Hopper time restriction being discontinued?

[irlandaise]

Scott Gustin usually has accurate information, right? He just said that "later this year" the restriction on not park hopping before 11:00 a.m. will be removed:

https://scottgustin.substack.com/p/thriving-for-the-next-70-disneylands

I checked the Disney Parks Blog site and didn't see an announcement there, so if anyone does find official confirmation from Disney, please post it.

 

[fatmanatee]

Gustin is legit. There's been some chatter that something might be happening with DL announcements, I noticed another blogger is out there right now.

 

[Cal-Pie]

That's exciting news!

 

[JerrodDragon89]

Thank the gods...I dislike this rule so much

This will make my trips even better

 

[mom2rtk]

It's about time.

 

[Pluto468]

This is so exciting! I hope next they decide to do away with reservations.

 

[OlliePop27]

Unpopular opinion, I'm happy reservations will stay. I totally understand why they're unpopular with local passholders.

To me, the reservation program has dramatically improved visits post-Covid. On Friday nights in the old days the resort would be overwhelmed with local passholders. Now there's at least some management of that.

 

[JerrodDragon89]

Unpopular opinion, I'm happy reservations will stay. I totally understand why they're unpopular with local passholders.

To me, the reservation program has dramatically improved visits post-Covid. On Friday nights in the old days the resort would be overwhelmed with local passholders. Now there's at least some management of that.

Agreed

The parks have never had short lines

To keep AP/MKs at a "fair" price they have to have these now....just too many people are into Disney if anyone could just show up Friday nights would be even more insane then now

Maybe....maybe if we get a third gate but until then it would be such a mess to just let everyone back with no reservations

 

[Jperiod]

finally!! But I don't understand the point of keeping reservations if you can simply tap in and head to the other park.

 

[disneychrista]

I am curious how the reservations will work with no park hopping restrictions.

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

finally!! But I don't understand the point of keeping reservations if you can simply tap in and head to the other park.

I am curious how the reservations will work with no park hopping restrictions.

Reservations will still allow Disney to control and anticipate daily attendance. If they choose to still require a first park entry choice as I'm guessing they will, it also helps them balance entry at peak arrival times. Some people probably will enter one park and then choose to cross over fairly quickly, but that still adds extra steps and possible waiting time to get through the second set of gates when you could actually be experiencing an attraction, so I expect the majority of people will be happy to start out their activities in whatever park they have first entry. Before there was a park hopping time restriction, my family would sometimes switch parks early in the morning, but we usually spent at least an hour or two at the first park we entered. It's possible as fastpass runner for the family that I personally might have occasionally crossed parks sometime during that first hour window, but the days of needing to physically go to a fastpass machine are long gone.

 

[mom2rtk]

finally!! But I don't understand the point of keeping reservations if you can simply tap in and head to the other park.

It certainly has been done this long to back up the reservations policy. So I doubt the reservations piece will last much longer.

 

[disneychrista]

finally!! But I don't understand the point of keeping reservations if you can simply tap in and head to the other park.

From my understanding you Disney prevents you from scanning into a different park for 30 minutes, so it is not as simple as tapping into one park, leaving and tapping into the other park.

 

[disneychrista]

Reservations will still allow Disney to control and anticipate daily attendance. If they choose to still require a first park entry choice as I'm guessing they will, it also helps them balance entry at peak arrival times.

I get the reason why they have continued the reservation. I just mean are you making a reservation to a specific park or just for the day.

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

From my understanding you Disney prevents you from scanning into a different park for 30 minutes, so it is not as simple as tapping into one park, leaving and tapping into the other park.

Not entirely true. If you re-enter inside that 30 minutes, it triggers an alert at the gate. The CM then quizzes you about your movements and manually overrides the block as long as nothing seems fishy. I’ve triggered the hold a couple of times over the years. The last one was a few years ago when on a whim I signed up for a Disney Easter egg in the morning. We were in DCA though when I got the text message that my one-hour pickup window had opened. Because we had another overlapping plan coming up, I had to immediately head over to Disneyland to get my egg and then race back to DCA to make the planned activity. When I re-entered DCA, the system stopped me and the CM asked me what I had been up to. I told her and showed her the egg, and she manually overrode the system to let me back in. All told I took about 20 minutes from start to finish and managed not to miss either activity; DH was impressed lol.

 

[blabbermouth]

From my understanding you Disney prevents you from scanning into a different park for 30 minutes, so it is not as simple as tapping into one park, leaving and tapping into the other park.

Seems like a lot of trouble to maintain reservations just for a 30 minute window?

Reservations will still allow Disney to control and anticipate daily attendance. If they choose to still require a first park entry choice as I'm guessing they will, it also helps them balance entry at peak arrival times. Some people probably will enter one park and then choose to cross over fairly quickly, but that still adds extra steps and possible waiting time to get through the second set of gates when you could actually be experiencing an attraction, so I expect the majority of people will be happy to start out their activities in whatever park they have first entry. Before there was a park hopping time restriction, my family would sometimes switch parks early in the morning, but we usually spent at least an hour or two at the first park we entered. It's possible as fastpass runner for the family that I personally might have occasionally crossed parks sometime during that first hour window, but the days of needing to physically go to a fastpass machine are long gone.

You don't reserve an arrival time though

 

[blabbermouth]

My assumption is reservations will stay for MK, and day based tickets will continue, you just might not have to reserve a starting park, just that you'll be entering a park that day.

 

[LKing]

Not entirely true. If you re-enter inside that 30 minutes, it triggers an alert at the gate. The CM then quizzes you about your movements and manually overrides the block as long as nothing seems fishy. I’ve triggered the hold a couple of times over the years. The last one was a few years ago when on a whim I signed up for a Disney Easter egg in the morning. We were in DCA though when I got the text message that my one-hour pickup window had opened. Because we had another overlapping plan coming up, I had to immediately head over to Disneyland to get my egg and then race back to DCA to make the planned activity. When I re-entered DCA, the system stopped me and the CM asked me what I had been up to. I told her and showed her the egg, and she manually overrode the system to let me back in. All told I took about 20 minutes from start to finish and managed not to miss either activity; DH was impressed lol.

It happens to us quite frequently. Sometimes we are there to look for merchandise (specifically art). We'll see it in Off the Page, head to Disneyana to see what they have, and then head back to Off the Page. Sometimes the CM can override it. Sometimes they need to call over the supervisor. I usually try to give them the heads up that it might be triggered before I tap in.