??? Park Hopper ?????

BobbyDukes

Mouseketeer
Joined
Dec 30, 2016
SO for YOUNG FAMILIES!!!!!!! (young kids =Younger than 8 years old). If we all try to save some money and to be honest with you more importantly TIME!!! Why not skip the purchasing of the Park hopper. Through my experience in going with young kids, once we get to the park WE ARE THERE!!! We have never said " Hey lets walk out of this park we are currently enjoying, and walk to the bus loop, stand and wait for the bus, stand on the bus traveling to another park, walk to security, GO THROUGH security and finally arrive into another park". The park hopper to me and my family only adds travelling time on the Disney buses and not experience time in the parks. WE would rather stay in park we started at finish there. The Park hopper is just not a well worth value for us to purchase at this time with a young family.
 
We use it. We’ve travelled to WDW many times & typically go for 8-10 nights. When our boys were small we would start in one park, break midday / nap & then close down another park. Now we use it mostly to have at least some flexibility, we can hop the monorail after dinner & got Epcot or take a break on a boat ride and head over to HS... woth so much planning we really like being able to decide we want to do something different, and then do it! Every family has their own groove. This is ours.
 
I've used it when parks close early, but with young kids, I can see you guys turning in for the night.
 
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We have always had one, we started going when my son was just shy of 3. Of course, there were only 2 parks then but still, we would start at MK, go to the pool for awhile then go to Epcot. As he got older and more parks came, we loved being able to go to a different park mid day, especially if the park we were at was crowded. I don't think there is any right way to do and it really depends on your family make up.
 


Even with young kids, we never left a park once we were there, so we never bought park hoppers. Our kids were happy to nap in their umbrella strollers so we could get to the park around 10am and stay until closing with no problem. To us, hopping (as well as the much-touted mid-day break) is nothing but a huge time-eater, and at WDW, time is money.
 
SO for YOUNG FAMILIES!!!!!!! (young kids =Younger than 8 years old). If we all try to save some money and to be honest with you more importantly TIME!!! Why not skip the purchasing of the Park hopper. Through my experience in going with young kids, once we get to the park WE ARE THERE!!! We have never said " Hey lets walk out of this park we are currently enjoying, and walk to the bus loop, stand and wait for the bus, stand on the bus traveling to another park, walk to security, GO THROUGH security and finally arrive into another park". The park hopper to me and my family only adds travelling time on the Disney buses and not experience time in the parks. WE would rather stay in park we started at finish there. The Park hopper is just not a well worth value for us to purchase at this time with a young family.
Ok? 🤷🏻‍♀️ So don't buy it if it doesn't work for you. We love hopping.
 
We had hoppers when my son was 4 and 5 years old. They worked great for us. The only day we didn't hop was when we did MK the very first day. We stayed until after our CP dinner and by then we were shot. The other days we left mid afternoon and went to the pool or to DTD. Then later in the evenings we got our second wind and headed back to a park. Even my little boy hung in there like a trooper. So much fun!
 


We've done both -- our kids have been twice, first trip they were 2, 4 and 5 and my parents were with us. We had hoppers for that trip and stayed off site in a condo/villa type place. That worked out well -- for example we would go to a park rope drop until early afternoon, head back to the condo, give everyone lunch and naps, and if they were up for it, head back later to a different park. We drove though so there was no waiting on buses, so it was quite quick (10min or less to the parks). It also was nice to have because my parents were exhausted by the third day (and they aren't early risers/my mom takes a long time to 'get ready' to go anywhere) so a few days we went off on our own early in the morning to one park and then met up with them later on at a different park. Worked fine overall.

Second trip was earlier this year, we were on site with no car, and didn't do hoppers, it just wasn't in the budget. We still went back to the room (CBR) via bus for naps/down time, and then would just return to the same park later in the day. This was fine too! I think both can work just fine. I would say I *prefer* hoppers but if it's going to break the budget we're good without them too. A car, on the other hand, is non-negotiable for the next trip! Different strokes for different folks.
 
