To buy a park hop add on or not- that is the question

[beachfan]

I will be spending 5 days at WDW this time. Friends from the Orlando will be with me for a day or two and the rest of the time I will be on my own. I am trying to decide between a four day park hop ticket or a five day not park hop ticket. I had thought about taking one day off to go somewhere else. Have you found the park hop option to be a good value in terms of getting to see and do more? Also for dining choices? Thanks for any input. Beachfan

 

[Marthasor]

We always buy the hopper option, however, if you are on the fence, you could buy a 4-day base ticket now and you can then decide once you get there if you would like to add on an extra day of base tickets or the hopper option. No need to commit to the 4-day hop or 5-day base right now.

 

[beachfan]

Thanks Marthasor - that is good to know. I think I will go ahead and do the basic four day for now. Beachfan 50 day count down

 

[Zipears Fan]

I will be spending 5 days at WDW this time. Friends from the Orlando will be with me for a day or two and the rest of the time I will be on my own. I am trying to decide between a four day park hop ticket or a five day not park hop ticket. I had thought about taking one day off to go somewhere else. Have you found the park hop option to be a good value in terms of getting to see and do more? Also for dining choices? Thanks for any input. Beachfan

PH option is crucial for restaurant choice flexibility. IMHO, neither AK nor HS have good restaurants, so we will hop to Epcot for dinner on those days.

 

[Mikie]

For my family of 5, the hopper option sure adds up. I say if we have enough time for at least 2 MK days, 1 AK, 1 DHS and 1-2 Epcot AND park hours arent too short, then we do without the hoppers. If I am needing to do 1/2 day each in DHS and AK, or if it's a time of year when most parks close by 8 and only MK or Epcot is open later, then I might be wanting hoppers to get the most out of my vacation days.

For restaurants, I agree that AK and HS arent' great dining choices, but AK closes earlier than other parks and the wonderful Boma is at the nearby AKLodge. Close down the park and then go to Boma for dinner! DHS day you could do something similar - have a late dinner after park close and go to one of the many good resort restaurants instead of eating in DHS.

 

[mom2rtk]

We never hop. When we get to a park we like to stay all day (we don't visit in the summer months).

That said though, if you are on the fence, the best bet is to leave the option off and add it if you decide to use it. When it comes down to it, we're usually too tired to actually through with it.

 

[Cuppie]

on our 2nd trip we opted NOT to get park hoppers... and it was a bad decision for us. Really made us feel restricted to the park we had an ADR at.

 

[taffy]

We always hop at both WDW and DL.

We find it great ti jump around the parks especially on the 3 and 4th days.

 

[Canuck16]

We always get the hopper tickets and we use it. We like having the flexibility of leaving one park and going to another should the mood strike us

But if you are on the fence do like the OP have mentioned and just get the base ticket as you can add the hopper once you are there and decide you would like it.

 

[kaytieeldr]

PH option is crucial for restaurant choice flexibility. IMHO, neither AK nor HS have good restaurants, so we will hop to Epcot for dinner on those days.

Plenty of resort and Downtown Disney Dining options. Park Hoppers aren't a necessity for dining unless there's a particular place you want to eat and can't fit it in on the day you're at that park.

 

[aristocatz]

The only time we ever park hop is when we go during a very busy park season holiday. We get use out of it then because we can "hop" to a different park if the current park we are in gets too busy & congested. That's really the only time its worth it to us. FP+ makes it very difficult to park hop as well.

 

[kj2mom]

We have never hopped. This year when pricing out the tickets I found the dollar difference pretty much covers our tickets to Seaworld for one day so we are going basic and if needed we will just add it in when we get there. The thing to note, and this was the case when I first looked into it so I am guessing it still is, is if you are on the last day of your pass and decide to add it the cost will be as if you are adding it to all of the days on your ticket even though you may not need it. Hope I am making sense.

 

[Joshuy]

I think it only makes sense if you're staying near magic kingdom or epcot and can hop over there in the evening for dinner or something like that. Otherwise it seems like a big pain.

 

[jeepwreck]

we never hop and our next trip in nov. we just got park tickets with no hopping

we just pick a park for the day and stay there.

 

[Delirium]

It's a personal preference, but we use hoppers extensively. On our last trip (10 days) we used them almost every day. We like to take advantage of late night activities in the parks, but hate the crowds earlier in the day that EMH hours and other special nighttime activities bring in. So, we spend the day at the recommended park and hop over to the busier park at night. We find we get so much more done that way.

Here's some examples of how we used it when we went (in October).

- Went to a non-busy MK on a MNSHHP day and hopped to Epcot for Illuminations

- Spent the day at AK and hopped to HS for Fantasmic.

- Spent the day at AK and hopped to MK for the parade and fireworks

- 3 times we spent the day at MK or HS and hopped to Epcot for concerts

- We never miss evening EMH at MK, but always spend the day at another park to avoid the huge crowds EMH pulls in earlier in the day. Touring MK from after Wishes until a midnight or 1 AM close is magical.

-We don't do a lot of resort 'stuff', but if we do, we do it between parks for the day.

 

[LoveToTravel2001]

We always get hoppers and use it extensively. We take advantage of EMH in the morning then we can hop to another park if it gets busy.
I plan my visit around EMH and then dining ressies. After that, we just go with the flow. We've been known to hit three parks in a day. We might do morning EMH at AK, then go to MK in the afternoon before taking the monorail to Epcot for dinner and fireworks. But we are a rope drop to close group when we are there. So, it depends on how much you like to do in a day.

 

[disneyAndi14]

We always park hop, there are some days we also hit 3 parks in one day. I guess it depends on your touring style. I travel with a 15 yo dd so she really enjoys hopping as do I. If she was smaller or we had elderly people with us it may not be as good an option. We often finish at one park by 1200 if we use EMH so we for sure plan to hop over to another park. The only problem I have found is do you book your FP+ early and hope for rolling ones at next park or do you schedule them in evening and just use the 3, I think that has added one negative to hopping, otherwise it is great for us and worth it.

 

[Brian Noble]

The only time we ever park hop is when we go during a very busy park season holiday.

Interestingly, we do exactly the opposite. During very busy times, when all the park hours are reasonably long and the evening entertainment options are plentiful, we don't find it necessary to mix-and-match mornings and evenings. During slower periods, we'll combine a morning at an early-closing AK or DS with an evening at MK for MSEP or EP for Illuminations.

But, I have learned to never buy it in advance---I buy it during our mid-day break on the day we first decide to hop. Even if I've planned a hopping itinerary in advance, sometimes plans change.

 

[amberpi]

We are hopping fiends. We like to end most days at epcot and then if mk is open later than epcot we'll often hop over there too, so that's 2 hops after 6ish. My dh literally doesn't think that anyone buys a base ticket and the whole thing is some silly disney marketing thing. It's pretty funny.

 

[mummabear]

For the first time ever we are considering not buying hoppers.
We normally travel in May but will be visiting in Nov (Oct 30-Nov 17).
I feel like the last time we hopped (because there are 4 of us) it cost us $60 each time.
I am planning on having dining bookings, more time to check out DTD, swim maybe mini putt(does anyone know what time this closes)
DH thinks that since it costs the same no matter how many days (which is silly really) that we should just add it at the start.
I do thinks it something that would be nice to have but for $250 i'm sure we could make do