No more park hopping...

[PhilharMagician]

We park hop on many days. Most hopping involves Epcot where we like to spend many evenings dining and winding down the day with a dose of Illuminations. It would definately put a crimp in our style without hopping between parks.

 

[DisneyGuyNYC]

That being said, we've decided we won't be doing parkhoppers again. With Fastpass+ resulting in not being able to use Fastpasses in more than one park per day, meaning that any "second" park we visit will be "standby-only," we're changing the way we tour completely, and visiting just the one park where we have fastpasses. Not only that, but we've come to the conclusion that if we're only likely to use our Parkhoppers 2 out of 6 days, the extra cost isn't worth it. From now on, we'll make Animal Kingdom day a one-park day, and spend the afternoon swimming at the resort or visiting a resort restaurant or Downtown Disney for dinner instead of going to another Park. In the alternative, we'll skip Animal Kingdom altogether and spend an entire extra day at Epcot.

I can't wait to schedule my entire trip down to the ride months in advance.

 

[juniorthomas]

We have done park hopping in the past, but for the past few years have elected not to park hop and just enjoy the park we are in. We like to get there early, take a mid-day break at the room, pool and hot tub, then come back around 4 or 5 for the rest of the evening.
It seems to me, hopping just takes away from park time, or I wind up skipping some things because I'm headed to a different park.
Yes, I know many people like to hop over to MK or Epcot for evening fireworks, but we like getting back to the room early on AK days and like going to DTD some evenings as well.
Do you park hop every trip?

I do. I like the flexibility.

 

[Weather_Lady]

I can't wait to schedule my entire trip down to the ride months in advance.

I'm not excited about it, either -- but when you only go once every two years and have a limited number of days there, you do what you've gotta do to make the best of the system, even if that means deciding months ahead of time that 2:15pm on May 5, 2014 is when we're going to experience Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. (Insert Monty Python priest here: "2:15pm is when you shall feel the Thunder, and the time of the Thunder shall be 2:15. 3:00 is right out.") Believe me, if I had my druthers, I'd be sending an old-timey Fastpass runner to grab an old-timey paper Fastpass in an old-timey way.

 

[Susan Savia]

We park hop. For example we'll go into MK at rope drop and do all we want to do in that park and then head out for another park for the rest of the day. Don't believe in breaks.

 

[epcotisbest]

We never park hop any more just too much hassel getting from one park to another and takes a lot of time!

My point exactly.

 

[Figgy1]

I haven't hopped since there were only 2 parks and back then the food choices at EPCOT were so much better than MK! When I go down we do 10 park days so there's no need for hopping the option is there to upgrade if we feel the need but haven't so far! I can spend 2 full days at both AK and HS with my boys! I like the shows and sometimes it's nice just to slow down and enjoy everything. More power to those who enjoy hopping too me it just takes too much time away from the action!

 

[Todd L]

You know The other option is Try the one park per day ticket and if that dosent seem to work for you then Upgrade to the Park hopper...

 

[epcotisbest]

I haven't hopped since there were only 2 parks and back then the food choices at EPCOT were so much better than MK! When I go down we do 10 park days so there's no need for hopping the option is there to upgrade if we feel the need but haven't so far! I can spend 2 full days at both AK and HS with my boys! I like the shows and sometimes it's nice just to slow down and enjoy everything. More power to those who enjoy hopping too me it just takes too much time away from the action!

We have never done less than a full day at AK or HS. On AK days when we leave at closing, we prefer pool time or DTD time to hopping to another park. Everyone is different, so thank goodness for options...we don't hop, one person here said they hop up to six times per day (wow!) and many others somewhere in between. Makes me happy for choices.

 

[Figgy1]

We have never done less than a full day at AK or HS. On AK days when we leave at closing, we prefer pool time or DTD time to hopping to another park. Everyone is different, so thank goodness for options...we don't hop, one person here said they hop up to six times per day (wow!) and many others somewhere in between. Makes me happy for choices.

ME TOO!!!!!!!

 

[jlsHouston]

We don't hop. We may once the kids get older, but for now we like to pick a park for each day and just stick with that. Some of the preference may stem from the early days...well, at least early for me, when it was just MK and Epcot and we never felt any reason to hop. It's really only since the addition of DHS and AK that I could see us getting into hopping since we struggle to make those all day parks.

Now here's a funny thing...we had some complaints about ride breakdowns on our last trip and were given 2 days of no-expiration park hoppers for our troubles. What irked me a bit...while the girl assisting me was very sweet and very service oriented, she noted something like "at least with the hopper, you can hop to another park if you find yourself in a park with a lot of breakdowns." Odd.

HAHAHA they are training the staff to find the sunny side in everything ! Either that or they found the perfect one for a customer service position..

 

[jlsHouston]

We never park hop any more just too much hassel getting from one park to another and takes a lot of time!

I noticed that about the transportation thing when we park hopped for the first time last visit...and I even had the car...

