Base vs. Hopper

[vacation4me]

I started planning what we are doing what day and realised that only one day did I really want the family to Hop. In the past I thought the reason to get a Hopper was to prevent yourself from using two tickets in one day. But with the way they have the pricing these days, it is a lot cheaper to just go base.

So...I am guessing that these are not individual admissions you are buying anymore, but what you can do on each day. So someone could not buy a 5 day base, but use them up in 4 days. That is what I thought of, but after looking at the prices, there would be no reason to get a 5 day park hopper over a 10 day base unless you really want to visit 3 parks in a day.

So is my cheapest way to go is if I want to go to the park on 4 days of my trip, but visit two parks on one of those days is to just get the 4 day hopper? And since we will be there 5 days, might as well spend a little extra for the 5 day just in case?

-DH

 

[bumbershoot]

I know that tickets used to be different (though many people have said that tickets in the past simply WERE hoppers, even if you weren't going to hop with them), but now you cannot use a second day to get into another park. It won't work; the machine will deny it and you won't be allowed in.

So if you want to go for 4 days and do 2 parks in one day, you will have to add hopping to your ticket.

Hopping is a flat rate of $50 plus tax for a ticket, whether it's a 1 day or 10 day. And that's of course per person.

When you have a long trip and plan to hop a lot, it starts to make financial sense, b/c the flat rate sort of feels like it's cheaper with enough hopping.

But if you're only hopping on that one day, you might feel that you're paying $50 pp for that second park on that one day (which is true if that's what you do, but you have the possibility with the hopper added to do all 4 parks on all 4 days). And that feeling can cause some people to change their plans around, or even add another day onto their trip.


(as an FYI, if you add the water parks and more option, that gives you the admissions that you mention; they don't work as "days" like the base tickets for the big parks use...so WP&M added to a 4 day ticket gives you 4 admissions, and you could take a day and do both water parks then disney quest and use up 3 of the admissions in that one day) (hope that didn't confuse the main ticket issue, just wanted to mention that the water parks option uses tickets in the way you remember for the main parks)

 

[Disneyliscious]

I have never used the hopper option as it makes no sense to me (however, we always take vacations of 5 days or more due to where we live).

We always go to all 4 parks.....and one park on each day. It also keeps us from wearing ourselves out. MK is the longest day for us and the other 3 parks we can leisurely stroll through, arrive late, or depart late because we are not rushed to "get it all in".

I would highly recommend just getting base tix and do one park each day.....save that $50 per ticket for a nice dinner or souvenir.

 

[FarmDisney]

I would definitely get the park hopper add on! When we go, we get the 10 day pass, and for us getting the hopper is a no-brainer. With the exception of spending our first full day in Magic Kingdom, we hop to a different park everyday. We love it!

 

[Aliceacc]

With the exception of the water parks, you canNOT use 2 tickets on one day. Once your finger has been scanned into the system, you're in that park for the day unless you opt for hoppers or a water park.

I think parkhoppers are well worth the addtional money, at least for my family.

And, yes, I get park tickets for both our arrival and departure days. And then I book the earliest flight in and the latest flight out, and get a decent amount of use for that investment.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

A base ticket is one major (theme) park per day. You are allowed to re-enter the same park if you leave it on one day, but it can only be used at the one park.

Note that the ticket will state on it either "Not Valid For Park Hopping" or "One Theme Park Per Day". That should be a hint.

If you put the ticket in the turnstile of another park the display on the Guest side of the turnstile will be "ACCESS DENIED". The top line of the display on the Greeter side will give information about the ticket, and the second line of the display will say "CROSSOVER NOT PERMITTED". The turnstile will not unlock.

This is because Disney charges $3.00 per day over four days on a ticket, but charges $50 to allow hopping. It does not make economic sense for Disney to allow this.

If you actually have multiple tickets (more than one physical ticket per person) as opposed to multiple day tickets, you can use these tickets for multiple entries. But it makes absolutely no economic sense as a separate ticket costs a lot more than adding hopping to a ticket.

 

[msmayor]

It really does matter what your touring style is. There are some, including one of the posters in this thread, who really ONLY do one park per day. That's what is most efficient for them, and what works.

For my family? We never go to Disney without hoppers. Sometimes, the park we planned on visiting (or started out at during the day) gets too crowded and we decide to go someplace where crowds aren't a problem. Other days, there are just one or two things we really want to do in one park but we have other things we want to do in another.

One of our traditions, too, is on the last full day, we'll hop as needed so each person gets to do one last 'favorite' thing.

We're also the type who doesn't worry about seeing it all, because it gives us a good excuse to plan the next trip to catch what we missed. Took me three visits before I finally made it to Fantasmic!

