How do you use your Park Hoppers?

[TheSouthernBelle]

Can you tell me your park strategies for using Park Hoppers? Have them for the first time (required for FD)

Tell me what parks you go from/to,
What you do with FP (do you save them or use them up @ first park)

Any tips about traveling Park to park midday, anything else I should know?

We had PH for our last trip so we could maximize our short 3 day trip to WDW. We started in AK with AM EMH, hopped over to Epcot and returned to see AK at night. We normally don't do park hoppers but it worked great for our short trip. We did all our FP+ for our first park AK and as soon as we used the last AK FP+, I booked Epcot FP+. It worked pretty well for us but I will say just sticking with one park for morning and one afternoon/evening is probably a better strategy otherwise you spend a lot of downtime on transportation.

 

[Lovetherodent]

1. RD/Lunch Break/2nd Park
2. FP am and evening park is either one where FP won't be necessary (Epcot WS) or easy to pick up (MK)
HS and AK are 1/2 parks for us as we've seen the shows and don't love any enough to go back again and again. Those are always morning parks for us. So, for the next trip, one day is HS til noon, lunch break, MK by 3 or so and stay for evening EMH. Another would be AK/later afternoon break/dinner in EP and evening EMH.

The plan works better when we stay monorail or epcot resorts as travel doesn't take as much time as a bus to some of the resorts. And, of course, a lot depends on park hours any given day. Unless Disney extends, my latest night right now is 11pm (epcot evening emh). If the park hours are longer, then the afternoon breaks can be longer and then the time spent on the bus is less annoying.

 

[Oneanne]

I always get Hoppers: I'm usually at the morning park around RD and do my FP+ there. Early afternoon its back to the resort for a break and then most evenings I end up at EPCOT.

 

[Klayfish]

I've never taken the boat between EP & HS. Is it on a set schedule? How long is the trip, dock to dock?

We've used the boat. As long as it's not really hot out (the boat gets really hot inside in the summer), it's a neat little way to spend some time. Well, let me rephrase...to spend a lot of time. I think a toddler could go between HS and Epcot faster...LOL. It's not the way to go if you're in a hurry.

 

[AFwifelife]

We've used the boat. As long as it's not really hot out (the boat gets really hot inside in the summer), it's a neat little way to spend some time. Well, let me rephrase...to spend a lot of time. I think a toddler could go between HS and Epcot faster...LOL. It's not the way to go if you're in a hurry.

Yessssss. We always manage to forget how slow taking the boat is and swear we will remember to walk the next time.

 

[gatorlisa]

We tend to start with whoever opens first and/or has morning EMH, then hop early to mid afternoon to whoever is open latest and/or has evening EMH we want to take advantage of. Sometimes there's a third park in between those two, sometimes not. FP+ tends to be booked for the second park of the day. As far as which parks we hop between, that really does vary quite a bit and partially depends on park hours. I like hopping between Epcot and HS (either direction) because I like to relax during the boat ride (we generally don't do breaks at the room during the day, so transportation while hopping is break time). With the new security set up, I like hopping from Epcot to MK via monorail because you don't have to go back through security upon arrival at MK.