SO for YOUNG FAMILIES!!!!!!! (young kids =Younger than 8 years old). If we all try to save some money and to be honest with you more importantly TIME!!! Why not skip the purchasing of the Park hopper. Through my experience in going with young kids, once we get to the park WE ARE THERE!!! We have never said " Hey lets walk out of this park we are currently enjoying, and walk to the bus loop, stand and wait for the bus, stand on the bus traveling to another park, walk to security, GO THROUGH security and finally arrive into another park". The park hopper to me and my family only adds travelling time on the Disney buses and not experience time in the parks. WE would rather stay in park we started at finish there. The Park hopper is just not a well worth value for us to purchase at this time with a young family.
We don't hop either and never have. Our youngest is now 8yo and I still don't see that changing. We like getting to a park at opening and staying til close. That is just us though and everyone has a different style of touring. We find the getting around WDW pretty tiring so not looking to PH. We do have AP's so it's not really a cost issue but more a use of time.
 
The frugal side of me thinks the same about hoppers... extra money spent to experience less because of the wasted travel time. Luckily my better half balances me out when I'd default to cheap and miss out in life. For families that don't need/want to hop it makes sense to forgo, but for us we've really enjoyed hopping from or to the park with AM/PM EMH, split MK into 2 halves during party season, or keep bouncing over to Epcot to use our snack credits at a Festival. Hopping seriously helps navigating around the worst crowds.
 
This is really a personal decision. For our family, PHs are non-negotiable. We hop at least once per day and have done so since our first trip (with toddlers). Yes, there's time "wasted" on the transportation, but my family are all introverts and the noise and crowds of the parks eventually gets overwhelming. Hopping on an empty air-conditioned bus mid-day and sitting in silence on the way back to the resort for a break is an enjoyable and needed part of our vacation.

We also used to go for longer trips (10-14 days) so we never felt the pressure to stay in a park all day to get everything done. For us, the flexibility was worth the added cost. I would plan out just a portion of our day (morning EMH at MK on Tuesday, dinner at Epcot on Wednesday, etc) and then leave the rest to whatever we felt like doing at that moment. For example, after we had gone to MK Tuesday morning and went back to the resort for a break, we might just walk over to the bus stop and let the kids pick wherever they wanted to go that evening. Or maybe if we were staying in the Epcot resorts, the adults might walk over to Epcot to get breakfast in France while the kids were sleeping in and then we take the boat to HS when they wake up.

That said, I recognize that every family has their own personality and preferences so I don't always recommend PHs to everyone. My sister's family is not comfortable with the amount of walking at Disney anyway (and hopping adds drastically to how much farther you have to walk) and it's overwhelming for them to leave and go somewhere else when they don't feel that they have "finished" the park they are in. While my family loves the flexibility, for them having too many choices about what else they could be doing is stressful. It's much better to just stay in whatever park they pick for the day and not having PHs makes them relax knowing that if they picked AK for that day, they only have to think about what's going on at AK.
 
Hoppers are a must have for us, and were so when kids were younger and came with us.
But you know - to each their own. I'd never say to someone they must get them. It would never even occur to me.....so I'm puzzled as to why anyone would make a pronouncement that it wasn't for young families.
 
We loved our hoppers, we use the hoppers to save money. We cant buy 4 day tickets so we meet in the middle. And go get our favorite rides at AK and Epcot then go on to MK.
 
We've been doing hoppers since our first trip in 2003. DS was 3 at the time. DD came along in 2006 and we still got hoppers.

When the kids were younger we did RD, then back to the resort for a midday pool break and usually ended our nights in MK. So we hopped just about every day. It worked for us!

Now that they are older we specifically pick AM and PM parks with midday pool breaks.
 
