Park Hopper - how to plan?

[cheryterese]

We've done 4 family trips and never used park hopper, but I'm currently planning our upcoming late August trip and considering it for the first time. I'm wondering how to plan fp's - do you schedule all 3 at your first park or can it be split? I'm so used to our past scheduling strategy - rope drop with a break in the afternoon and then a return to same park or rope drop to early evening that I'm not even sure how to begin to plan a park hopper trip. Thanks!

 

[ErinsMommy]

You can't split FPs between 2 parks, if you're morning/rope drop people i suggest going on standby for most - --except the super popular ones like FEA, Seven Dwarf, etc. since the parks won't be THAT crowded right away As the day goes on, maybe 11:00 a.m. onwards, it gets more crowded and that's when I would book your FPs.

Another option is book your FPs scattered through the morning, saving the FPs for the really popular ones and going on SB lines for the not as much, then by late morning/afternoon you're all done with your Fps, and you can either go back to the resort for downtime or head to the next park to pull a 4th FP at the kiosk. The later in the day you go to the next park, the more likely all the FPs will be gone.

 

[Klayfish]

No, you can't split your FP+, they have to be in the same park. We hop all the time, but we don't rope drop. Here's what we do. For a planned morning, we usually show up right around 9:00-9:30am. We have our FP+ scheduled for 10:00am, 11:00am, noon...or something like that. Even at 9:30am, many rides don't have insanely long lines (things like FEA, 7DMT excluded). So between FP+, we'll grab a few of the typically less crowded rides. For example, say we have a MK morning and we have PP at 10am and Splash at 11am. We'll hit PP and while we're there, we'll do standby for Small World, or Pirates or something else. Then while we're eating lunch, we'll decide what park (if any) we want to hop to and when. We'll pull up MDE and see what FP+ are available, and at what time. Maybe we'll find RnR for 7pm. So we'll head back home for a bit to chill, then get to HS by 5:00pm or so and do things there.

I know there are many ways to do hopping, but that's normally how we do it. Sometimes we have a hop pre-planned, for various reasons (fireworks, etc...), but most of our hops are decided spur of the moment based on what we feel like doing that day.

 

[AngelDisney]

We are visiting late August as well and this time we are planning an afternoon break back to hotel after lunch. The plan is to rope drop and ride standby for morning park and FP the afternoon/evening park. Have lunch at 11/11:30, do some shopping and return to hotel.

For pre-booking FP+ before arrival, you can only book 3 in advance. But you can book FP+ in two parks the day of. For example, I am prebooking TSMM and Tower of Terror 60 days prior as I am staying onsite. After scanning at TSMM, I can try to book my 3rd FP+ for Test Track at a later time since I will be hopping to EP after the break.

Have fun planning!

 

[mrzrich]

We rope drop and ride whatever we can with little wait in the morning. Then we have our 3 FP booked for the second park.

 

[NJ Goofy]

We don't do RD any more but usually get to the park just after opening. We try to do our 2nd tier attractions in the morning and then have our 1st FP @ 10:30 - 11:00 am. We have lunch and finish our other 2 FP's by 2:30 pm then we head back to the hotel / pool for a break. At our 2nd park we have a ADR and I try to schedule a 4th FP and maybe a 5th FP if we have time and something is available.

 

[cheryterese]

Thanks for all of the good suggestions. I'm so used to our "old" way of doing things that this is boggling my mind a bit! It'll be 3.5 years since our last trip when FP+ was new and the kinks were still being worked out. We never did Park Hopper before because except for one trip where we stayed at PO Riverside we've always stayed off-site, the kids were little and wanted to be in bed by 7:30pm, and Park Hopper didn't make sense. This trip we'll be at Contemporary so we'll have easy access to MK and Ep, our 2 favorite parks. DH and I love Epcot and think it'd be great to have many of our evenings there, especially for the food. The kids love AK and would like to be there more. The kids are older now and with 4 family trips behind us we've done everything extensively and want this trip to be more relaxing with our top attractions rather than doing everything in one park in one day. This will also be our first trip when it will be really hot so we know we'll want a break in the afternoon. I need to wrap my head around some new touring strategies!

