Park Hoppers with mid-day breaks?

[glohoffman]

Ok I have never used Park Hoppers before, but I am considering them for our upcoming Labor day/week vacation. We plan on doing mid-day breaks where we return to the hotel (Poly) to rest/swim. I am on the fence as to whether this would be helpful or wasteful. I feel like it would take some stress off of the planning, but not sure we can take full advantage? Also unsure how it works with FP+. What would you do? We have a 4 and 6 year old, in case kids throw any considerations in. Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

[mesaboy2]

Ok I have never used Park Hoppers before, but I am considering them for our upcoming Labor day/week vacation. We plan on doing mid-day breaks where we return to the hotel (Poly) to rest/swim. I am on the fence as to whether this would be helpful or wasteful. I feel like it would take some stress off of the planning, but not sure we can take full advantage? Also unsure how it works with FP+. What would you do? We have a 4 and 6 year old, in case kids throw any considerations in. Thanks in advance for the advice!

That strategy works fine for thousands every year. I recommend FP for your second park with this approach.

 

[glohoffman]

That strategy works fine for thousands every year. I recommend FP for your second park with this approach.

Thank you! I think it will be best to deal with any rain, etc. as well.

 

[coolbrook]

Just making sure you know that you can leave and return to the same park in a day without park hoppers. You only need hoppers if you want to go to a different park in the same day.

 

[teller80]

I find park hoppers to be very useful in the off season (which I think Labor Day is) because of the shorter park hours, we spend mornings/afternoons in MK or AK, then hop over to Epcot or HS for the evening. And the park break is a great way to get rejuvenated.

 

[Linda T.]

That is how we do every trip. We do rope drop, swim/rest in the afternoon, and then return to a park in the evening.

 

[mom2AidanAndEli]

If you're on the fence, don't buy the hoppers ahead of time. If you end up not using them, you've wasted money. However, you can add them at any time during your stay there and it costs the same and pre-purchase.

We made the mistake of getting them the first trip and never used them--huge waste of money for us! Have never gotten them since (4 more trips) and don't feel we're missing anything at all. If we take a break, we go back to the same park. If we finish early, we go to DTD, relax by the pool, stop by another resort, play mini-golf, etc.

But each family is different. Do what works for you, but just don't invest ahead of time unless you're absolutely sure!

 

[glohoffman]

THanks all. I am still undecided, but it sounds appealing for rainy days and reservations. Thankfully I have some time to decide!

 

[nessz79]

We're doing this for our next trip. I can't decide on my FP+ strategy yet, but we like the idea of being free to come and go wherever we want, whenever we want. We did this for the first time about a year and a half ago and it was wonderful being able to hop over to a park like Epcot just to grab a margarita in La Cava or ride that one ride you didn't get to. It lent some spontaneity to a vacation that is mostly uber-planned .

 

[davkata]

We were there over a fairly busy week last year (President's week). We would RD for regular hours or EMH/RD depending on park schedules. Then, we would mid-day break back at the hotel and hop to a different park later in the day. We booked our FP+ for that second park usually for 4 pm or later. This worked great for us and we got to ride all the headliners using this strategy. I suppose you could use the same strategy without hopping and return to the same park again in the afternoon. Hopping worked for us, though, because we could change our minds, etc. if we wanted to. We liked the flexibility.

 

[wdwjeffc37]

We always have Park Hoppers for the flexibility it provides for the way we do Disney. Our strategy is to rope drop the EMH park and get all we can get done early. Then when that park starts getting crowded we either go back to the resort or to another park. We get our FP+ for the afternoon or evening at the second park. Then we always like to end our day at either MK or EPCOT for the fireworks. We also like EPCOT for dinners because of the variety. We have even done EMH at MK, hopped to AK for our FP+, then back to the resort for a rest and swim before the evening at EPCOT or MK. Sometimes we will make our FP+ for late at EPCOT or DHS which will be our third park of the day. It's nice to be able to go there knowing we will get to ride Soarin" or Toy Story. We are always there for at least a week and find that this strategy works perfectly. Park hoppers work for us but I know others that don't ever use them. Either way you'll have a great time!!!!!!

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I really like having parking hoppers. If I'm planning to park hop, I make my FP+ ressies for the 2nd park.

