Any other day it's very bearable.

Baklava · Jul 7, 2015

We never do DL without hoppers but we're skipping them for WDW because the transportation between parks seems like such a time suck.

monorailsilver · Jul 7, 2015

We always do PH. We do the early entry park in the am and either MK or Epcot at night. I hate AK and we just go for the am and the same with DHS, its just an am park since DH and I didn't like fantasmic when we saw it years ago.

We take a mid day break and nap and recoup and we go in the summer.

sarahrdh · Jul 7, 2015

Hopping is one of those things, much like the dining plan, that is great for some, but not all. We do not hop. My kids are young (9,5,3) and the last thing we want to do is herd them on & off busses more often than necessary. Plus they get sidetracked by every little bubble cart, balloon man, etc....we would spend a great deal of time just trying to get OUT of a park, and someone, if not ALL 3, would be in tears, not understanding WHY we were doing so. To us, it's just not worth it.

Now if it were just me & dh, Yep we'd park hop! We may not use it every single day, but we'd hit our favs at AK in the morning, then head to Epcot in the afternoon. And probably hit the world showcase for a couple late nights after others too! But I think good planning does NOT require park hopping. Just plan everything in 1 park for the day. I wouldn't leave just to go eat in another park, that seems silly to me. I just plan accordingly.

Alexle2007 · Jul 7, 2015

I always get the park hoppers and we always use them since we prefer to take an afternoon break and then typically do a different park in the evening or just use them to make it easier to get where we are going for dinner.

HollieGolightly · Jul 7, 2015

We have little kids 8, 6 ,6 and we never PH. But we spend most of our time at MK and HS they don't like EP at all, we find it really boring. I am thinking we will branch out and add AK one day. I don't see adding EP back in until they are much older if ever. Have a great trip

skuttle · Jul 7, 2015

We used to always hop, until a few years ago when we were planning a trip with my SIL's family and she needed to save money whereever she could. We realized how much she could save by not hopping, so we didn't hop that trip. After we realized how much extra hopping costs, it's been hard to justify it. We haven't missed it. Of course, we've been to WDW so many times now, we don't spend sun up to sun down in the parks anymore. We take the time to enjoy our resort more often now.

michael's mom · Jul 8, 2015

We always hop, but to be fair, we also always rent a car. To us, having a rental is worth the money to not have to wait in bus lines and to be able to come and go as we please with ease.

I really enjoy the hopper because we have so much more flexibility with dining choices and if we miss something we know we can go back if we want to.

I think you can make HS a full day park. Especially if you are going to do a mid-day break. The shows are pretty cute!

Those crowd levels have me drooling! Our crowd level predictions for our entire trip are 8. If you plan right, even an 8 is doable...you should be fine so don't worry. Besides... I imagine they don't take into account the F&W crowds because they're eating and drinking

Disney Khaleesi · Jul 8, 2015

Personally, I don't find hopping at WDW to be worthwhile for us. We like to get to a park at open and stay there until close. Getting to another park is just too much hassle for us.

kboo · Jul 8, 2015

We have PH'd the last two trips - it doesn't add that much overall and I like the flexibility if there's a big crowd or we decide to have dinner at a different park. It's easy for us to park hop, though, because we always take an afternoon break. Also, we have stayed at BWV and CR, so we were always within walking distance of at least one park, so that reduced our bus time. The crowd levels look great for when you'll be there!

ajwolfe · Jul 8, 2015

We are big park hoppers; always have been. Allows us more flexibility with dining choices and making sure we get to see the evening shows multiple times if we want. It's really not that much more money in the whole grand scheme of things or at least to us it isn't for what we get out of it.

TinksMyGirl · Jul 9, 2015

We always get PH just as many stated above it gives you the flexibility to go to a different park if the park you chose for the day is super crowded and more flexibility for dining. And even when my children got older, we would take an afternoon break, just to relax and lounge by the pool. Everyone is rejuvenated for the evening.

disneyseniors · Jul 9, 2015

This is one of those debates where no one is right and everyone is right

We always park hop; however, we are seniors and go alone each year. We love the flexibility of being able to go where we want to, when we want to. We always schedule our morning park with fp's. Then go back to our resort to rest up for the night. THEN we decide where we want to go for the rest of the night! Sometimes we go back to the original park, but most of the time we opt for another, or for DTD, a resort night! I think it gives us some sense of spontaneity in our days. Just feel like we are not so controlled and locked in by our fp's. We don't get fp for the 2nd park, just go with the flow and it always works for us. Either way, it's Disney, so it's great!

ForMyBoys · Jul 9, 2015

I have 3 boys and have park hopped every trip. they really like taking the boat between Epcot and HS, we sort of treat those two as one big park

Also AK closes very early, so we typically do that in the morning, take a mid-day break, and then head to a diff park in the evening. Also comes in handy when you've missed something. For instance my boys really, really wanted to be in Jedi training. We were able to sign them up for a late slot on day one but got rained out (short storm). They got a character meet and great w/ DV so that was cool, but they were bummed. So the next day we got to HS really early and signed them up again for a late spot, then took off to AK for the day and returned to HS that night.

If you decided not to hop, I would do AK the day of your MNSSHP as that park closes so early. And I would do Epcot on Friday.

BTW, HS is my boys favorite park. Every family is different so I wouldn't place too much weight on what you read here until you have been there and experienced it.

wmjeffer · Jul 9, 2015

We're going on our first trip with park hoppers this November because we want to take advantage of early extra magic hours and then hop to a less crowded park

DisneyHardin · Jul 9, 2015

We don't park hop. We got them twice before and just hopped to Epcot one night for dinner both times - I decided it wasn't worth over $100 extra on our tickets to have dinner at Epcot one night. That being said, we just go for 5 nights. If we were going to be there 8-10 days, I would probably add it so we have a little more flexibility.

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