With FP+, are Park Hopper tics a waste ???

[tjlamphere]

Without doing enough reading/pre-planning, I purchased Park Hopper tics. My wife said that, from what she has read, the extra expense of Park Hopper tics is wasted. We won't be able to do the hopping that we did previously, because of the FP+ booking policy. I told her that on an AK day, we get there early and generally leave by 4 PM, leaving time for MK or EPCOT.

Has anyone been successful in combining FP+ and park hopping in the past few months? We are going President's Day Week, so things will be crowded. And we are staying offsite, so can't book any FP until 30 days out.

Someone tell me that Park Hopping will still work as it has for us the past 25 years...please !!!

 

[kaytieeldr]

Many, many, many people. There are at least a couple of different strategies, and this great thread http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3326057

 

[stky6]

We went down August and used park hoppers. We would get to the first park early and hit what we could, then used the fp system for the second park we would visit.

 

[davkata]

We went last year President's week and are going again this year same week. Hoppers worked great for our plans with FP. We rope drop for a park opening or EMH and ride what we want before lines build (usually have about 2 hours to do this). Then we have our FP for another park later in the day or evening. I suppose you could use the same plan and go back to the same park, eliminating the need for the hoppers, but we like the flexibility of hopping. Magic Kingdom is open at least until midnight that week also. We rode headiner rides (Space Mtn, BTMRR) during parades and fireworks with minimal waits. Since you already purchased them, you might as well utilize them. We were only there 5 days of hopppers and rode everything we wanted multiple times and more with this plan.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

I have an AP but I wouldn't consider hopping a waste depending on what you are interested in doing. If you're good with scheduling one park per day, fine, but even with FP having a hopper gives you flexibility to move 1) to a less crowded park, 2) to another park for a meal, 3) to a park that is open later than the one you planned for the bulk of the day.

You can get additional FPs in the park you hop to, after you have used the 3 you previously scheduled or they expire, based on availability.

 

[chelseabun76]

Yup, hit rope drop at park #1, ride what you can before heading to your 2nd park where you have your 3 fp's booked! That's what we are doing on 2 of our days

 

[ktlm]

We still hopped. They are not a waste, but it is different now. You have to really think out your strategy. You have to weigh the balance of using your FP+ at the 2nd park and having no FP+ at the first park at all, against using the FP+ at the 1st park with the possibility of picking up a 4th FP+ later at either park. At MK, there is a chance that if your FP+ are up early that you can pick up a decent 4th FP+ so that is something to consider in your strategy. Maybe you want FP+ early there to try to get a 4th before you leave instead of another park, or maybe you want to use yours at another park early first and hope to pick up a 4th and more at MK. For us at AK, if we get there early we can knock out Safari before the line gets long and then hit EE single rider line and those were the only 2 things we ever FP there, so it would work with hopping because then we book our 3 FP+ at the later park. At DHS, the chances of picking up a 4th FP for anything you need it for are very slim- we book 3 early there, and then as we know we probably can't get a 4th (we have tried at noon and been told absolutely nothing- not even an unpopular one- was available) if the lines are horrible or it is too crowded we can always hop to MK and try to pick up a 4th FP for something. Our departure day, we spent the morning at MK and hopped to EPCOT for a few hours before ME picked us up. We got to EPCOT around noon and could not pick up a FP+ for either TT or Soarin...but the line for Journey to Imagination was 30 minutes (yep-shocking based on pre-FP+ waits), and we were able to pick up a FP+ for that which kicked in 20 minutes later.

What stinks is that you can't see what is available as a 4th in the other park, or get one for the other park, before you get over there and get to a kiosk, so it is a gamble as to whether you will pick up anything good at MK once you are there.

 

[dimndgal1]

Like others, we did hopping with FP+ successfully in Sept. I wouldn't do it during a crazy-busy time, but we enjoyed the 'natural' break hopping gave us.

We did RD and then had FP for the second park... one day, DD7 and DH were even able to three hop and use a 4th FP at the third park (we did RD at AK, 3 FP at EPCOT, and they hopped to HS and got a 4th FP for RnR and standby ToT). One day, we did our FP for HS and then did PM EMH at MK with no FP and still accomplished a ton. It's all about how you like to tour - we use the bus rides as a chance to take a break and our LO often napped so that we were ready to go at our next park.

This last trip is the first we didn't PH in years and while logistically it would have been hard to do (Christmas week!!!), we did miss it. The biggest thing we missed - being able to hop to EPCOT for dinner! Food choices at HS and MK were lacking for us!

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Options of picking up "something good" at MK as a 4th will vary based on how late the park is open, and how late you get there. The closer you are to park closing, the less availability there may be, unless it's open very late. This is at MK. At a park with fewer attractions, like Epcot, the odds of getting a headliner late in the day are not good at all.

 

[Mikie]

BUT if that's all not reassuring and you bought your tix as a package thru a Disney, you have up until full payment at 45 days out to make modifications to your tickets - I'm pretty sure you can drop the hopper option if you think it won't fit your touring.

 

[JRawkSteady]

We only parkhop on the second half of our trip (or if we decide to go to an Evening EMH which is rare). But we do our FP+ the opposite of the usually suggested route. The park we start as is usually our "Main Park" for the day..so we use our Fastpasses there. Then we take our time at whatever park we hop to...if the lines are too long, we just skip it. By this point we have already done all the things we need, so we don't have to worry about Fastpasses or rushing as much. Now this clearly doesn't work for a 4-5 day trip, but for 7-10 days, it has been a clear success in our books!

 

[ktlm]

Options of picking up "something good" at MK as a 4th will vary based on how late the park is open, and how late you get there. The closer you are to park closing, the less availability there may be, unless it's open very late. This is at MK. At a park with fewer attractions, like Epcot, the odds of getting a headliner late in the day are not good at all.

We found it was still pretty good at MK- at least in lower crowd times. I'm sure high crowds will be different. At 3:10 with the park closing at 7:00 p.m. for MNSSHP, we had the option of picking up a 4:30 Peter Pan. We also had BTMR and Splash come up as options.

DHS and AK the 4th was worthless- DHS it wasn't even possible- AK we didn't try because we only need 2 there anyway. EPCOT- we made new friends that did not pre-book and they tried to get Soarin or TT as one of their initial 3 at rope drop and there was no availability even then. The 4th is worthwhile at EPCOT (at least for us) because things like Journey Into Imagination, Nemo, and Spaceship Earth that we usually find to be walk on, had 30 minute lines. We were able to pull 4th (and beyond) FP+ for Imagination and Spaceship Earth (no availability for Nemo either day as a 4th).

 

[dkrauss]

We didn't get park hopper tickets for our last trip in Sept.......but not because of FP+. Primarily because many of our ADR's and out of park events were at other resorts. So for this last trip we didn't need them.

We're older and don't let the rides completely dictate our days but I must say that the additional planning that FP+ required (and note I didn't mind that at all ) Showed us that there was no need for the hopper this trip. So we were able to cancel that feature well ahead of our 45 day payment deadline.

However, we've had them for past trips and they were great and defiantly worth it. They were great when we visited the MK during the day and had an ADR in Epcot that evening. In most cases they offer flexibility but you need to judge how much flexibility you require and then buy the tickets accordingly.

Doug