I will never buy "park hopper"!...well..never say never.

[eeyore0062]

What a waste! I have been noticing on our last 3 trips, we have not been doing much park hopping. I think I just force myself and my children to go out again in the afternoon to the parks just because we have the "hopper." Well... on our last trip last week, we only park hopped once! We did Epcot in the morning, then later that afternoon, we saw the Little Mermaid show at MGM and that was it!

I won't buy the "hopper" again when we go during summer. It's too hot to go back out and the children are all relaxed and doesn't want to go back out. We do the park early in the morning, then head back to our resort around noonish and then we're done! So the "hopper" is not for us.

Anyone else out there who doesn't park hop or only park hops a few times during their stay?

This is the perfect reason why Disney went with the menu of items that can be included/excluded from a ticket. They took the tickets of yesterday, broke them down into how much it would cost for base... then to add on the park hopper and then the Magic Plusses. Confusing at first--yes, but everyone seems to be coming around to the idea. And they are finding they are saving money by being able to custom design their own tickets to their own needs.

 

[CarolinaBlue]

On our last trip, we only hopped once and that was the day we went to AK. I can't decide whether we need to get the hopper option for our Dec. trip. I think we could do without them as long as we stay away from MK on Christmas Day!

 

[Missy1961]

I love park hopping. I really love Epcot & MK, but I like a few things at MGM & AK. So I'll do AK or MGM in the morning, go back to the resort, then hop over to MK or Epcot. But I understand why you wouldn't hop, so that's why the new tickets are great.

 

[cobbler]

We are AP holders and hardly ever hop either. Its nice that it is there but is rarely used.

 

[OhMari]

I plan on getting Hopper tickets. It will just be me and my husband. My youngest dd will be with the her h.s. band. I do not want to be in the MK all day waiting for the 8:00 o'clock parade. I plan on doing a different park that day, resting in the afternoon and heading out about 5. I'll probably just drag my husband to Mickey's Philharmonic, Buzz, Haunted Mansion and maybe Peter Pan with watching the parade in there.

We are going over Easter vacation in 2007, seems like a long way away-but half the fun is planning.

 

[laurabelle]

I agree! On longer summer trips, we don't hop as often and don't go to the parks everyday. We do hop on our long weekends there, so we went ahead and bought the hopper option for our 10day non-expiry tix...

 

[littlestix]

I like the idea of being able to park hop but, have decided to save the money on this trip. I will be there for 11 days and feel that I'll be able to do plenty w/o park hopping. I'm buying a 10 day ticket because it wasn't much more than an 8 day. This way I can utilize all but 1 day ( we depart early).

 

[aubriee]

I don't use the hopper feature much either, even though I have an AP. This past January I bought my son and GD five day hoppers, but we didn't hop until the very last day when my GD wanted to run over to ride BTMR and SM one last time. In May I was down there for 10 days solo and never did hop. I just never thought about it. I'd get busy in one park and just stay there. In Sept I bought my other son and D-I-L seven day tickets with the plus pack, but no hopping. They really want to do DQ, and also want to do water parks two half days and one full day, so there is no way we'd have time to hop. However in Dec I'm taking my mom for her first ever trip to WDW and she'll be buying the hopper option because she wants to dine in alot of different countries in WS, so most nights we'll end up at Epcot.

In order to get the free dining in Sept I bought myself a 7 day MYW ticket with pluses to match my son's and D-I-L's, but plan on using my AP while I'm down there. Consequently I'll have a 7 day MYW ticket with pluses left over to use next spring after my AP expires in January. I do not plan on renewing my AP and am thinking about taking my GD to WDW next spring. If I do, I'll buy us both a 1 day base ticket in order to get the dining pkg, then upgrade her ticket to a 8 day MYW with pluses to match mine. We will not be park hopping, but I don't think we'll need it. That's what I love about the new MYW tickets. You can customize them to whatever your needs are for that particular trip.

 

[Disney Ella]

We hopped on our first trip. We went to a park, went to the hotel and swam and then went to another park because I read that so many people enjoyed doing it that way. After relaxing at the pool, it was a real struggle to get people back out to the parks again. Now we go to one park, stay there until we're tired and go back to the hotel and spend the rest of the day around the pool.

 

[jarestel]

Hopping was a nice enough perk when it was "free", but I don't see the value in paying for it either. We abandoned our commando ways years ago and don't really care that much if we make it on our favorite rides every trip or not. I agree with the poster who said it gets difficult to motivate everyone to want to return to the parks in the evening after enjoying some "down" time in the afternoon.

Looks like Disney scored a "hit" with the magic your way tickets, since people can spend money on the things that are important to them and save a few bucks on things that aren't.

 

[Goofy4WDW1964]

I don't mind the new tickets, but I am curious as to why people who don't hop are so happy with the new tickets? They aren't saving you any money. Do you not realize that what you are paying for a base ticket without the hopper feature, plus feature, no expiration feature is almost the same as what you used to pay for a ticket that had all of these features? All they've done is taken away all the extras and charge you the same for the ticket.