We hop all the time (have 4 kids-9,7,6,3). Two of them don't like fast rides, and we don't like to wait in long lines. Epcot and Hollywood are half day parks for us, so we will then hop somewhere else. We also like eating at the restaurants at Epcot. We will often rope drop MK, monorail (which was my sons FAVORITE ride for a while) to Epcot for Lunch, do our fast passes at Epcot and then go back to hotel to chill for the late afternoon. After dinner, I will put the little kids down to bed and my husband will return to the park with the older ones to ride more intense rides. We also usually take our own car, and if we know we are going to hop day we will spend for the preferred parking (which is good for the whole day), which cuts down on a lot of the travel time. Our kids also LOVE the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game, so we will sometimes stop in there in the late afternoons to get cards and play for a little before going somewhere to eat.
 
SO for YOUNG FAMILIES!!!!!!! (young kids =Younger than 8 years old). If we all try to save some money and to be honest with you more importantly TIME!!! Why not skip the purchasing of the Park hopper. Through my experience in going with young kids, once we get to the park WE ARE THERE!!! We have never said " Hey lets walk out of this park we are currently enjoying, and walk to the bus loop, stand and wait for the bus, stand on the bus traveling to another park, walk to security, GO THROUGH security and finally arrive into another park". The park hopper to me and my family only adds travelling time on the Disney buses and not experience time in the parks. WE would rather stay in park we started at finish there. The Park hopper is just not a well worth value for us to purchase at this time with a young family.

This is pretty much an 'each to his own' scenario. We've always had park hoppers or annual passes, except on one visit where we bought a special ticket that was 1 park each day for 4 days for a reduced price. It didn't work for us.

I think it may (for us) depend on where we are staying. Years ago we stayed in some moderates, All Stars and Pop Century. If I were using a bus to get around from these resorts, I would probably be an advocate for 1 park all day until we were ready to leave for the day and would prepare ourselves to be in the one park all day.

But, in our case we always had a car, whether it was our own or a rental, and going back to our room and relaxing was part of how we toured. Later on we might do an evening at the same park or a different park. This was particularly true for Animal Kingdom as it used to always close early - like 5pm early.

And, for the last 20 years, we've owned DVC at Boardwalk. It's very easy to park hop while staying there. Tour any park during the day and do some strolling in Epcot for dinner and whatever in the evenings, then either walk back or take the boat. Now that the Skyliner is in place it's pretty easy for the resorts that are connected to park hop as well.

Using these resorts you can walk through Epcot to use the monorail to get to Magic Kingdom. Sometimes that works well. Or you can use a combo of bus and monorail and boat. Even while staying at the Grand, Poly or Contemp, it's easy to park hop.

My first and early years at Disney were with young kids and now our last 4 years have been with our young grandchildren. We use park hoppers. But, I can see that if we were staying at a 'bus only' resort, we would probably be going to the one park and back to the room afterwards and not need them. Enjoy Disney the way it works for you!
 
I don't get them ahead of time when traveling with children - I wait to see if we really need them. The hopper option can be added at any time. We usually go during the summer so our touring style is to get up early, go to the parks for a few hours, go back to the resort for lunch/swim/rest and then go back at night. Most of the time we'll go to the same park, but there have been times where we decided to go to a different park so we purchased the hopper.
 
I generally agree with OP but we use hoppers because we’re always there during party season, so we spend days in MK then hop elsewhere in evening. But if it weren’t for the parties we wouldn’t hop. For our big family it’s a huge expense, like $600 extra.
 
I guess over the years we have had park hoppers more times than not. While I don’t think of them as a necessity, they can be useful at times. For example, if your dining preferences are mostly in just one or two parks and you don’t really want to spend several full days there. Or for fastpass reasons, especially parks with tiered ones, where again, you don’t want to spend several whole days there. Maybe you want two fast pass mornings, or a whole day and then just a few hours another morning, either using fast passes there both days, or hitting a park at opening to do the few remaining attractions without fast passes, keeping them for use at a second park later in the day.

But we have made it work and had fun no matter which type of tickets we had.
 
I always hop. Last time, I intended to stay in MK but it was soooooo crowded and crabby people were actually pushing and it was ugly. I rode one ride that I had a FP for (Pirates), then went over to DHS where my favorites were nearly walk-ons. I like having options like that, and for me it’s worth it.
 

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