How important is park hopping?

[Linxzy]

I have only park-hop one time and it was in my last trip in July. Mom wanted an elephant figurine that she had seen at Epcot (Japan or China, don't remember) and we went from MK to Epcot. I would like to do more hopping, but my mom does not like it. We are usually all day long at the parks.

 

[laceemouse]

We never hop. Getting to the bus or car, getting to another park, and getting back in would take at least an hour. Once my kids are in a park they want to do everything before leaving. We have never had a "let's get away from this crowd/weather" experience. That being said, with the new DVC discount we are considering buying APs for the first time. Then we could hop if we wanted to, though we never did with hoppers.

 

[wearegoingtoDisney]

When I have traveled with small children, I have found that we do not hop much so this trip I have bought the non hoppers to save the money. With 3 small children in tow I think making it to one park per day is enough. Also with the difference between a 5 and 7 day pass being a few dollars we will spend more days in the parks but maybe for not as long instead of having off days.

 

[gingermommy94]

I think park hopping is totally up to each person. It truly depends on your style of doing Disney.

For us, I could not imagine going without hopping. I love have the flexibility to go with the flow. I also agree with the post that mentioned having the flexibility to change plans due to weather, etc.

I love being able to go to a park in the daytime, then hop over to see Wishes as many times as possible. I also like being able to "hop" around for our character meals.

Every family is different, what works for some isn't necessary for others. Either way, it's still Disney...and you'll still have a wonderful trip!

 

[kldmom2000]

In my opinion, I NEED to have the option to hop... I don't think we've ever remained in the same park all day-we usually take a mid-day break at the hotel and then go to a different park at night... plus, I've found that if you're staying on property and you take advantage of the early opening, once the early opening novelty has worn off in a few hours and the park is a mob-scene, I like to be able to scoot over to another park that tends to be not as crowded since statistics show that the early opening park will be the most crowded one that day. That's just us-but I know there are some people that don't mind staying in one park all day.... just not us!

 

[solotraveler]

I think my trips jsut wouldn't be the same without hopping. I much prefer to spend the daytime in one park and then the nighttime in another (usually Epcot). I think a previous poster hit the nail on the head when they talked about a quick change of plans. There are days I have walked into, say MGM-- saw the crowds and was able to go some place else. It can "save the day" sometimes.

Just my .02

Solotraveler

 

[musicmom3]

I think I am going to try the passes without hopping, building in one extra for good measure--the difference between a 4- and a 5-day pass is so inexpensive. I am sort of concerned about keeping things "fresh" as one poster brought up--I had not thought of that, but it is an excellent point. I realized that my itinierary is really geared toward those new late evening hours rather than the early openings. Gosh, it will be so nice to sleep a little later! Of course I will report back on how this worked, so everybody can learn from my mistakes!

 

[madalex]

I think my trips jsut wouldn't be the same without hopping. I much prefer to spend the daytime in one park and then the nighttime in another (usually Epcot).

This is exactly what we do. We usually stay at the YC, so we do one park in morning/early afternoon, spend the rest of the afternoon at the resort, then go out for dinner and over to Epcot in the evening. We are not the types that get to a park first thing in the morning and then stay until it closes. Since we know we are going to leave the daytime park at some point, if we do go back to another park later in the day/evening, it's always a different park than we went to in the morning. YMMV

 

[Goofy's Muse]

When the new ticket pricing was announced, I looked back over our plans from last summer's trip to actually see how much hopping we did. We only hopped 2 days out of 8 -- one Epcot morning/MGM evening and one MGM morning with a hop to Wishes. I actually thought we had done more hopping! So I'm thinking we may try the no-hop option for this summer. Instead, I'm thinking of RESORT hopping since I found that our patience for traveling from park-to-park and resort-to-distant-park was not our strong suit...

 

[Mainebound]

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.

This is basically what we decided to do. It is less expensive to get a 7 day NO hop pass than a 5 day HOP pass.

 

[henrylovespooh]

I have to hop. :jumping4: Hee hee.

We never stay more than a half day at AK or MGM, and we like to go commando at MK in the morning and then go over to EPCOT in the afternoon to walk around the World Showcase and have dinner. I can't imagine doing a week there without hopping option.

 

[jtdl]

We will be at WDW for 6 days but only plan on being at the parks for 4 days. So we, also, we be buying 5 day passes w/o hopping and if we miss something we can use the 5th "rest day" to go to do what we missed. There is relatively little increase in price from the 4 day to 5 day so even if we don't use the 5th day it will still be cheaper than buying hopping passes.

 

[lclark0621]

We have always hopped parks.

I can't remember the last time we did one park all day. Especially with our son now. We gotta go back to the hotel for some rest in the middle of the day. Then after a little nap we always head back out, but usually do a different park.

There have been days we have done 3 parks. Breakfast in at the MK, then to MGM for the "day" & over to Epcot for dinner.

I love hopping.

 

[DeeCee735]

Park hopping is very important to us. We like the flexiblity of spending the afternoon in one park and the evening in another. I also think purchasing the no expire option is very important, (for us anyway) as not every day is spent in the parks and with a 7 day or 10 day pass we can definitely get two vacations out of the passes. JMHO

 

[PrincessCandaceMarie]

I love to park hop, but it's up to the individual....hopping is good for me!!! :jumping4:

 

[Kenswing]

We always get Hoppers. We usually stay at an Epcot resort. After spending a day at another park, we like to have the option of going over to World Showcase for dinner. That way, after dinner we can take a nice leisurely walk back to our room.