How necessary is park hopping?

[off to neverland]

Help me out, please!\

My brohter and sister in law will be with us for four days for our trip in May. We're looking at tickets now, and the parkhoppiing feature will be an extra $30 a ticket.

When we've gone before, we usually do spend our mornings and evenings in different parks, but that's not to say I can't plan so that we are only in one park. My concern is that MGM and Animal Kingdom might be short days, and we might be disappointed to not be able to go to another park those days. Or not. Maybe we'll need the break.

We're staying at Beach Club, and I wonder how much we'll want to just walk into International Gateway for a snack or bite to eat at World Showcase.

Please give me some advice as to whether you think we would do okay with on park a day for four days, or would we regret not having Parkhoppers to pop into Epcot if we wanted.....

 

[ep4244]

Personally, we always get parkhopper, just because we like the freedom to go from park to park.

You can always add it during your trip if you decide to hop

 

[nygrl]

we always seem to end up at epcot at night .and always leave during the day for a nap and usually decide to go to a different park later in the day... with all the money spent at disney an extra $30 is really not that much.. personally i wouldnt want to be limited to the same park each day.. it just never seems to work out that way

 

[DisneyWisher]

Think of it this way you would be entering Epcot at night for $10 a day. Not a lot of money. We are die hard park hoppers and not sure I could go back to one park a day.

 

[Mom to Will and Finn]

We get them, too. On our last trip we used them when Animal Kingdom closed early, when we wanted to catch another showing of Illuminations, and when we wanted to make a quick stop in MK before we left (last day was at Epcot). You certainly can do it without them, but if it's in your budget, I'd say you should get them.

 

[2x_dis_dad]

Park Hopping is a must. AK IMHO is a 1/2 day park. We always go to 2 or 3 parks a day.

 

[Ilovestitch]

Get the park hopping feature- I always feel burned out from being at the same park all day long.

 

[Ochio]

I'd go with the hopping feature so you can change parks if the one you begin at seems to get crowded.

 

[marriedmarylander]

I'm going first time in may without park hoppers and we hope we don't need them. Just had to plan to make sure we had enough to do each day. Like if we get done AK early or something that we had a backup plan to go to a water park or whatever. I think having the plus pack helps so you have other options than just the regular parks. If we didn't opt for the plus pack I think we would have gotten hoppers. We figure if we get there and really want to hop, we can upgrade there. It's $30 per ticket? I swore I was told something like $40 but I could be wrong... It's a per day basis isn't it?

 

[off to neverland]

It's unanimous! Park hopping it is!

Thanks for all the advice and help- I love these boards!

 

[msr709]

I'd go with the hopping feature so you can change parks if the one you begin at seems to get crowded.

I Totally agree with this!

 

[KimWDW]

On all my previous trips, I have always park-hopped, but I've never had a child with me. On our next trip, we will have our 3 year old with us and we are not going to park-hop our tickets. He goes to bed at 8pm. I figure we'll get to whatever park we're at at the opening time, stay until he's too tired (1 or 2, I'm guessing), head back to POP for nap, then spend the afternoon at the resort swimming, etc and head to bed early. Also, we're going during the value season so the parks will not be open late most nights anyway.

If it were just me and my husband w/o the child, I would definitely park hop because we can just keep on going, but the little one will need a slower pace.

 

[Davefrompgh]

We also have ALWAYS gotten the hopper pass...you never know if you will change your mind from one park to another...especially during the evening shows...we espcially like the MK and EPCOT nightly shows...

 

[mickeymom629]

We had the park hoppers this past week after Easter and we didn't park hop, really, and it worked out. We went to AK on the day of check in (Easter Sunday) about 2 p.m. and stayed almost until close. On Monday, we woke early and went to MGM and stayed all day (had a FDP at H&V), left after our Fantasmic show. Went to MK on Tuesday (drove there in our van at 6:15 a.m.!), left after the early afternoon parade. Took naps after swimming. Back to MK around 6 for rides and Wishes (used a FP for Space M. that we couldn't use earlier because the ride broke during our FP time) and stayed until close at midnight. Wed. we went to Epcot and stayed for Illuminations. We were at OKW, so we could have gone back easily.

So, no hopping is totally possible, and sometimes is a good plan with FP's. We just slow our pace in the mid day when we are getting a little tired. On Thursday, half of my family went to TL and the other half went to a crowded MK at 11. Later, we all did Epcot EMH and that was the only day we "hopped".