To Hop or NOT to Hop (2 days)

[Imdboss]

We will be there June 1 and 4...trying to jog between grad nites!

Ok that's good, I think crowds should be manageable in comparison to the kickoff of the 60th, holiday weekends, official 60th, etc. You'll be really happy with the hopper. RSR is really fun to experience during the day and night (I prefer night). So you can ride that when you first get there and then get a FP for an evening return time, head over to DL, do your rides there, then back for your RSR FP. Not that you asked about how to utilize it but just an example of how great it is to be able to park hop!

 

[ebenmax]

Ok that's good, I think crowds should be manageable in comparison to the kickoff of the 60th, holiday weekends, official 60th, etc. You'll be really happy with the hopper. RSR is really fun to experience during the day and night (I prefer night). So you can ride that when you first get there and then get a FP for an evening return time, head over to DL, do your rides there, then back for your RSR FP. Not that you asked about how to utilize it but just an example of how great it is to be able to park hop!

I appreciate your advice! We definitely want to ride RSR at night but can't figure out how to juggle that and still see all 4 night shows!! Not having dining FPs and having to get a spot early. AAAH! Would it be best to do the later show...if we don't collapse??

 

[Imdboss]

I appreciate your advice! We definitely want to ride RSR at night but can't figure out how to juggle that and still see all 4 night shows!! Not having dining FPs and having to get a spot early. AAAH! Would it be best to do the later show...if we don't collapse??

Hmmm 4 night shows in 2 nights, you just might have to accept that you'll collapse lol. I don't have any great advice on that one since DS is scared of fireworks so we skip that and they haven't had any interest in F!, they rather do rides and pin trade. We have attempted WOC twice and I've been less than impressed, basically for the lack of being able to see everything and the amount of time it takes up even with a FP so that's not in our evening plans either. That being said you can go about it a couple ways - 1: get a FP for RSR in the evening and just adjust which show you go to accordingly or 2: hang out by RSR FP distribution for a short bit to get the return time you want so you can see the earlier show.

 

[dorchrislen]

I appreciate your advice! We definitely want to ride RSR at night but can't figure out how to juggle that and still see all 4 night shows!! Not having dining FPs and having to get a spot early. AAAH! Would it be best to do the later show...if we don't collapse??

I don't see how anyone can go from rope drop to closing. We usually stay across the street, hit rope drop until around 1, go rest at the hotel until 4 or 5, then go back until around 10. And we usually don't hop. Otherwise, my feet just are in too much pain. Well I am in my late 40s and way overweight right now, so that doesn't help. But I just don't think I could handle hopping too!

 

[ADLFAN]

Don't forget that one person can be your Fastpass runner and sacrifice a ride in one park in order to run over to grab FP for Radiator Springs for the group, which is how we organized it. And I vote for the nighttime ride, too! So fun!

 

[ebenmax]

I don't see how anyone can go from rope drop to closing. We usually stay across the street, hit rope drop until around 1, go rest at the hotel until 4 or 5, then go back until around 10. And we usually don't hop. Otherwise, my feet just are in too much pain. Well I am in my late 40s and way overweight right now, so that doesn't help. But I just don't think I could handle hopping too!

We definitely are planning the "afternoon break!" When in WDW we generally only stay in a park until 2:00 and then off to our room for awhile. One of the reasons we are so excited about DL is the short walk to VGC! It's just because DL is a brand new experience for my family, we are trying to figure out the best way to see all the highlights.
Since there are 7 of us, we can definitely adopt the FP runner system... Everyone can have a turn taking one for the team!!

 

[kangamama]

Honestly, we ALWAYS hop. We start the say in one park, spend afternoon in the other, and then back to the first for evening. The next day, we just reverse that. I love hopping. That being said, we've still not seen all four night time shows, mostly because we don't want to waste time holding spots to see them , so I don't know if hopping helps with that goal or not!