I will also park hop to evening EMH parks if I don't want to spend all day in that park.

Right now I've got an AP but if I have regular tickets, I always get park hoppers too.

 

[jhaig]

It's a good strategy as long as you get to your morning park at rope drop. That way you can get the headliners out of the way early, then use your FP's for the park you go to in the evening. We go in Sept every year and this plan works great for us. Hit RD in the morning, ride the big rides with short waits, get lunch, then a break at the hotel (Poly this year, first time - woo hoo!) to swim and relax. After the break, we get an early dinner at whatever park we are going to, then use the FP's we have set up for the evening. Works like a charm, especially with Sept crowd levels.

 

[merina888]

We have always been park hoppers, even with young children. We are only sometime rope droppers because we like to sleep in when on vacation since we get up really early the rest of the year. We generally do one park early in the day, go back to the hotel for a rest and then go to dinner. Sometimes we have dinner at a different park than we were in in the morning. Sometimes we weren't interested in the park we were in in the morning (this happens with DHS or AK) and go somewhere else. We like hoppers because it gives us a choice if the other park was too crowded or we just want to do something else later in the day.

We are like that for most of our vacations though. We have a general outline of what we want to do each day and just go with the flow for everything else. However we always do fastpasses early in the day (because we have young children) which allows for flexibility in the evening.

 

[kdfogliano]

We have ways been park hoppers

And we always take a break right after lunch. Even before we had kids

The kids like to go back and swim and relax a bit too.

We head back to the park we have dinner plans in.

 

[Wendybird55]

I like park hopper and have used it for many trips. However...
When DS was younger (his first trip was just before he was 2) I found park hoppers weren't as useful.

First of all...this does depend on how late parks are open when you go and bedtimes of your children...

Going back to the resort in afternoon is great idea, but sometimes, depending upon which park you're in and what park you will be going to, the transportation times with 2 young ones is a big disruption. I found that by the time we got out of the park, back to the resort and in swimsuits and such for pool, there wasn't much time to relax before we had to go back to room to get dressed and head out to make dinner ADR or whatever. Especially with a young one where late dinners and late nights weren't a good option.

Park Hoppers when DS was very young worked best when we stayed at Boardwalk because it was so close to EPCOT. We usually spent our day in a park (MK, DHS, AK) and then went back to resort to relax then had dinner and spent evening time in EPCOT. It was convenient as it was so close to our resort (we could walk) that we didn't need to leave ourselves over and hour travel time to get to dinner ADR and when DS got tired it was an easier trek back to resort at night.

Since you're staying at Poly..you may want to use your PH to give you evenings in MK...chances are it will be the favorite park for your kids. What's great about monorail resort - as with EPCOT resort - there are a lot of dining options right nearby with the other 2 resorts and MK being a monorail ride away. I think it just makes evenings less rushed and more relaxed when you can be near your resort especially with little ones who can easily get tired and cranky. Plus you don't reel you need to rush out of the day park if kids are having fun to get back to resort in time to relax and then get back out again.

The last couple of years (DS being 7 & 8) we uses our Park Hoppers often. Without a stroller to deal with and DS having more stamina and such it's easier to go from park to park...

 

[gtpoohbear]

The only times we've used park hoppers are when we've done trips with mid-day breaks. For some reason, that second trip back to a park doesn't feel so tedious if it's a different one than you were in earlier. I know it's mostly a mental thing, but we did try to arrange it so that we had one close park and one farther away park each day, so that at least one of the trips was short, and we never had 2 long commutes in the same day. (so when we stayed at YC, we would do AK in the morning and Epcot in the evening, for example.)

I don't see us ever bothering with hoppers without the break though. Leaving one park to go directly to another park just seems time consuming and inefficient. A full day is never enough for us at any of the parks though, so we'd rather just stay where we are if we don't have to leave for a nap.

 

[EeyoreFriend]

We usually do hoppers because we like to make dinner reservations in other parks so we can enjoy strolling around before or after dinner.

 

[pixiemama91]

We always use park hoppers. We like going to a park in the morning till just before or after lunch and then heading back to the hotel for some downtime and take advantage of the pool and let my DD unwind for a little. Then we head back in at night and everyone is feeling a little rested and ready for round 2.