Park Hopping with small children?

[cruisingmom1977]

This is our first trip since our kids (DD4 and DS2) were born. In the past I always park hopped (1 park in am and another after dinner) but we are going in Sept this year when the parks close early and our kids go to bed early anyway. It would save us $180 if we didn't get park hoppers and I was planning on using that money for MNSSHP. Any thoughts? At this point $180 won't break the bank (that ship has sailed LOL) so we could do both, I just don't want to waste money. What is everyone else's experience? Also, we have ADR's every night for dinner so that pretty much locks us into certain parks anyway... We are going for 7 full days and have 3MK, 2EP (or 1EP and 1 day off, depending on how we feel), 1HS and 1AK planned.

 

[Robo]

This is our first trip since our kids (DD4 and DS2) were born. In the past I always park hopped (1 park in am and another after dinner) but we are going in Sept this year when the parks close early and our kids go to bed early anyway. It would save us $180 if we didn't get park hoppers and I was planning on using that money for MNSSHP. Any thoughts? At this point $180 won't break the bank (that ship has sailed LOL) so we could do both, I just don't want to waste money. What is everyone else's experience? Also, we have ADR's every night for dinner so that pretty much locks us into certain parks anyway... We are going for 7 full days and have 3MK, 2EP (or 1EP and 1 day off, depending on how we feel), 1HS and 1AK planned.

We nearly always park-hop... virtually every single day.

But YOU may not NEED to.
How do you know?
What should you do?

Simple:
You don't need to buy the "Hopper Option" UNLESS and UNTIL you need it.

If you are already at one park and decide that you'd like to "hop" to another... right then,
just walk up to a ticket window, add the hopper option and you're ready to hop (that day, and any others, for the rest of your trip.) You must make this and all other upgrade choices within the first 14 day of when the ticket was first used and no later than on the day that you use the ticket's last asset.

If you go and NEVER need to hop, don't buy the upgrade, and you can then spend all those "extra" bucks on more WDW souvenirs!

 

[readytogotodisney]

We're park hopper fans. We've got them for as long as I can remember and have many times done 3 parks in one day.

Our usual plan of action (before and after kids) is to take a mid day break, so going to one park in the am, break, and then a different park afterward is not a big deal at all.

But if you're not sure if you'll use them, I'd go with Robo's plan and wait and see until you're there. Especially if you decide to do MNSSHP (which I think you should - it's awesome!) you'll be able to "hop" that day anyway.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

We've done the parks both ways many times. Hoppers are far from essential.

It is entirely possible to go to one park each day AND take an afternoon break.

Under old FP, we found it was actually more of an advantage to avoid hopping, especially when crowds are relatively low. Hopping to a new park meant a large time gap in FP-.

New FP may make hopping more attractive once again. At least as long as guests can only get FP in just one park per day, and just 3fp total.

It also depends a little like on where you stay, where you plan to eat dinner, and how you use park hours. If you aren't staying out late, then hopping to MK at night won't happen.

If you are staying in the BWK hotel, and want to hop to the WS for dinner every night then hopping is useful.

 

[Dasha Hermosilla]

It depends on your family and how they travel and what you want out of the trip too. We generally do not park hop. We hit the parks at rope drop and the leave around 1 - 3 depending on lunch plans. We then relax at the resort and go to dinner (it seems dinner is often at a resort for us). On occasion we have entered a park in the evening, but we have found everything in Disney takes up time. It takes quite a bit of time to get back to your resort for an afternoon break (and I say this as we normally stay at BLT.. Just takes time to walk back there from wherever you are in the park). We always find our breaks are best when they are a few hours so there is time for the kids to swim and then get redressed without being rushed. In truth.... Usually they would prefer to stay at the pool!

That being said, we did our first trip park hopping in January and it was fun. We only did it though as we have annual passes now so it didn't cost us anything and we got snowed in and had bonus days with very low crowd levels.

I'd follow the advice of planning not to need them an adding them once you get there. With you kids, you might find they are far more tired from web a half day in the park than you anticipated.

 

[linzbear]

You can always try and then add the park hopper option if you feel like you need to.

We have always park hopped in the past (on APs), and last year when we went (with DS4 & DS2) we tried without to save the money (first year without APs). We ended up adding it back on anyhow after using 5 of our 10 day tickets because we were going crazy being limited to one park per day. So this time we're just starting with park hoppers (actually, getting APs again because that will save us money in the long run to get 2 trips in a year, then wait 1.5 years, etc).

You never know until you try, though!