If you bought your tickets before 1/2/05 then this will apply, if you bought them after then you have the newer tickets and I don't have all of the answers for you - but since you said park hopper plus I'm sure you have the older ones. They are still just as valid as the newer ones, just different rules apply to their use.
Park hopper plus tickets have both park admissions and "plus" options admissions. We had a seven day park hopper plus ticket last trip. That meant that we had seven days of park admissions, with the ability to hop between parks as much as we wanted each day. For example, on day one we went to Magic Kingdom in the am, went back to the room, then went to Epcot at night. It is possible to hop to all four parks in any given day on this ticket, or simply stay in one park all day if you like. Four different parks in one day = one day on the ticket, you don't lose any days admissions by hopping.
There were 5 day PHPlus (2 options), 6 day PHPlus (3 options) and 7 day PHPlus (4 options) tickets available prior to 1/2, so depending on which one you bought you would have the corresponding number of options admissions.
In addition, on the ticket we had there were four plus options, good for either of the water parks, pleasure island or wide world of sports. We didn't use any of these that trip, so we still have them on the ticket. With these tickets there was no expiration date on the admissions so you can bring them back until you have exhausted all of the admissions. There was no hopping among the options though, for example if you went to a water park and to pleasure island in one day you would use two options.
You can find the operating hours on
http://www.disneyworld.com - just click on "calendar" right under the main picture.
The ultimate park hopper was a ticket previously offered to resort guests that allowed you unlimited admissions to any of the theme parks and water parks, disney quest, pleasure island, etc. .. for your length of stay at the resort. They were good from the time you checked in until midnight the day you checked out. At check in your room key was loaded with the information and you just used it for your ticket. These are not offered anymore, so you can't upgrade to it. You could upgrade to a newer ticket that is offered now, but that can be pretty complex and it would be hard to tell if it would be in your best interest or not without knowing the specifics of your ticket and your plans.
You need to have a ticket to enter the parks, so if you mean do you need a ticket to eat dinner at the parks, yes... but if you mean do you need something additional beyond your admission ticket to eat at a restaurant, then no. Once you are in the parks pretty much everything is "free" meaning that you can ride the rides, eat, shop, etc. But you can't just get in a park to eat and leave without having using your admission ticket. There aren't any ticket booths in the parks - the only thing I can think of that would require any additional money (beyond paying for food and shopping of course) would be arcades - but I don't even know if there are any at WDW... at
disneyland there are but I'm drawing a blank on anything specific you need additional money for at WDW.
Hope this helps a bit. Have a great trip!