Disney does know its customers. "Give me less and charge me the same and I will still be happy."

We did hop our last trip and we did pay the extra for it. But, it may have been our last trip. We don't feel the "value" of Disney is there anymore. We still love the magic, but we paid 50% more for our resort this year and 25% more for our tickets. We spent less time in the parks because they were so crowded. That all affects the value, and even with the magic, we don't feel it is worth it anymore.

 

[jarestel]

I don't mind the new tickets, but I am curious as to why people who don't hop are so happy with the new tickets? They aren't saving you any money. Do you not realize that what you are paying for a base ticket without the hopper feature, plus feature, no expiration feature is almost the same as what you used to pay for a ticket that had all of these features? All they've done is taken away all the extras and charge you the same for the ticket.

We absolutely realize this. The difference is that we had to pay for these things that had no value to us before and now we don't. Previously there was no choice, now there is. A 10 day base ticket ( approx $208 ) without hopping that expires is $125 less than adding those options. That savings option wasn't available before magic your way. For those who want these extras, they can pay the $125, for those who don't they can save the money. Looks good to me.

 

[Goofy4WDW1964]

We absolutely realize this. The difference is that we had to pay for these things that had no value to us before and now we don't. Previously there was no choice, now there is. A 10 day base ticket ( approx $200 ) without hopping that expires is $135 less than adding those options. That savings option wasn't available before magic your way.

This is exactly what I mean. If you paid the same amount for a ticket that had all those features last year as you are paying for that same ticket this year, then how are you saving money under the new structure? Your not. You are just getting less. You see it as saving money because having the features now costs more. You would be saving money if your current ticket without the features would cost less than your ticket last year, taking in a small percentage for inflation.

The extra days for very little cost is a nice feature. But, it isn't any coincedence that the savings doesn't kick in until you buy 6 days worth of tickets. Most WDW vacations, not all, were 5 days. Most bought 5 day tickets. So now, we can buy 6 to 10 day tickets for so little more, and we do. But guess what, you now need a resort room for more days. You now need food for more days. You end up spending more. I know because we extended our trip this year. I have read a lot of people on this board that did the same thing. It was smart on Disney's part. But, guess what? We saw less this year on our 7 day Disney vacation than we did last year on our 5 day Disney vacation because of the crowds.

That is part of a larger group of things that has really made us look at what value we are getting. Not just what we pay for it.

 

[jarestel]

This is exactly what I mean. If you paid the same amount for a ticket that had all those features last year as you are paying for that same ticket this year, then how are you saving money under the new structure? Your not. You are just getting less. You see it as saving money because having the features now costs more. You would be saving money if your current ticket without the features would cost less than your ticket last year, taking in a small percentage for inflation.

The extra days for very little cost is a nice feature. But, it isn't any coincedence that the savings doesn't kick in until you buy 6 days worth of tickets. Most WDW vacations, not all, were 5 days. Most bought 5 day tickets. So now, we can buy 6 to 10 day tickets for so little more, and we do. But guess what, you now need a resort room for more days. You now need food for more days. You end up spending more. I know because we extended our trip this year. I have read a lot of people on this board that did the same thing. It was smart on Disney's part. But, guess what? We saw less this year on our 7 day Disney vacation than we did last year on our 5 day Disney vacation because of the crowds.

That is part of a larger group of things that has really made us look at what value we are getting. Not just what we pay for it.

I understand your point, but prices will always go up. Ticket prices from 5 years ago probably seem like a bargain today. All we can do is deal with what things cost today since yesterday's prices are gone and won't be returning. It might have been a "sneaky" way to increase prices over last year's tickets, but as I said, options exist to mitigate the increase if one chooses to take advantage of them.

 

[dahess]

We have always had hoppers & are not going to buy them again for our next trip in December

 

[jann1033]

i guess i never thought not to hop..we go off sason so Mk closes realatively early.I really love epcot at night so we usually go there but i'll have ot really consult with the hubby
about this cause i think we might not have done it as much last time. Mk was open till 7+ so that means except ak, they all were open late enough for us.(not night owls)we don't really hop tons during the day except we like the last day to
do bits here and there..could i stand only one day of rnr
and tot...hmmmmmmmm tough decision
and I can't motivate myself to leave the park to even tour our resort much less swim ( course it's not 90 with 90% humidity when we go)

 

[nluvwithmickey]

I did not have the hopper option on my ticket and did not miss it one bit. We find it time cinsuming to park hop....and when we leave to go to the resort, I usually have to drag my family back in the parks because they are not in the park mood anymore.

Although I am considering adding it on our dec 2006 trip because of the short park hours but no definite decision has been made yet.

 

[palmtreegirl]

We have AP's and always hop. It's well worth it to us because if we get to a park and it's too crowded we just leave and go to another.

 

[milmore104]

We are BIG on park hopping. Specially between MK and EPCOT. We very rarely stay in one park all day. We just love it even w/ our little one and her bundles of stuff.

 

[DeluxePrincess]

I love to hop!! We like to go to the firework shows and parades at night. Gotta be able to hop!!