 

[TLCP]

Disneyland will now restrict fastpass retrieval only to those people INSIDE the park so you can't have a runner go from Disneyland over to California Adventures to pick up fast passes. The tickets for the people still physically in Disneyland will not work for a fastpass at California Adventure....nor can you let your party sleep in while someone takes all the passes to get fast passes for later in the day. If you do early morning then one person can hold a place in the fastpass line which often goes all the way into Bugs Land, but moves quite quickly (less than 20 min) to get all the way through once it opens at 8:00am while the rest of your party rides the actual ride once. My son also loves to ride it once during EMH and then jump back into the singles liine for a quick reride.

We always park hop as well, but also try to do the afternoon break as well. If you get a Disney app for wait lines sometimes you can find a short line you want to take advantage of and are willing to walk across to the other park.

Sounds like some clarification is needed...

The previous discussion I was addressing was about early morning entry into one park and then sending a runner over to the other park at the opening to get fast passes for RSR. Since those Disneyland people are not physically entering California Adventures their tickets won't work for a fastpass until after such time as they actually enter the park and have their ticket read at the kiosk. If you have your entire party actually enter both parks, then you can send a runner afterwards to obtain fastpasses at either park as Disney doesn't know for sure that you ever left.

 

[ebenmax]

Wow! This puts a big damper on the hopper situation. I was under the understanding that as long as everyone in the party had entered the park at least once that day, a runner could go get fast passes. What a bummer.

 

[mom2rtk]

Disneyland will now restrict fastpass retrieval only to those people INSIDE the park so you can't have a runner go from Disneyland over to California Adventures to pick up fast passes. The tickets for the people still physically in Disneyland will not work for a fastpass at California Adventure....nor can you let your party sleep in while someone takes all the passes to get fast passes for later in the day. If you do early morning then one person can hold a place in the fastpass line which often goes all the way into Bugs Land, but moves quite quickly (less than 20 min) to get all the way through once it opens at 8:00am while the rest of your party rides the actual ride once. My son also loves to ride it once during EMH and then jump back into the singles liine for a quick reride.

We always park hop as well, but also try to do the afternoon break as well. If you get a Disney app for wait lines sometimes you can find a short line you want to take advantage of and are willing to walk across to the other park.

That would be a pretty substantial departure from current policy (the part about not being able to leave one park to get FPs when your party is in the other park). Where did you see that announced?

And I don't know that you were ever able to get FPs for people back in the room asleep. I know you can't now, and haven't been able to for as long as I can remember. As it stands currently, the ticket has to have been used to enter one park or the other before it can be used to get FPs.

 

[wenrob]

Disneyland will now restrict fastpass retrieval only to those people INSIDE the park so you can't have a runner go from Disneyland over to California Adventures to pick up fast passes. The tickets for the people still physically in Disneyland will not work for a fastpass at California Adventure....nor can you let your party sleep in while someone takes all the passes to get fast passes for later in the day. If you do early morning then one person can hold a place in the fastpass line which often goes all the way into Bugs Land, but moves quite quickly (less than 20 min) to get all the way through once it opens at 8:00am while the rest of your party rides the actual ride once. My son also loves to ride it once during EMH and then jump back into the singles liine for a quick reride.

We always park hop as well, but also try to do the afternoon break as well. If you get a Disney app for wait lines sometimes you can find a short line you want to take advantage of and are willing to walk across to the other park.

No, I think you've misunderstood the system somewhere. As long as everyone has entered one park and activated their ticket for entry for that day you are good to go. A runner is then free to get FPs for the whole party in either park. I would think if this had changed it would be HUGE news on this board. You are right about not being able to let people sleep in to go get them but that's because they haven't activated their tickets for the day.

As for the FP line past Bug's Land I am assuming you mean for RSR? If you wait 20mins past opening you can just walk right up and get them, minimal to no line. FPs are lasting much longer for RSR now. It of course depends on how busy it is but if you get them before mid morning you should be good.

