Are park hoppers worth it?

[4inapod]

Never had park hoppers and recently had a deal where we received free park hoppers with our tickets. Now with free dining, I can choose to pay a little more and get free dining (which would be cheaper than paying for food for 4 people) and choose water park tickets or park hoppers.

We really want to try the water parks out this time so I would definitely want water park add on to tickets. Not sure if the park hoppers are worth the extra money. Our price difference is as follows:

10 days 2 adults, 2 teens with 8 day tickets free park hoppers and add on water park fun, no dining for 2799
10 days 2 adults, 2 teens with 8 day tickets, no park hoppers, add on water park, free QS dining for 3388.

10 days 2 adults 2 teens with 8 day tickets, park hoppers and water park fun, free QS dining for 3530.

I may even upgrade to DDP. Of course everything brings up the price.

 

[cmsb]

We got the park hopper for the first time last year when my kids were 6 & 8. We loved it! It was nice to have the freedom to switch parks when we wanted to, especially in the evening for fireworks or dining. Most days we hit 2 parks and one of the days we visited all 4. Now that we can book the 4th fastpass in any park via the app, I think it is more appealing.

 

[sharonabe]

My vote is the water parks with NO park hopper, for now. You can always add the park hopper once you're there if you see/find you need it. Plan your days without it, but know you can be flexible and add it if your plan isn't working.

 

[cassie58]

It depends on your touring style. If you usually plan to do one park a day, and if it's crowded, take a break and come back later, or if a park closes early and you enjoy doing resort time or heading to Disney Springs, then you probably won't get use out of them. If you like to be able to hop to another park if one is crowded, or do a half day at two parks in the same day, then it can be useful. We are so used to hoppers, it would be hard to do without them, but it keeps getting pricier, so we will have to think about it next time, unless it is part of free dining. You probably just need to think through a general plan of your days and see how much you would really use it. But if you know you really want to do a water park, and are going to pay extra for that, unless you will use hoppers several days, maybe just opt for the water park option. Free dining is definitely worth it, especially with 2 teens, and if you like to do several TS meals, then you could upgrade the dining instead of getting hoppers.

 

[DisMommyTX]

I would go with the third option. Feeding teenagers is expensive. It is up to you whether or not to upgrade to DDP, but even the QS plan would save you money in this scenario. You would be paying less than $80/day for QS dining, and you cannot feed four adults in the parks for $80/day. Comparing the second two options, adding park hoppers is $112. With teens, I would probably go for it. During 10 days, you will probably want to hop at least a couple times. When you are paying that much anyway, I think it is worth it just to leave your options open. Sometimes weather changes your plans, or you decide you'd rather spend more or less time at a certain park.

 

[DavidNYC]

Here are the biggest things to me and you'll have to decide based on your plans what you want to do.

Benefit #1: You're not tied to restaurants in your chosen park. We often would find that we could only get reservations we wanted in a park where we didn't really want to spend the day for some reason (i.e. it was an EHM park that day). This makes it much easier.
Benefit #2: Makes evening entertainment much easier. If I want to see fireworks or Illuminations I can jump over to a park just for the evening (this was even more important when we went during times where things weren't every night).
Benefit #3: Gives more flexibility to go do certain crowd-proof things during the hours you want. (For example, during Food and Wine we'd want to make sure to get a few trips to World Showcase but didn't want full days there).

That all being said, it does take time and energy to hop. With 8 park days you'll probably not need it as much since you'll have a lot of flexibility and opportunity to do all you want but also gives you more opportunity to go do more things you want to do again as you get further into your trip.

 

[GillianP1301]

I love the flexibility of hoppers. Many of our days we'll spend 1/2 a day at one park and 1/2 day at another. It's also great if you want to hop for a night show for a park you don't plan on being in all day. If you do a lot of dining, it's nice to have the option to hop into another park for a meal (Epcot in particular). Plus if you get to a park and it's just crazier than you expected, you can hop to another and try there instead.

 

[cornflkgrl]

We like park hoppers because we don't stay in the parks for very long periods of time. We like doing RD at one park, back to hotel to rest and swim by noon and out at another park at night. Plus it makes dining options more flexible (go into epcot just to grab some schoolbread and leave) or if it is unusually crowded where we are, we can just leave and go to another park. We are definitely not RD to close kind of people though. Our kids like the flexibility of the park hoppers.

 

[J and R's mom]

Park Hoppers are a must for us...and our touring style. So that's a YES from us.