 

[DfromATX]

We park hopped the first 2 trips, then due to the extra cost we decided to not do it on future trips. I do see the appeal of it though, especially at HS, where there's not as much to do. This year we are arriving a little late (cause we're coming from Universal) so we decided to go to HS on that day - mostly to see Fantasmic and hopefully ride a couple of the few good rides they have.

 

[meklein]

When I was a kid, our mom used to run us to DEATH at the parks - we had to DO everything and SEE everything. It was exhausting and frankly, not fun at all. Even though we can only do WDW about every other year, I just refuse to make it a death march for my DDs. Before we go, I ask what is the one most important thing they want to do or see on the trip. I try to make sure we do that one thing for each of them. Beyond that, anything else is just icing on the cake! We take our time, we sit on benches to eat ice cream, we sit and look at the castle, we pop into a M&G with a random character. If we miss a show, we miss it. If we miss a parade, we miss it. Oh well. Maybe when they get older, we will want to park hop, do more, see more. But only if they want to. I want them to remember our trips as fun times! But, if they said they want to see rope drop at MK, eat lunch at DHS and then do Illuminations, that's what we would do! For the parents who do park hop, as long as the kids are enjoying it - absolutely go for it and have a blast doing it! For us, for now, laid back is the WAY TO GO!

 

[WDW 3]

We do hop every single trip! We love the freedom of changing our minds.
Which happens a lot!

 

[I_heart_Tigger]

I thought about this and, even if you could go to each one in 15 minutes travel time you have 15 min. to MK, 15 to DHS (MGM), 15 to AK, 15 back to Pop, 15 back to DHS, 15 to Epcot, 15 to MK, then 15 back to Pop at end of the day...that comes to 2 hours and 15 minutes of your day going back and forth that could be spent enjoying park time...I'm 52 years old and can't even begin to describe how precious that 2 hours and 15 minutes of park time, strolling hand in hand with my wife, escaping the everyday of regular life, is to us. And 15 minutes is conservative at best, even if you drive and don't have to wait for buses or the monorail.
I am glad it works for you...it would never work for me.

You actually described the perfect reasoning behind me park hopping and why it makes for the most relaxing vacation. We really enjoy the boat rides and the monorail rides from park to park. That is the time that we are not surrounded by the bustle of the parks, we sit, talk, enjoy each others company, relive the events of the first park and get excited for the upcoming park.

Park hopping is the most liesurely way to do Disney IMHO. Anything else is too much about time constraints and trying to pack all of your must do's into the day. I would rather have some relaxation and family time throughout they day and park hopping is the best way to achieve this as well as to make sure we are not restricted to dining options of one park per day.

I wouldn't recommend not doing the park hopper to anyone planning a Disney vacation. Too many restrictions, too much headache and no relaxation time built into your day.

 

[swissamy]

For us, I like having the ability to park hop - whether or not I choose to do it - I want to be able to.

In the past, we have gone to WDW ( an 8 hr drive from NC) 4-5 times a year for short stays of 4 nights. Knowing we were going to be coming back again soon gave us the opportunity to just say, "lets go to the Safari and Exp. Everest this morning and then have the afternoon at Epcot". We never felt the need to do or see "everything" in a park. Sometimes, we would spend the day at Epcot and head to Hollywood Studios for dinner. I want to freedom to go anywhere in the world i want and the flexibility of our now expired Annual Passes provided that...

 

[acishere]

I just didn't feel like paying the extra money for it last time. I honestly didn't feel restrained by not being able to park hop so I'll probably not bother with the hopper next time either.

Also thanks to that Dish ad I keep reading the word "hopper" in a Boston accent.

 

[britdaw]

We did the Park Hopper option on our trip last year, but honestly, I kinda wish we hadn't. We hopped around so much that I feel like there was a lot that we missed because we were too busy planning where to go next.

 

[epcotisbest]

You actually described the perfect reasoning behind me park hopping and why it makes for the most relaxing vacation. We really enjoy the boat rides and the monorail rides from park to park. That is the time that we are not surrounded by the bustle of the parks, we sit, talk, enjoy each others company, relive the events of the first park and get excited for the upcoming park.

Park hopping is the most liesurely way to do Disney IMHO. Anything else is too much about time constraints and trying to pack all of your must do's into the day. I would rather have some relaxation and family time throughout they day and park hopping is the best way to achieve this as well as to make sure we are not restricted to dining options of one park per day.

I wouldn't recommend not doing the park hopper to anyone planning a Disney vacation. Too many restrictions, too much headache and no relaxation time built into your day.

The scenario I quoted had the poster in the first part of the day going from MK to DHS to AK to Pop and back to DHS as just part of the day. No relaxing boat or monorail in that stretch, it is either bus, car or taxi, none of which rate very high on my relaxation meter.
Again, to each his own...if you feel enjoying the day at one park is too restrictive, with too much headache with no relaxation time built into your day, I respect your choice.
For me hopping no longer works...for others it obviously does.