Park hoppers or resort time?

[la79al]

All these posts about how crowded the parks are has me concerned for our trip in 2 weeks. I, by bad chance, scheduled 2 days in least recommended parks. I'm wondering if it makes more sense to add PH onto our tickets and try our luck at another park or just head back for some pool time.

 

[finedice]

I don't understand why you can't just go to a different park altogether... Why would you need PHs? Is it because of FP+?

 

[la79al]

I don't understand why you can't just go to a different park altogether... Why would you need PHs? Is it because of FP+?

FPs and an ADR

 

[finedice]

We'll be there at the same time! I get it. There is always a way to get FPs on the same day wih perseverence. As far as ADRs - there's always something available as well. I guess it depends on how flexible your family is willing to be. To me, no ADR is an absolute must do. FPs are pretty much the same, but require more work to replace with equal options. PHs will help, but only worth the price if you will use them somewhat often and have a trip length that makes the option worth it. We always spring for PHs even though we shy away from other expenditures (like hard ticket events, dessert parties, etc).

 

[Disney Bubble Lover]

I think it depends on how your reservations are scheduled and how flexible you are with your plans. If all your FP and ADRs are clustered together and you have a half a day or very large chunks of time to hop to another park it might make sense. It can take a lot of time to travel between parks so if your reservations are scattered throughout the day within a single park I don’t think hopping will be worth the cost or hassle. You can always add the hopper during your trip if you find you want it. The only downside is it’s all or nothing so you pay to add it to your entire multi-day ticket even if you add it on your last day there.
We purchased hoppers for our first visit and only used it once during six days (the one day we didn’t have an ADR). We had so much on our to do list and had character dinners scheduled most evenings so we found we just didn’t have time to hop. Our second visit we had 9 park days and, as return visitors, a better idea of what we were doing. We built a lot of half days and downtime into our schedule, planned ahead for some hopping when booking ADRs and FPs and we ended up using the hopper frequently on that trip.

 

[MomOTwins]

We'll be there at the same time! I get it. There is always a way to get FPs on the same day wih perseverence. As far as ADRs - there's always something available as well. I guess it depends on how flexible your family is willing to be. To me, no ADR is an absolute must do. FPs are pretty much the same, but require more work to replace with equal options. PHs will help, but only worth the price if you will use them somewhat often and have a trip length that makes the option worth it. We always spring for PHs even though we shy away from other expenditures (like hard ticket events, dessert parties, etc).

This. If you don't want to be in that particular park on that day anymore, and would rather switch to a different park, just change your plans. We never do more than one day per park, so I don't buy the idea that you have to have multiple days with FPs in each park to enjoy it. We pick up the same-day FPs we can with refresh. And ADRs are very very easy to change in the days leading up to a trip.

 

[finedice]

The other thing worth mentioning is that crowd calendars are not necessarily the thing to swear by. Yes, in some cases they are pretty accurate, but in some others, not so much. I have been both served by them and bitten by them in the past. They use some metrics that may or may not apply when all is said and done. I have seen different calendars from different sites that were in complete disagreement in the past. I have seen crowd levels predicted at 4 be 9s, and 8s that felt more like 5s. If you have some sense of what they use as predictors - like holidays in certain areas, day of the week, EMH, and other non-regular WDW events, you probably can get a sense of what to do without them.

 

[gharter]

Crowd calendars may or may not be correct.
Especially with all the changes at EPCOT and HS, they at best can be a guess.
You have the option of adding park hopper to your tickets when you get there if you decide it would be helpful.

 

[lanejudy]

Another thing to mention is the cost of upgrading now. The hopper option went up to (I think) $85 the other day, plus there may be an increase for your dates. If you add hopper, I think you would have to cover the full difference in price. You should look that up in advance to know what to expect.

I would just wait to see what your family feels like doing that day. Unless it's your first day, you can get an idea of the crowds before deciding. Those calendars are somebody's best guess, not definitive based on ticket sales or such and can be wrong. We almost never use Hoppers; once we are done in the park we head back to the resort, dinner at our resort or another resort so no ticket required. We don't do a lot of ADR's either.

Enjoy your vacation!

 

[Tormania]

I think of it this way, one person's crowded park is another person's normal crowd level, so keep that in mind. And how you "tour" can dictate how manageable any crowd level is. It's all based on your expectations. But take what I say with a grain of salt, I'm only on my 3rd trip later this year and we usually go during less crowded times (relatively speaking) but on our previous 2 trips I have never felt that that crowds were excessive. You'd see some long lines for certain attractions (FOP 3+ hrs for example in 2017) but overall between smart FP usage and planning we never felt the press of crowds. Remember though, it's WDW and tens of thousands of people go to the parks every single day of the year.

 

[Disneypro1]

Stick with one park per day. That’s the way to go. Crowds can be mitigated easily using FP correctly..

 

[ClapYourHands]

I am guilty of this kind of second-guessing, too. But the truth is that if you have a solid plan, you can have fun in any park on any day. And crowd calendars are not the most reliable things, either. You could end up doing a lot of work to change plans or spend a lot of money to add hoppers, and not really gain much.

If you really want to change parks, do it. As @finedice said, there are always ways to get FP on the same day, and there are always ADRs to be had. Unless we're talking about giving up CRT, you can probably replace the ADR pretty easily. For some people the "feel" of the park (i.e. how many people are surrounding them in the walkways) is the most important thing, and if you're one of those people, then a change of plans might make the most sense.

But at this point, you probably have good FP scheduled that you booked at 60+ days. You could replace them, but might not be able to easily. If you booked headliners for good times, it's easier to use "refresh" and other strategies for mid-tier and low-tier rides in a crowded park than to start making new FP at two weeks out in a less crowded one.

While numbers on a crowd calendar can make it seem like there's going to be a big difference, there's often not much difference between one number and another. If you're going to a park that's predicted to be an 8, and are tempted to bail for a park that's predicted to be a 6, there's probably not going to be that much difference in how the park feels. Maybe you'll wait an extra 10 minutes in a line at the 8 park, but if you hopped to another park, you might spend an hour in transit.