 

[pyrxtc]

yes, if you are adding the hopping to your ticket, then it makes sense to add the 5th day for a couple dollars more.

Just to say, I never hop. Even when we had AP's we didn't really hop, we just used the hop feature to walk back thru Epcot to our hotel from MK. Monorail was faster than the bus and more fun !

 

[brymolmom]

Personally I wouldn't do it. For only one day of hopping....$50 per ticket (not sure how large your family is but multiply that times the family size) = too much for one day. I would setup my plan differently, maybe change a flight to come in earlier and do a few things the first night (or similar on the last day) to remove the 'need' to hop that one day.

We don't hop and while I do advise some people to do so with shorter trips - I wouldn't advise spending that $$ for a single day.

 

[Ava]

We've always hopped, but that was with adults only. We did 1/2 day each at AK & DHS, and would often go over to Epcot for dinner at night. We also did as a PP mentioned and had a "revisit the favorites" day on our last day, hopping around to different parks to do all of our favorite rides one last time.

With young kids though I don't know that I'd hop. It takes time to get between parks, especially using Disney buses, so a young one may get worn out with all the traveling around.

You can always just buy the base ticket now, and then once you get there and have experienced a day or two, decide if you want to add hopping. You can add it to your tickets at any time.

 

[tzolkin]

Personally I wouldn't do it. For only one day of hopping....$50 per ticket (not sure how large your family is but multiply that times the family size) = too much for one day. I would setup my plan differently

We would not go to Disney without parkhoppers, but we use them every day of our longer trips (9-12 days). We like to go to one park in the morning, take a break, and then go to another park in the afternoon. Our family just prefers not to stay in one park all day and we also like visiting MK or Epcot (or both) every day of our trip. For us, the parkhoppers aren't much of an extra expense because we can divide the $50pp up over the days of our trip. It's worth $5 per day for the flexibility, but if we only used them once I might feel like the $50 was wasted.

 

[secretpantssam]

I always hop. I like being able to go to one park for rope drop and then close out another. I feel like I can get in the maximum amount of fun that way. Also, now that I'm using free dining, I like to be able to make reservations in Epcot but not have to spend every day there.

But if you are really only considering hopping once, I wouldn't pay the money. It's pretty expensive just for one hop. If you do get it, I suggest trying to make a few more plans to hop, just to get your money's worth and to get more fun time in Disney!

 

[HardShell]

Last year's visits were our first trips as a family and we "hopped" both times. (I had been twice as a child when the MK was it and my wife [then fiance'] and I were there in the late 80's when there was just MK & EPCOT.)

I found it somewhat tiring but manageable, mostly because we did very few sit-down meals and just ate light/on the run. It was demonstrably easier for us to hop (with three little ones in two strollers) in July when we stayed at the CR (using the Monorails as much as possible) than it was in November when we stayed at POP (strictly buses).

We are heading down in September for a week, staying at POP again, and this time we are going to try base tix. We are on the free dining plan this time and plan several more sit-down meals than before, so we are planning to stay/play/eat at only one park each day (the twins are too little to get much out of the water parks and we did/saw everything we wanted to in AK last time with no desire to return [sorry, AK fans, nothing personal!] so we will likely do 4 days in the MK with one each in DS & EPCOT interspersed).

Besides... I figure if we get down there and realize that we REALLY want to be able to hop we can always add that option there on-site if necesary, right???

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

I often see people wondering if they should buy hoppers in advance of the trip, and my answer is always no. I can not think of any good reason to buy hoppers before you leave. I also can't think of a reason to buy a ticket with more than 2 days on it or Waterparks and more (or whatever it's called)

Why you ask? Well you can add hopping, extra days, waterparks, easily, quickly and for the same price once you're there. To me there are a lot of advantages to doing it then:

1) You never know exactly what you're going to do -- what if you wake up feeling sick on the day you were going to hop. What if it's your first trip, or your hottest trip and you overestimate what you'll do in one day. What if you go to the waterpark on day one and LOVE it and decide that that hopping day should become an extra day at the waterpark. Maybe you're a veteran planner and the chances of these things happening are slight, but as long as they're even remotely possible why not wait and add the extra ticket features when you get there.

2) Trip insurance. Although Disney doesn't allow you to cancel a package that's been paid for, they do allow you to "upgrade" to a more expensive package. If you booked your package with only one day, and then you need to change to a different day, you can book the same resort, number of days etc. . . but book a 2 day package and suddenly it's an "upgrade" and there's no change fee. Isn't that cool? Similarly if you booked, say a 10 day vacation at one rate and then a cheaper rate comes out, you can rebook at the cheaper rate with more tickets and it will still have it be an "upgrade".

