Going from park hopper vacations to base ticket vacations......

[monica9]

Hi!
We will save $300 by going base.

We have NEVER gone base before and always loved the comfort of park hoppers. We are going during MNSSHP time so this will be a bit tricky. Looking back I see a trend for MNSSHP and MVMCP to be on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thurs and Fri's if I remember correctly.

We are a family of 3 with DD who will be 7. We will be going 3rd week of Sept so very hot.
Our park strategies have always been eating and then getting to park by 930-10 and then staying and transferring over to another park at night.

I would like to experience rope drop. DH wants this vacation to be more relaxing and I know we will be going at a slower rate with the heat. We've been there enough to not have to see everything. We might try the very common "vacation with child" strategy and do rope drop, leave for resort and swim by noon and then shower and back at park at night.

Think we could swing base tickets during a parade season?
Has anyone gone from doing PH all the time to Base?

We love walking around the countries at night but usually only do it 3 or 4 nights out of our 7 but we can do 2 or 3 nights. We don't go to HS though I like going for 2 or 3 rides (1/4 day) but it's not a must.
We do AK one day and the rest is split between MK and EP.

 

[mom2rtk]

If you are on the fence, you should go base, with the understanding that you can add the PH option at any point during the trip.

I had this plan a couple times, and when it came down to it we decided it just wasn't worth X dollars to hop. Usually we were pretty tired by then and wanting to rest anyway.

But the option is always there.

 

[hakepb]

It is most certainly possible. If you are used to hopping, it just requires more planning to fit in what you like most (because there are fewer "do-overs")

With MVMCP tickets, you could start that day in a different park and just use the party ticket to get into the MK

You could eat at a Boardwalk area restaurant one night to almost "hop" to EPCOT.

I did a few non-hopper trips when things were tighter. It was still fun, but a bit more stressful because the plan needed to work...and you hold off from one of those EPCOT dinners.

 

[elaine amj]

I have done base many times and like it just fine. Hoppers do make things more flexible. For a relaxing vacay, staying put can reduce the amount of travelling you do (because it is always so tempting just to hop to another park).

Say u are at MK on a party day with no party tickets. These are typically lower crowd days at MK. Go for RD and stay until 3-5pm. Then go for a nice dinner in a resort hotel. You'll be done by 6/7pm and can chill in your own resort (swim, etc) and go to bed early.

On another day, sleep in and hit Epcot at 11am and head straight for World Showcase and stay as long as you want.

Another day, do the typical RD-nap-park to closing strategy.

You can skip DHS this trip if you don't feel you will spend at least a half day there.

I do like to schedule breaks during summer trips because after a shower, you will feel human again

 

[sandieb]

We switched from park hopper to base tickets with water fun and more. The only drawback I had was when we stayed at the BCV we were limited to meals in Epcot to our Epcot days. However, we have 3 young boys who do not eat a great variety of food, so we usually stay with buffets anyway - Biergarden we do on our Epcot days. Otherwise, it is not difficult to plan at all. We go at rope drop, come back to swim and rest during the afternoon and then return for fireworks, Illuminations, sometimes dinner etc. in the evening. Not really a big deal for us.

 

[Halloweenqueen]

As a large family we have never used PH so we never got in the habit. Good planning is the key. We always plan Hoop or. Nice dinner on our AK day.

 

[disneyfantotheend]

We had park hopper for 5 trips, and decided to try non park hopper on our last trip. We went back to park hoppers the next trip after that. Really non hoppers worked fine, but we like convenience. To me it was more convenient to be able to switch parks, if we wanted to. Many trips we only used it once or twice, but to us it was still worth the cost. Some reasons we have used it were to enjoy Wishes and Spectro on a very crowded MK evening without having to be at the park all day. Go to a park that closes by 5PM and you have the option to go elsewhere in the evening. We didn't always want to go elsewhere, but I like the option to. We have had dinner in a park we were not visiting the whole day. Park hopper is convenient for things like that.

BUT it is definitely possible to have a great trip without hoppers, if you plan it out well.