 

[jmkjr72]

We love hoppers. Today our primary park was ak it closed at 6pm. After dinner we went to epcot that had emh and just got back to the room

Yesterday we finished up everything we wanted to do in mk and couldn't get any good fp but we could get fp for dhs we hopped over there did a couple of things before the storm hit

 

[RLGNC]

Never had park hoppers and recently had a deal where we received free park hoppers with our tickets. Now with free dining, I can choose to pay a little more and get free dining (which would be cheaper than paying for food for 4 people) and choose water park tickets or park hoppers.

We really want to try the water parks out this time so I would definitely want water park add on to tickets. Not sure if the park hoppers are worth the extra money. Our price difference is as follows:

10 days 2 adults, 2 teens with 8 day tickets free park hoppers and add on water park fun, no dining for 2799
10 days 2 adults, 2 teens with 8 day tickets, no park hoppers, add on water park, free QS dining for 3388.

10 days 2 adults 2 teens with 8 day tickets, park hoppers and water park fun, free QS dining for 3530.

I may even upgrade to DDP. Of course everything brings up the price.

The cost difference between your 2nd and 3rd options is not very much (i.e., if you're going to do water park and FD, may as well add on park hoppers for <$150), so I think the choice would be between the 1st and 3rd options, which basically means choosing if you want FD or not (which would actually be costing you about $730). I think with 2 adults/2 teens, $730 for 10 days of QS is a pretty good deal. I would go with option #3.

 

[agavegirl1]

Park hoppers are a requirement or I would never get DH into the parks. He gets "bored" with the same rides, shows etc at most WDW parks but he could LIVE at Epcot. I have to plan dinners there often. Hopping to EP is mandatory in our touring plan most days of our trip. For me, I have seen EP in better days and know he has no idea what is missing. Still like it though.

 

[TeamSy]

I think it's really subjective and all about how you want to see the parks. Unless it's a really short trip we NEVER do park hoppers because it's not our touring style. Disney is exhausting enough and we don't like to move around from park to park. For us, we'd see and do less. We like a leisurely day of doing everything at that one park. We buy enough tickets to go to MK more than once but very rarely ever park hoppers. The only reason I'd ever see us getting park hoppers again is if we are just going for the weekend and want to fit a lot in or want to go to say hollywood studios one day but then dine at epcot that night. We've always, though, worked out dining st whatever park we are currently at that day.

 

[verleniahall]

We love the ability to go from one park to another - for us, Epcot is not a full day park, so we like to go to Animal Kingdom in the AM, rest in the afternoon, and go enjoy a drink in world showcase in the evening

 

[lovethattink]

I've had an AP for well over 2 decades and I can count the number of times we've hopped on one hand. We just haven't had need to hop.

I'd suggest taking a look at your plans. With all 4 parks soon having nightly entertainment, it might come in handy to hop.

 

[Tonka's Skipper]

Park Hoppers are well worth the money. It makes a multi day trip so much more flexible, for shows and dining.

Now meal plans we find a waste of money...its just to much food! We usual in 7 or 8 day visit will eat at maybe 3 signature or show (HDDR) meals and pick and choose the rest of our meals as we feel.

AKK

 

[Parker Clan]

Like everyone says it depends on your touring style. Park hoppers have been a must for us the last five years, can't imagine a trip without them. We go in August so we take mid day breaks and often go to a different park in the evening.

 

[rsagusti]

We love park hoppers, and when we do the waterparks and more pass we usually only use it 1 day but that pays for itself usually. with a 10 day trip I'd definitely have the waterparks pass because you have a lot of time on property. Remember with the waterparks that actually extends your park days, you have 8 days of parks + 8 separate days of waterparks. you might be able to go down on park days if you plan to spend more time in the water parks. We love the DDP because it allows for us to pay our food upfront and not have a care in the world while we are in the World. we figure we break about even with the DDP and the way we eat so we're good with that. I'd say do option 3.

 

[whitneyanne]

If we are only going for a weekend, then park hoppers aren't always necessary, but for longer trips, for us, park hoppers are a must, especially for dining and entertainment options.

 

[Tiki Sean]

If we are only going for a weekend, then park hoppers aren't always necessary, but for longer trips, for us, park hoppers are a must, especially for dining and entertainment options.

Now i am the complete opposite. I can understand wanting them for a shorter trip so you can get more done. If you had a longer trip there isn't as much of a need to have to run from park to park.