How important is park hopping?

[musicmom3]

I am thinking of buying the 5-day base pass (no hopping) for our upcoming 7-night trip. We have one non-park day planned and I've worked out the other 5 days according to either doing or avoiding the early and late hours. We are the type of folks who typically come back to the resort in the afternoon (or go to Beaches and Cream if we're in that area) for a few hours of relaxation. In the past we've always had hoppers, and I never really thought about how it would be to not hop. I kind of like how my itinerary works without the hoppers, but am trying to think about this from all angles. Comments?

 

[bobbiwoz]

I've been thinking about this too. Really, the only day we would miss hopping is the day we got to AK.

Bobbi

 

[rkrivas]

I think that as long as you feel like you're able to see and do everything you want without the hoppers, then you should be fine.

The one benefit of having the hoppers is that if something unexpected comes up that prevents you from doing something you had your heart on (ie, Fantasmic is cancelled due to weather), then the hopper gives you more flexibility of being able to adjust your schedule.

We're going in February and we're doing the MYW w/ hoppers because we want to see Spectromagic and the fireworks on the 14th (on our 1st day), but we want to save touring MK for the end of our trip.

 

[scrump]

Yes, I've been wondering this, too. We really like to cram every moment of our stay, since we never know when we get to come back, which means relaxing at the resorts are rarely a priority for us. So we like doing AK in the morning, hop around the parks and then end the evening with Illuminations at night. We vary it by day and mood, but generally that's how our trips go. I imagine if you have young kids, or if relaxing at the resorts is part of the Disney experience for you, not hopping would be an option worth exploring. But with the base ticket option in the MYW packages, I have been wondering if this would be a nice change of pace for our trips as well.

 

[eeyore0062]

Not being able to hop would definitely cramp our style. I can't remember the last time we spent a full day in one park.

However, if it works for you... do it. If you decide after a few hours or so, you can always go to Guest Relations and add the hopping option.

 

[ILoveWDW2003]

It would depend on the park hours - often we go in early November, and many of the parks close at 6 or 7pm (this was before evening EMH), we would always hop to Epcot to shop, eat and stroll and sometimes see Illuminations.

I also agree with the need to change plans midstream - we like being able to leave a park if it gets to crowded and go to another.

-Joe

 

[lillygator]

I guess it all depends on you - personally we love to "hop", I also like spending time in one park and going somewhere else for dinner...

 

[MommytoPayton&Max]

Since you are going to be there 7 nights (8 days), instead of spending the extra to park hop, why not get a 7 day ticket instead of a 5 day ticket for only about $12 more for two adults? You would have the flexibility of the two extra days to catch anything you missed by not park hopping. Just a thought.

 

[Leota]

I could never do without Park Hopping. I think there have only been 2 days out of the say 150 days we have spent in WDW that we stayed all day in one Park (break or not)
We like to mix up our Disney Experience. Also, we do most of our trips off-season with shorter hours. Then it becomes really important to Hop so you can do Epcot in the evening instead of just the resort or DTD.

 

[SimbaNoodle]

We definately love to hop. Sometimes we will hit 2 to 3 parks a day.

 

[kirbsam]

We hop. We go hard in the morning and early afternoon, go back to our resort. and decide where we want to go in the evening. Rarely, do we ever spend a whole day in the same park. Works out great for us. Be happy with whatever way you choose. I don't think there is a right or wrong way.

 

[Brina]

We definitately liked having the hopping option. If we found our kids getting a little too restless from standing in lines or sitting in strollers, then off we went to MGM to let them run around in Honey I Shrunk the Kids. DH and I also each took advantage of nap time and would go over to MK from our hotel (one at a time or course) to ride more grown up rides while the kids slept.

 

[ptrbryant]

On one trip, we were set to spend most of the day at MK. Well, when we got there, the place was PACKED! I still don't know what was going on (this was in early May, on a weekday), but you could hardly move. We took one look at each other and left for MGM---which was great! I would have hated it if we'd been stuck at MK, but wouldn't have had any way to predict it. Also, we tend to go to EPOCT alot at night and the other parks during the day. It helps keep everything "fresh" I think.

