talk to me about hopper passes...

[threekidsandasheltie]

Are they really worth the almost $300 more I would have to pay? We are going in June, there will be 4 adults and 3 kids(ages 10, 6, and 2) and will be there for 6 days. I am just trying to determine the best way to do this, I wish I could just get two of the days with hopper passes without spending an arm and a leg.

 

[pigget74]

It all depends on the worth if you want to spend the entire day in one park. We like to start in one park and then close with another--so for us it is worth it if we have the extra money. In the past we have started with early entry park--then switched over to another park as it got crowded.

 

[WAHMto5]

I think it depends on your kids ages and where you stay personally. If you are staying on a monorail resort, I think it would be well worth it.
We normally do not get the hopper since we normally plan for 2 days per park and the kids are normally very tierd after one park and have no desire to go onto another.
Next trip we are thinking about Poly or Beach Club and might consider it for dining purposes, monorail at Poly, ect..

 

[tjmw2727]

I think it depends on your touring style and the time of year. We always hop - one park in the morning, pool or resort break and another park in the evening. We also have parks we favor in the am and those we favor in the pm - (Epcot is a PM favorite!).

It costs the same to add the hopper option now as it will to add it during the tirp so if your not sure you could just get the one park per day tickets now. Then if you decide its worth it to hop add the hopper option. It is based on the number of total days on your tickets however, not the remaining days so you won't save anything by waiting either.

The beneift to waiting on the hopper option is that if you never hop you won't have paid for something you didn't use.

TJ

 

[threekidsandasheltie]

thanks! dh just booked our trip with Disney we are getting the hopper passes, seeing as we will have a newly turned two year old we may need to leave for a while and return later.

so he booked us at the All-Star music resort in the family suite

 

[tjmw2727]

thanks! dh just booked our trip with Disney we are getting the hopper passes, seeing as we will have a newly turned two year old we may need to leave for a while and return later.

so he booked us at the All-Star music resort in the family suite

Just to clarify you can leave a park and return to that same park even without the hopper option. The hopper allows you to visit more than one park per day.

TJ

 

[kristenrice]

As others have posted, it really depends on your personal preferences. Imagine having gone to the Animal Kingdom when it opened at 8am and toured until about noon when a nice lingering rain shower sets in. OK, rain in Florida is nothing new, but THIS rain is not going away. The AK is no fun in the rain because almost everything is outside. Your day is basically over. If you have the option of park hopping, you could go to Epcot where all of the attractions are inside. Granted, you'll have to dodge raindrops in between, but your day isn't lost. The park hopper option gives you a lot of flexibility. If you are unsure, I believe (and someone please correct me if I am wrong) you can add it on to your ticket at any time. If you play for 2 days without hopping and decide you want to add it, I think you can go to guest services and have the hopping option added on to your passes. Good luck and have a great trip!

 

[drivencrazy]

thanks! dh just booked our trip with Disney we are getting the hopper passes, seeing as we will have a newly turned two year old we may need to leave for a while and return later.

so he booked us at the All-Star music resort in the family suite

Hey, that is where we are going to stay as well! We also went for the park hopper passes for our trip... sounds like a good thing to me!

 

[dsnymomof4]

OP - I feel your pain. For a family of 6, it is expensive to park-hop. That's why we decided in August to not get PH - that was a mistake. We really missed not being able to switch parks when we wanted. If we got up and decided we felt like going to AK, but had and ADR in MK, we had to go to MK for the day ( I know, there are worse things in the world than being "stuck" going to MK!). Seriously, though, on our AK day, we didn't really do anything that evening. With PH, we could have went to another park for fireworks, etc. And with having to make ADRs so far in advance, you would't be able to go anywhere besides where you're eating that day. It's just nice to have the option to go where you want when you want.

 

[mom2my3kids]

I am up in the air about it for our next trip. We did not have hoppers when we went in October and did just fine. So much to see why hop? But I may get it next time..

 

[crisi]

As others have posted, it really depends on your personal preferences. Imagine having gone to the Animal Kingdom when it opened at 8am and toured until about noon when a nice lingering rain shower sets in. OK, rain in Florida is nothing new, but THIS rain is not going away. The AK is no fun in the rain because almost everything is outside. Your day is basically over. If you have the option of park hopping, you could go to Epcot where all of the attractions are inside. Granted, you'll have to dodge raindrops in between, but your day isn't lost. The park hopper option gives you a lot of flexibility. If you are unsure, I believe (and someone please correct me if I am wrong) you can add it on to your ticket at any time. If you play for 2 days without hopping and decide you want to add it, I think you can go to guest services and have the hopping option added on to your passes. Good luck and have a great trip!

In addition to dodging the raindrops, PH are useful for dodging the crowds.

Say you show up to MK early in the morning. Its an Extra Magic Hour evening for the MK, which generally means it will get really crowded around lunchtime - but mornings are usually a lovely time - everyone else is going to get "extra magic" and they are sleeping in or doing something else. So you get to MK at opening, have a great three hours before the crowds hit and its now lunchtime. You hop the monorail over to Epcot, grabbing a snack on your way out. The World Showcase is just opening up - which means the Future World is starting to clear out as people go find lunch back in the restaurants at World Showcase. You grab a Fastpass for later in the afternoon for Soarin' and spend a few hours in Futureworld Showcase. After your Fastpass goes by, you get an early dinner at a World Showcase restaurant. Then your family decides that they are bored of Epcot, so you catch the boat over to MGM, you'll make the early Fantasmic, which happens to be your favorite show - you were going to see it yesterday, but it turned out to be Extra Magic Hour there - too crowded to bother with - today everyone is over at the MK though, and you have the park to yourself.

The trick with Disney is to zig when everyone else zags. Park hoppers make it possible to realize mid-zag that everyone else is doing what you want to do - and change plans on the fly.

 

[belle&beast]

I like the flexibility of park hopping. And to be honest, I wouldn't be without it! We used it quite a bit with 2 and 4.5 year old. We were able to use our last day to hit all the favorite attractions in different parks.

 

[hvivona]

We love the park hopper option. We have three kids and they get bored at Epcot and MGM. So it helps to have the park hopper because on the days we go to Epcot and MGM we can flip between those and MK. It also helps with dining if your in one park but want to eat in another. It is absolutly worth every penny!

 

[marybrat]

For our family, park hopping is an absolute necessity. We rarely spend one whole day in the same park. The only park we can remain in all day is MK. The best way for us to tour WS is to bribe the kids with MK or MGM later on. We couldn't survive without hopping.

 

[threekidsandasheltie]

thanks for all the opinions