 

[Doug S]

I haven't taken a trip without a park hopper. I think it's an absolute must, especially if there's a festival going on at Epcot. Gives you the flexibility to go somewhere else if you run out of things to do or find the park too crowded.

The best way to utilize FP+ on days you plan to hop is schedule all your FP+ as early as possible. That way you can make a new reservation once you use up your first three. Most days you'll be able to get FP+ until the evening on a majority of attractions (sans Seven Dwarfs, Frozen, etc). You do not have to be in the park you plan to park hop to reserve. Ideally, you'd schedule your next reservation as soon as you get off your last initial FP+ attraction. You also don't have to utilize FP+ at all. No idea how much Avatar will change this, but currently you can easily do AK before noon with no FP+ and reserve for another park.

 

[maryj11]

They have a new option with the hopper to buy express transportation it gets you on a bus inside the parks and takes you to inside another park without going through security. I cant remember the price but I think it 24.00 per person for your entire stay and a price less for just one day. Let me go find the information.

 

[maryj11]

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/guest-services/express-transportation-options/

 

[Abatts]

This is our first time using park hoppers. I plan on using FP+ prior to around 12 or 1 each day in our first park and then trying for FP+ at our 2nd park. One exception is AK where we are just rope dropping and have FP+ for our 2nd park. Also our evening park, especially Hollywood Studios, is when we are trying to plan to see more shows and some of the not extremely popular rides (Big Thunder, Splash, Pirates) where we should be able to get FP+ for the evening, hopefully. If not we plan to enjoy a slower pace at night such as Country Bears, Tiki Room, etc. I think it'll be nice to have a more relaxed experience at night rather than rushed.

 

[hdnwaters]

We always park hop and even do 3-4 parks in one day. My DD is very hard to get going in the morning so rope drop is just not possible! I have found that it works best to do our FP+ at the first park. That way we are not stuck in lines at the first park and missing FP+ times in the second park! (oh yes, it happened) After our first 3 FP+ have been used, we start looking for FP+ in the next parks. Love you can do it on your phone now instead of the park kiosk! We also got lucky with buses this past trip so we had little wait time at the bus stop.

 

[Delirium]

It really comes down to what attractions are a priority for you. Getting FPs at major attractions day of can be very difficult, if not downright impossible. In October, we applied a strategy where we sometimes did the first park, other times our second park. Granted, we were there for an extended stay (10 park days) so we had some flexibility (though the hurricane took some of that away).

Here are a couple of example days. Our first day, we did rope drop at MK, with full intention of hopping to Epcot solely for a concert and then to HS for Fantasmic.. We focused on the right hand side of MK that day, doing mid-morning FastPasses for Space Mountain and Pooh, and an early afternoon FP for Mine Train. Immediately after Mine Train, we jumped on the app and scheduled a FP for Fantasmic. We knew we could not get what we wanted for RNR, TOT, or Toy Story at that late date/time, so we had planned to hit those on another day.

By contrast, on our third day, we planned a morning on the left hand side of MK, hitting Jungle Cruise, Pirates, and Splash early before crowds built (Big Thunder was being refurbed). So, on that day we planned our FPs for the afternoon/evening at AK.

On other days we made our decision specifically because of a particular attraction. We had no Epcot mornings scheduled, so on the day we wanted to do Frozen, our FPs were in the second park. By contrast, we prefer HS in the morning, so we scheduled RNR/Toy Story fastpasses (split party for those who did not want to do RNR) on a morning we were at HS. For AK, we made sure and reserved a FP for the evening Safari ride.

In other words, there is no right or wrong answer. It all depends on what attractions are most important to you and when you'll be in those parks. Mine Train and Frozen are examples of attractions where even rope drop does not work well, so they drive your use of FP.