3) Interest. I want my money in my bank as soon as possible. I'll send Disney money 45 days out for my room because I don't have a choice, or to guarantee a rate, but why should they get my $50 for an extra 45 days?

So my advice, don't buy the hoppers. On the day you're planning to hop, wait until you're leaving park #1 (unless it's your last day, you can't add to a ticket until you've used the last day) or the hotel to head to park #2 and decide right then and there if you're up for a second park and if it's worth $50times the number of people in your family. We've done Disney 3 times -- the first time we were so overwhelmed by everything we didn't have the energy for hopping. The second time we hopped, the 3rd time my son fell in love with Downtown Disney -- I had assumed we'd hop, planned on hopping, but every evening when I said "Do you want to go back to a park?" he asked to go there instead. That $100 paid for some fun stuff at DTD instead.

 

[Aliceacc]

A different opinon:

1) We're on the DDP. So about 2 months ago, I roughed out an idea of which parks we're planning for which day, in order to get to the restaurants we want. Carved in stone? Of course not. But my kids are fairly young. I know they'll want one day at DHS, 1 at AK, part of a day at DTD, and the rest split between MK and EP. If I gave each of the 3 kids a choice each day, we would have mutiny and end up spending the day deciding where to go.

2)Trip insurance also covers our flight, as well as any emergency incidentals. I think it's a huge bargain in light of what things could cost.

3) Parkhoppers: Last year we got them and were so glad. Aside from the flexibility it gave us in terms of ADRs, it also made it possible to hop from AK to EP (after stopping to change clothes) when a monsoon blew in shortly after we got off Kali River Rapids. This year, there's a day when the "boys" are doing the Magic of Steam Engines Tour while the girls and I are doing the Princess breakfast at Akerhaus. Without parkhoppers, it wouldn't be possible for us to split up into 2 different parks and eventually spend the afternoon & evening in the same park. Also, I'm betting that both our AK and DHS days end up in either the MK or EP. (very easy for us, since we're at the Poly and on the monorail.)

But, as they say, that's why they make 41 flavors of ice cream!!!

 

[ajk912]

We have never bought the hoppers because it's $250 for our family of 5. We already pay about a thousand dollars for tickets, I hate to spend anymore.

I always think that maybe we will upgrade when we get there..but the thought of putting out another $250. That's a lot of money.

 

[Ava]

I often see people wondering if they should buy hoppers in advance of the trip, and my answer is always no. I can not think of any good reason to buy hoppers before you leave. I also can't think of a reason to buy a ticket with more than 2 days on it or Waterparks and more (or whatever it's called)

Why you ask? Well you can add hopping, extra days, waterparks, easily, quickly and for the same price once you're there. To me there are a lot of advantages to doing it then:

I agree with you, except for one point - if you add extra days once you're there, you'll pay Disney's gate price for those days. If you buy your tickets from a discounter (like we do) it makes more sense financially to buy a ticket for the full length of your trip in advance from the discounter. I think once you hit 3 or 4 days the cost per additional day is only a few $, so you could buy a 3- or 4-day ticket in advance and then add extras when you get there.

 

[pilesoflaundry]

We always go with hoppers but we usually only go for 3 days. We couldn't get our moneys' worth out of the vacation if we didn't kwim? If we were going for 5 or more days it's not really worth it.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

To clarify, I wasn't saying you should skip hoppers instead of Trip Insurance. Trip Insurance is a great idea, especially if you've got airfare too.

But there are things that Trip Insurance won't cover. Last year we had a week long trip scheduled. A couple of weeks before we were supposed to go DS's team got invited to a soccer tournament. He really wanted to go, and because it was easy and free to change the plane tickets (SW) and the dates of the trip, we just moved it from Sat to Sat to Sun to Sun.

Trip Insurance does not list soccer tournaments as an approved emergency, and I would not have payed a change fee for him to go -- he doesn't play at that level. But since it was free and easy I could make the change and he could do both.

On the other hand the "no park hoppers insurance plan" does not evacuate you in case of an emergency.

 

[bumbershoot]

I agree with you, except for one point - if you add extra days once you're there, you'll pay Disney's gate price for those days. If you buy your tickets from a discounter (like we do) it makes more sense financially to buy a ticket for the full length of your trip in advance from the discounter. I think once you hit 3 or 4 days the cost per additional day is only a few $, so you could buy a 3- or 4-day ticket in advance and then add extras when you get there.

Actually, with WDW (not DLR), if you upgrade your ticket after using it at least once, the difference is "bridged". You keep your discount (you don't at DLR).

They take the amount you paid and basically say "OK now this ticket is worth gate price", so you're getting that discount in credit towards the upgrade.