Park Hopper - Yes or No?

[webs2kids]

I have been reading so much about the recent crowds, it makes me question whether adding park hopping to our ticket is worth the money? We have always been park hoppers. Has anyone experienced being unable to hop to the park of their choice? We will be staying at POR for the first week of April!

 

[MiraclesTakeTime]

I guess it depends on how long you typically spend at each park. Isn't park hopping limited to afternoon/evening hours now?

 

[Marionnette]

I have been reading so much about the recent crowds, it makes me question whether adding park hopping to our ticket is worth the money? We have always been park hoppers. Has anyone experienced being unable to hop to the park of their choice? We will be staying at POR for the first week of April!

IIRC, the MK on the 50th anniversary date was the only time that hopping was suspended for any park since they instituted the park reservation system. We had no problem hopping to another park when we were there in December. But if I didn't have an AP, I would have seriously considered whether to bother with paying for hopping. Being restricted to "after 2 PM" is very limiting.

 

[Gehrig1B]

Park hopping has not been restricted but for about 90 minutes on Day 1 of the 50th Anniversary. We could not visit without hoppers as that is how we enjoy the parks. We rarely hop prior to 2:00 so that part of it does not bother us. We go early, leave for lunch, return for dinner and night activities, usually at a second park. We have done 3 park days recently and could easily have done a 4 park day.

 

[loves to dive]

I went 3 times in 2021 - April, Sept. and Dec. and was never blocked out of hopping. I always have hoppers and always will. The fact that you can't hop until 2 is a bit of a pain but I work around it fine. The advantage for me is when a park is just too crowded I know I can move on and come back another day.

 

[x93nelson13]

I guess it depends on how you plan your Disney vacay. If you can see scenarios where you would hop? And the value is there for you? Then sure. Which applies to anything you spend money on, I suppose.

We always get it because we stay at the GF every time, and we can hang out at other parks, then hop on over to MK for a few rides at night. However, this next trip in a couple weeks we switched to Beach Club, and the close access to Epcot makes it a no-brainer to hop here as well at night.

 

[kcool]

If you are getting genie + the benefit of hopping is that you can stack rides at your evening park. We Had a great evening at Hollywood Studios since we had at least 3 rides lined up when we got there. I am attaching a picture of our line up (Minnie and Mickey was a regular LL at that time, not an extra paid one). We love hopping.

 

[Her Dotness]

We like to book a lunch ADR in a park other than our first for the day.

We ate at a lot more resort TS than we preferred last fall because of the 2:00 restriction and that several favorite TS hadn't reopened yet. QS doesn't work well for us, or where to eat lunch wouldn't have been such a big deal.

Unfortunately, we fear that the 2:00 limit may become permanent for crowd control. If so, we may be rethinking going to WDW as often.

 

[Mango7100]

We have been 3 times in 2021 and have never had a problem hopping. We have APs, but if I were at an Epcot resort or MK resort like Poly I would definitely want hoppers because it’s so easy to pop over at night to eat (Epcot) or just do a few rides (MK).

 

[thanxfornoticin]

We have been 3 times in 2021 and have never had a problem hopping. We have APs, but if I were at an Epcot resort or MK resort like Poly I would definitely want hoppers because it’s so easy to pop over at night to eat (Epcot) or just do a few rides (MK).

Similar for us. Agree with your comment about the monorail resorts. I'd also double-down on that and say the same thing for the BC/YC/BW/Sw/Dolph loop, which has very easy access to both EPCOT and HS. We very much prefer the hopping option, and I don't think anyone needs to worry about being refused access for an afternoon 'hop' except on the absolute busiest of busy days. Normal days at the theme parks, hopping will not be refused.

We found hopping worked well some days with Genie+ - allowed us to better plan out some things we wanted to do in the evenings.

 

[webs2kids]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate your responses. We will remain hoppers in 53 more days!!!

 

[hotboxghost69]

Basically, the parks have not been full enough to prevent park hopping over the recent few weeks (during the holidays, and long weekend, might be a different story). That said, you know your family best and whether or not you would actually use the park hopper on multiple occasions (not really worth it for one time, imo). Just a reminder, you won't be able to hop until after 2pm, and you must visit the park you reserved first before hopping.

tl:dr if you'll use it multiple times, and you are okay with the post 2pm and reserved park rules, then go for it.

 

[stinkpickle]

The 2:00pm limit sucks, but hoppers are still worth it for us.

 

[wisblue]

We always get hoppers.

The 2 PM restriction has very little impact for us because we usually wouldn’t get to the second park before then anyway.

We like the flexibility of being able to do something like go to the MK fireworks or the Epcot night show without being limited to that being our only park for the day. Or being able to start the day at DAK and going to a second park when that closes much earlier or we have done everything we want to do there by mid afternoon.

 

[Mango7100]

Similar for us. Agree with your comment about the monorail resorts. I'd also double-down on that and say the same thing for the BC/YC/BW/Sw/Dolph loop, which has very easy access to both EPCOT and HS. We very much prefer the hopping option, and I don't think anyone needs to worry about being refused access for an afternoon 'hop' except on the absolute busiest of busy days. Normal days at the theme parks, hopping will not be refused.

We found hopping worked well some days with Genie+ - allowed us to better plan out some things we wanted to do in the evenings.

Yes, 100% hoppers for the Epcot resorts. We have stayed at the Swan and it’s so easy to walk over to Epcot or HS for even just 2 hours at night

 

[HerRoyalHighness]

I'm counting on hoppers working for us this time. We have older teens and hopefully they'll make good use out of it while we take a more laid back approach. Split stay at Swan/Swan Reserve.

 

[snikki]

We always use hoppers. We plan on using them to stack this trip.

On RD days we like midday breaks and hop after that break.

When we stay at the Epcot resorts we always had it but it doesn't seem as useful anymore. On days we sleep in and go the pool we would sometimes stop into Epcot for breakfast or early lunch but now that's not an option. It's one reason I'm not as bummed about not staying at an Epcot resort this trip. We had the opportunity to rent DVC at BC but declined.

We would also always go to Epcot for lunch on our DHS morning before heading to the resort for our pool break. I will miss that! We are thinking of doing B&C instead.

 

[lockets]

We don’t park hop. To us it’s not worth the extra money. We do one park per day. Can still stack rides in the park that you’re in for later. We dont want to waste time on mid-afternoon transportation and moving around.

That being said we don’t go with children. If we went with children and left park mid day anyway then that’s a game changer and might as well park hop if one can afford it. But I still think the money is better spent on extras such as G+, ILL, food, merch etc instead of piling more of my money into sheer access to the absolute pleasure of Disney.

Another case where I might change is if it’s a super short trip. Say one to two park days max. For that park hopping makes more sense.

 

[CynBeth]

We always get park hoppers. Were so glad we had them on our Thanksgiving trip as we had trouble getting ROTR and finally were able to book an evening time on a day spent at AK. It happened a few times with Genie+ or ILL.

 

[cjlong88]

We get PH tickets every time. The wonderful thing about it is that you can start in a park that opens early and end in a park that closes late. This allows us to take a nice break in the afternoon without feeling like we are wasting time.

If you get Genie+ you will have more options to
book LL’s if you can move to another park. This comes in handy particularly when you end up choosing the super busy park and you’d like to move to another park with more manageable waits or more LL options. Stacking LL’s in the evening park is our absolute favorite, though. Means we can take the morning park at a more relaxed pace and enjoy the little things more.

I don’t think we will ever visit WDW without PH.