Do you actually park hop with kids?

[PaulaSue]

I am trying to figure out if we should buy the park hopper option.

IT will be the 5 of us going with the girls, 7,5 and 2 at the time and other family but I am just thinking of our budget right now. I don't think that parents will go with us many days. Can you go back to the same park after lunch and still be on the same day without park hopper option?

What did you do? TIA!

 

[treesinger]

I am trying to figure out if we should buy the park hopper option.

IT will be the 5 of us going with the girls, 7,5 and 2 at the time and other family but I am just thinking of our budget right now. I don't think that parents will go with us many days. Can you go back to the same park after lunch and still be on the same day without park hopper option?

What did you do? TIA!

Any time you use a pass in one park, you can leave and return to that same park as many times as you like during the day provided you get your hand stamped while leaving.

 

[justhat]

We parkhop with my daughter, who was 3, 4,6, and 9 months on our trips. Our next trip is in 3 weeks and the schedule so far includes hopping. Do you have to? No, definitely not. We just prefer to split our days in different parks, but we have APs. When they expire we might just buy MYW passes for our next trip so we'll consider the need to hop at that time.

 

[treesinger]

And yeah, I have park hopped with kids. The last visit they were 3.5, 2, and 7 mo. old girls. As always, the ease of doing it depends on the kids and mode of transport. We drive and park hopping gives the kids a moment to take a nap and we sit in the air conditioned van for a few minutes after parking to give them some time to rest and give us time to cool down. The nap (if it is long enough) works wonders on cranky kids who stopped listening to you long after you wouldn't go on Buzz Lightyear 3 times in a row.

 

[clori]

we park hopped a lot with dd at 2.5 and again at 3.5. For instance we would go to animal kingdom most of its day then go have dinner at epcot. We used disney tranportation and never found park hopping to be inconvenient.

 

[rgribik]

We have 5 kids, and usually hop every day. It is up to you to know how your kids can handle the walking, buses and being tired. My kids(thank goodness) are real troopers. We have also been to Dis tons of times, so we hit some rides in one park, then go to another. We also like lunch in one park, but want to see the fireworks at MK at night. Hopping gives you the flexability to do whatever you like the best, each day. We also go early in the morning, go back to the hotel for a quick afternoon swim then go off to another park in the evening. Just some options that we do! Have fun!

 

[beattyfamily]

We LOVE park hopping and I just couldn't imagine ever going without it, but of course, it is possible.

It's just SO convenient to have that ability. One of our first trips we mistakenly walked into MK on a Saturday around 12:00p and it was mobbed! Fastpasses for Pooh were for coming back to it at about 6:00p! So we just turned around and walked out and went to a different park.

Also it's kind of nice to go to one park early and get some rides done and then head to another park in the evening.

AK can be done in half a day so we usually go to Epcot or MGM in the evening.

But you can live without it but I never would.

 

[Desnik]

We always hop. I really can't imagine not doing it!LOL We have 2 kids, 7 & 2 and have been taking them since the oldest was 9mo. We like to do 1 park in the morning and rest in the afternoon and almost always end up at Epcot for the evening. You definately could go without hopping, but we prefer to hop. It's not really hard to do even with little kids along. We like to stay at Deluxes for this reason. For example when we stay at BWV, we are in walking distance to 2 parks. It makes it so easy for us to hop.

 

[cinjam]

We've park hopped in all of our trips. We are very big into fireworks, especially Epcot's. So if we went to Animal Kingdom one day and didn't have the hopper, we couldn't go to a park that had fireworks that evening. Again, we are firework nuts - so hopping is a definite must for us.

 

[PaulaSue]

Thank you everyone, I am sold it is worth the 35 a person.

 

[Focusdude]

It is a good idea to get the Park Hopper - then you can do a park during the day - then go to a different park for fireworks, dinner, etc.

My sons were 5 and 2 when we last went - we usually got to our park of choice for the day around 10:00 - stayed until 2:00 or 3:00 - when back to the hotel to rest and swim, then went back out to a different park at night.

I think not being able to Park Hop would be so restricting!