 

[Klayfish]

This will also be our first trip when it will be really hot so we know we'll want a break in the afternoon. I need to wrap my head around some new touring strategies!

Not necessarily. So many of the rides at WDW are air conditioned, and the standby queues are too that you don't need to take a mid-afternoon break, even on the hottest of summer days. Epcot is a great example. We can spend an entire mid-afternoon without melting. Ellens' is 45 minutes of dark and cool air conditioning. If there is no line (outdoor queue), Spaceship Earth is a nice long cool ride. Nemo is indoor the whole way, and a/c, then explore the aquarium. Living with the Land, Mission Space green, short films and Figment can all be done in the a/c with no FP+.

I'm not saying or implying that you shouldn't take a mid-day break. My point is that you don't HAVE to simply because it's hot. WDW does a great job of giving you lots of options to avoid the heat of the day.

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

I usually book all 3 FP's at my first park since I'll spend the morning/early afternoon at one park then transfer. As soon as I have used my last FP at my first park, I go on the My Disney Experience App, and I pick a fastpass at my next park before I even park hop. You can now pick your 4th FP from the MDE app, and it doesn't have to be in the park you are currently in. Your first 3 FP's have to be used in one park though. Hope this helps!

 

[thelittlemermaid2]

We usually plan our fp's for the first park, as this is our "focus" park for the day as far as rides go. The second park we usually focus on the nighttime activities

 

[TnTWalter]

thanks. I'm also getting hoppers first time since first trip long ago. This is my first trip since new FP system. It seems crazy.

 

[CAS239]

Rope drop first park...stay until about 1ish

Back to the hotel to nap, shower if need be, or eat

Then head to second park around 4ish with fps beginning then at that park.

^That's what we do. There's no need to have fps beginning within 2 hours of a park opening since most lines are short. We like getting stuff done then leaving when it's the hottest and most crowded. And then having those good fps for when it's busy is nice. Some like to burn out their 3 fps within the first 3 hours and then try for more fps, but for us, 9 times out of 10 the fps you can get as a 4th,5th, etc FP aren't what we want.

 

[davkata]

Rope drop first park...stay until about 1ish

Back to the hotel to nap, shower if need be, or eat

Then head to second park around 4ish with fps beginning then at that park.

^That's what we do. There's no need to have fps beginning within 2 hours of a park opening since most lines are short. We like getting stuff done then leaving when it's the hottest and most crowded. And then having those good fps for when it's busy is nice. Some like to burn out their 3 fps within the first 3 hours and then try for more fps, but for us, 9 times out of 10 the fps you can get as a 4th,5th, etc FP aren't what we want.

This is exactly what we do! Disadvantage is you probably won't find any "decent" FP+ once you use your 3 as by that late in the day, most are gone...BUT, for us we have RD'd and ridden multiple headliners at our first park and we have "guaranteed" headliner rides , with our FP+ at our 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th!) park. Assuming none have gone down, which is always a risk...

 

[shruley]

We've been in August before and I personally think the mid-day break is a must. Maybe other people can cool off in an hour eating lunch or 30 minutes in hall of presidents but I can't. I need a solid, good 3 hours or so in air or at the pool. It's either so hot by noon that I want to melt into the pavement and just can't take it anymore, or it rained, and I want to go and change into dry clothes or shoes, etc. We try to do EMH for the morning hours whenever possible. It gives us an hour of touring without the sun beating down on you. We then do fastpasses starting about 10:30. After our break we change and eat supper about 5 at a sit down. After either swimming or a nap in the air conditioning, we have more appetite at that time. We love the evening shows, so most nights we are trying to catch those, so that only leaves maybe a couple hours to do rides in between. You can usually find a decent fastpass if you start refreshing right after you use your third fastpass is used, or try to hit some of the high capacity, less popular rides. If you aren't doing an evening show or doing a sit down supper at night it might make more sense to save your fastpasses for the evening.