Karla B.

 

[eeyore0062]

I was just thinking about it, but with the nighttime EMH, it would make more sense to be able to hop. You could go to one park in the morning, leave, eat, swim and then go to the EMH park for the evening. You can get so much done at EMH, especially the one at night!

 

[bajanswife]

I'm going to see if we can plan an itinerary that will not include hopping i.e. Disney mornings & DTD or resort evenings, or pool mornings & Epcot/MGM evenings. AK is a whole day for us - we will not want another park after that. I haven't decided about MGM yet - we might do this from afternoon after an easy morning shopping or at the pool. If at some point during the trip we find that we want or need to park hop, we can add the option then. As someone said earlier, we'll likely get longer tickets (we'll be there at least 9 days) and that will work out cheaper than adding hopping to a shorter ticket.

 

[NotUrsula]

I'm concerned that if the "no-hopping" packages are a success, the night EMH park will end up horrendously crowded all day, due to people who choose that park for the day because of the extended hours. I think it's especially likely to happen at MK in the off-season.

We've all seen the morning EMH pack a park for the whole day, and that was when nearly everyone had the option to hop. I'm thinking that the effect will only get worse, especially since I'm sure that more people will take advantage of the evening EMH than the morning.

I *so* long for the days when WDW would extend the operating hours at MK based on that day's gate. They almost never closed before Midnight on Saturday in those days, but lots of offsite people would leave at the originally scheduled closing, which meant that those who stayed onsite got the benefit of late nights w/ bearable crowds. (It wasn't restricted to onsite, but it was the bus drivers who tended to be the ones to inform you that the hours had been extended. People who drove and arrived early tended not to hear about it.)

 

[LovePug]

I am thinking of buying the 5-day base pass (no hopping) for our upcoming 7-night trip. We have one non-park day planned and I've worked out the other 5 days according to either doing or avoiding the early and late hours. We are the type of folks who typically come back to the resort in the afternoon (or go to Beaches and Cream if we're in that area) for a few hours of relaxation. In the past we've always had hoppers, and I never really thought about how it would be to not hop. I kind of like how my itinerary works without the hoppers, but am trying to think about this from all angles. Comments?

We've always toured this way also, except we had APs. I'll be buying our 10 day tickets without the hopper. If I start second-guessing myself on what has worked for us in the past, I'll make myself crazy . I've trusted my instincts up until now and it has worked very well for us, so I've decided to ignore any nagging doubts that are trying to creep up on me now that I have to choose whether to hop or not .

 

[Taratink]

We love to hop. We like to hop into the MK to see wishes as many times as we can. I like the flexability.
Tara

 

[gigi1313]

my suggestion would be to price out the cost of buying only a 4 day myw ticket w/the package and pre-purchase a 3 day myw w/hopping... the best of both worlds... three days you know you can hop, and 4 days you cannot... assuming it comes out cheaper than a 7 day w/hopping...

we have uph's leftover from hurricane frances, and i figure we will buy no hoppers w/our package (if we decide to do a package) and use the uph's on the day we do AK or know we want to hop or do pluses (like DQ or BB) and the no-hops on the other days...

 

[tjmw2727]

It is very important to us because we don't like to spend one day in one park and we favorite morning parks differ from our favorite evening parks.

For example if we are doing the MK in the morning we will choose an EMH to get as much seen and done by say noon as we can but EMH can also bring the crowds so we would not spend the evening at MK. We generally leave our morning park between noon and two and then hit a different park in the evening. Generally speaking MK and AK are our morning parks with MGM and Epcot our evening parks. The exception is of course MK at least one evening for wishes and perhaps spectromagic.

If you plan accordingly with or without using EMH or a combination you would probably have a great vacation without hopping. I think I read that if you change your mind you can add the hopping feature any time before the pass expires. I suppose you could try a few days and see if it is working, if so, continue, if not, add the feature?

Have a great trip.

TJ