 

[Evil Queen]

We have parked hop only once with my youngest. It was worth it. We haven't hopped since, but I still buy hoppers, just in case. For the most part, it hasn't been worth the extra $, but knowing I can, really leaves a lot of stress of of the picture!

 

[dreams4disney]

We park hop and love it. We are a family of six. Last trip it was Me, DH, DS 9, DS 7, DS 5, and DS 2. The next two trips we plan on doing it again. The DS's will all be one year older.

 

[oogieboogie]

Park hopping is the best, cause you never know what you feel like doing in the afternoon/evening. We change our plans around so many times, it's nice to know we can move about freely.

The kids are used to us hopping from one park to the next everyday. In fact, we never stay tethered to one park in a day. We've hopped to all 4 parks in a day before: AK for EMH, stayed 2 hours there, then went to MK until lunch, then decided well, we'll hop to MGM, grab a couple shows, and then to Epcot to watch Illuminations.

I think for $35 a person that's a real bargain to be able to park hop all over the place.

 

[rt2dz]

When we were there last, we didn't plan on hopping too much if at all. But being a vacation more for my sons enjoyment than most--when he'd ask to go to different parks, we switched. It wasn't a problem for us and it made him exteremly happy to do what he wanted when he wanted. I don't think I'd go without park hopping ability. Of course, we have APs.

 

[Nora94]

We are going with a 5 old and 2 1/2 yr old April 22 - May 1. Since we will be there so long we got the park hopper plus. We know already that daily we will be returning to the room for naps, so that means in the afternoon we are flexible to go to whichever park we want. It would be a shame to do AK in the morning and then have dd ask to go on Dumbo again and have to tell her no, we can only go to AK today. This way we can do what they want without stressing over it.

Nora

 

[ladypoo]

we park hop every trip. with a 4 year old. we started when she was 15 months taking her. all her paraphenalia and stroller. along with bags and packs. we were there 2 weeks ago and on the saturday, we started out at MK around 1030 left around noon and over to mgm, saw the parade and one show. then over to epcot for illuminations

 

[HeatherC]

I loved seeing everyone's park hopping responses. I guess I am in the minority. I have always bought park hoppers, but only used them to "hop" on the one trip I went with just my husband and myself.

The reason why was because my 3 kids -now ages 4,6 and 8 are very early risers. I mean they are consistenly up at the crack of dawn 5-5:30. Bedtime is around 7:30 -8pm. But....even if they go to bed later they are still up early and quite whiny by early afternoon. Weird, huh?

So with that in mind, by 8pm they are bleary eyed and quite cranky. What worked for us was to be at the parks at opening since we never had to rush to get there then anyway. We would rent a stroller to carry kids and our gear. Then we would go until around lunch time...have a nice long lunch somewhere cool....like the Crystal Palace...which would give them and us a break. We would then tour until late afternoon, go back to the hotel and rest...use the pool, have a leisurely evening and be ready for the next day.

The days we wanted to do the fireworks or something, we just took our time, scheduled lots of breaks for lunch and ice cream and then took a day off the next day to sleep in (that's a joke) and just hang out.

The one or two times we did try to "hop", the kids were so cranky that we just bailed. We also found that we were exhausted transferring three kids from strollers to monorail, to car, to bus, etc.. This is just what seemed to work for us.

The other thing that seemed like a lot of work to me was having to shower and change 3 kids plus myself after using the pool to go back to the parks. It was like getting dressed for the day twice.

I think everyone's kids and families are different and you just need to find what works for you.

HeatherC

 

[ncgolfer]

We always do one park in morning, back for nap, different park in evening. That way our 22 month old always thinks she is going to a new park each time.

 

[justhat]

So your 22 month old knows that you're going to the parks? My daughter was 9 months old on our last trip and she loved being in the parks, but she didn't really have any idea where she was going. We're going back in a few weeks and I'm hoping she has more of an idea of what's going on this time, cause if she does I'm thinking about a short December trip to take her to MVMCP (she'd be 21 months). So that's reassuring to know that your 22 month old seems to have an idea of where you are and stuff.