Park Hopper yes/no

[tomshortridge]

YES on the hoppers if doing more than 3-4 days........too expensive otherwise.

DINING options is a big plus. I can do MK during the day, head back to the condo for a swim and then do the Studios for dinner and Fantasmic.

 

[StephMK]

Many here opt for the park hopper, but I have found those who do have already visited WDW and quite often at that.
For first timers I would advise skipping it unless you have extra cash and don't mind loosing it on something you may never use.
WE found WDW to be a huge and overwhelming experience our first time. We didn't even see all of one park in any single day, so you can easily spend your entire day in one park.
The only reason I can think where newbies might need the hoppers is if they are there during the busy season, as you could leave if the park you chose for that day is just too crowded. Not sure what May would be considered. We traveled in Sept. and the lines were short to non-existant.
No matter what you decide, go and enjoy and try to savor the experience.

lori

Ditto on the above. Our first trip was during Jersey Week in Nov. We did not have hoppers & didn't miss them at all. I had planned on 2 MK days, 1 AK & 1 MGM. We loved MK so much that we skipped AK & spent the last day at MK.

Our second trip, I bought MYW tics w/the hopper because the schedule was too hard for parks & dining to work the way I wanted. It is more work IMO to switch parks & meet dining deadlines in other places. We spent too much time traveling from park to park on the buses than I'd prefer.

Our kids were younger so once they get older, we may hop more but it wasn't worth it for us now. Either way I think you'll have a great trip!

 

[Barb D]

You can choose the amount of days for a hopper. Last year we stayed 6 days and bought the 5 day hopper. We took a day off from the parks.

I think what the PP was referring to, though, was having hoppers for some PARK days and not other PARK days. As I understand it, you can't do that. You're right that it's not the same as the old Length-of-Stay passes where you payed for every day you were in the resort whether you were planning on going to the parks or not.

Another note: for me a lot would depend on what the park hours were at the time of my visit. In my case, all of the parks are open late the whole time we're there, and we only have 4 full park days. I don't want to waste time traveling between parks. The only park I can think of that MIGHT not need a full day is AK, but I figure if we get done early we can go to Downtown Disney or the Boardwalk. We don't need to go to another park.

OTOH, if we were going at a time when MK and AK both closed at 6 and we were staying longer, we definitely WOULD get hoppers so that we could go to EPCOT or MGM later.

 

[mickeymom629]

Though we have always had the hoppers, we have rarely hopped. We either stay in a park all day, or return to the same park later. I think you should try to plan your days and see if you are going to find it necessary to go to a different park later in the day.

By the way, you can always get the non-hoppers and, should you find you want to hop when you are there, go to Guest Relations and add the hopping option.

I personally think it's an expense that is unnecessary and you can plan your days accordingly.

 

[lisaross]

we went for 9 nights - i bought 7 day park tickets w/hopper i did not think we'd use it but did it for "just in case" we did use it - we used it because we saw on the weather the day we were doing MGM it was going to rain at night and we wanted to see the nightime show so we went the evening before so we went to MK in the day and at night went to MGM to see the show. Also it was me my husband and two kids - one day me and my son wanted to hang by the pool and my husband took our other son to MGM to hit a few rides then at night we all went to MK.

I think the hopper is kind of like an insurance BUT you can also just add-it on at the parks if you do decide to hop!

lisa