 

[nkereina]

If you are on the fence, you should go base, with the understanding that you can add the PH option at any point during the trip.

I had this plan a couple times, and when it came down to it we decided it just wasn't worth X dollars to hop. Usually we were pretty tired by then and wanting to rest anyway.

But the option is always there.

This is a good strategy that works for many, but the flipside of this is the planning aspect. If you go in with park hoppers, you can make your plans around them - FP+, ADRs, etc. You also maximize the value of the park hopper. If you add PH on day 4 of a 7 day trip, you'll pay the same price you would have if you had added it on day 1.

For us, we hop to a different park late afternoon/early evening and have our FP+ scheduled for that park. We also do dinner in that park as well. I suppose if you want PH to hop over to another park late at night or during EMH, then the planning isn't that big of a deal. But it's something to consider.

 

[ArwenMarie]

We've never gotten the use out of PHs when we had them, so we stopped buying them. We did get good use out of them when we stayed at Beach Club Villas because it was so easy to walk over to Epcot at night and eat, see Illuminations, etc.

It sounds like you really enjoy them though, so I guess the question is, is the $300 bucks worth it to you? (I know obvious question!)

Maybe try to sketch out a rough plan of your days without them and see how it looks? I agree with you, the heat/storms and the party season are two major things to consider.

 

[monica9]

I've sketched out different plans about 30 times lol! I usually have my main plan and then a back up in case I can't get us into ADR's that I wanted or atleast the times I wanted. I also keep in mind that the special holiday parades change the times of the parks. I'm not worried about rain since I'm sure it will be raining on our trip and I think we are going to just push through it.

I then put our days on index cards with the day and park on the front and our schedule and the amount of TS and QS we've used. I love to plan!! We usually modify it as when we are there but not by much.
So as you can see, the base tickets sound terrible in my mind but I think it might work out for the best for our family to make it a more relaxing trip that isn't overly scheduled.

FYI, when I mapped out our plan when I had first booked us our 8 day ph w/ waterpark and fun, I notice that we only really have 4 out of 7 nights going to two different parks and it's usually just going to Epcot for dinner and some drinks around the countries.

 

[monica9]

We've never gotten the use out of PHs when we had them, so we stopped buying them. We did get good use out of them when we stayed at Beach Club Villas because it was so easy to walk over to Epcot at night and eat, see Illuminations, etc.

It sounds like you really enjoy them though, so I guess the question is, is the $300 bucks worth it to you? (I know obvious question!)

Maybe try to sketch out a rough plan of your days without them and see how it looks? I agree with you, the heat/storms and the party season are two major things to consider.

We enjoy them but it depends on the resort we are at. Yes, if we were at the Epcot resorts, we would no doubt pay the extra money. I can't seem to be able to lower our amount of nights at Disney but I don't seem to have a problem with going base and again, I have a feeling it might be a more relaxing vacation this way but not sure.

 

[Cee]

We will also be trying base passes next trip. Honestly, we found hopping exhausting most of the time and the time it takes with transportation ate up the day. It was very convenient when staying at Epcot resorts, I agree. Sometimes we'd walk in just to watch Illuminations and walk back out! I like the suggestion of adding the hopper option if we find that we really miss it. I don't think we will. I don't think.....we will.......

 

[Mikie]

We used to get hoppers, but rarely actually hopped or seemed to make a point of it just so we could say we used them. When I realized we could have skipped one hop and just returned to the same park after a break, then only used the hopper again to catch illuminations, I decided $300 was a pretty steep price for a fireworks show!

We also have always had at least one preschooler on our trip, so we were only out until 9 most nights or past 10:30 once or twice. I almost think it's even easier to choose base tix now, because you're choosing your park days for ADR and/or FP+ so you just have to put your eye toward overall park hours and what shows you can catch when you pick your park days and stick to it. If we pick MK for its low crowds on party day, we go at rope drop, stay til 7 and plan a resort dinner with a little resort touring time. The day ends on a relaxed note and it's not much shorter than our usual park day anyhow.

Next trip, with all my kids being 9+ and if we stay a Epcot area, we may consider hoppers again.