I vote park hoppers. As mentioned above I'd have a hard time filling an entire day at DCA even with a break. It also comes in handy if you have rides going down, you can hop to the other park.

 

[TLCP]

Sounds like some clarification is needed...

The previous discussion I was addressing was about early morning entry into one park and then sending a runner over to the other park at the opening to get fast passes for RSR. Since those Disneyland people are not physically entering California Adventures their tickets won't work for a fastpass until after such time as they actually enter the park and have their ticket read at the kiosk. If you have your entire party actually enter both parks, then you can send a runner afterwards to obtain fastpasses at either park as Disney doesn't know for sure that you ever left.

 

[mom2rtk]

Sounds like some clarification is needed...

The previous discussion I was addressing was about early morning entry into one park and then sending a runner over to the other park at the opening to get fast passes for RSR. Since those Disneyland people are not physically entering California Adventures their tickets won't work for a fastpass until after such time as they actually enter the park and have their ticket read at the kiosk. If you have your entire party actually enter both parks, then you can send a runner afterwards to obtain fastpasses at either park as Disney doesn't know for sure that you ever left.

The tickets only have to be scanned at one of the 2 parks to be able to get FPs at either park.

 

[ebenmax]

The tickets only have to be scanned at one of the 2 parks to be able to get FPs at either park.

AWESOME!! Thank you!!

 

[Pixie Dust x3]

The tickets only have to be scanned at one of the 2 parks to be able to get FPs at either park.

This may make the difference when we go for 2 days in early August. When I've gone with my daughters by myself I have done the one-park-per-day plan because it was just easier to manage expectations if everyone knew we were only in one park for the day. Otherwise one of the three will ask to change parks and the other two don't want to, etc. But if DH is with us we can more easily split up and I can be a FP runner (always my job) to the other park. Great advice!

 

[jina]

We always do hoppers and have never had to wait more than a few minutes at a gate to get in other than rope drop where we get there 20 min before rope drop and have always been through and at the rope in time.

We've typically hopped 2hrs after rope drop at park 1, then came back again to one of the parks in the late afternoon. I haven't experienced the night time gates as DD goes to bed at 7 (well, at DL its usually closer to 8 or 9). I've heard you can upgrade to a hopper later but if the cost is not a huge deal I'd just start with a hopper so you are not wasting time in the ticket line to upgrade. If you are staying on site, say at GCH I would definitely hop as we love using the GCH DCA entrance to do quick trips over there to get a GRR or Soarin' FP. We've done this during low season (late Feb), spring break (late March), summer (mid-August) and Holiday time (a few days before Christmas). Christmastime was by far the most crowded yet I still have no memories of standing in line very long when hopping. Of course, when the parks get really crowded (midday) we're back at the hotel playing in the pool.

 

[TLCP]

I can only speak from experience...just went to Disneyland for spring break and while myself and my daughter were on Alice in Wonderland during early morning, my wife and son tried to get FP's for RSR and our two tickets were denied. The cast member specifically told my wife that they would not work until they were checked in at the front gate of California Adventure.

 

[mom2rtk]

I can only speak from experience...just went to Disneyland for spring break and while myself and my daughter were on Alice in Wonderland during early morning, my wife and son tried to get FP's for RSR and our two tickets were denied. The cast member specifically told my wife that they would not work until they were checked in at the front gate of California Adventure.

Did the machine spit your tickets back out to you or did the CM just tell you that you couldn't do it?

I just can't believe this changed and we didn't hear more reports about it. It seems like the sort of thing that would get all sorts of attention.

 

[ballisticmiss]

Love hopping at DLR. Never do it at WDW

 

[TLCP]

Tickets were put into the machine and an error ticket popped out. My wife then asked the cast member what this meant and he told her that since the tickets had not been used to enter that particular park yet that day that a fastpass could not be obtained yet.