Park Hopper / Base Ticket Question

[BigShot2421]

Hi,

We are currently going down to Disney August 19th-28th.
As I have it planned now we are getting the 8-day hopper.

Upon further review of my planned itinerary I realized we are actually only hopping to a different park twice.

My question is - since it is cheaper to get a 10 day base ticket, would this work. For the 2 day's we hope ,would it just count it as a New day?

Thanks

 

[wizards8507]

No. They won't allow it.

If you're going for ten days, I'd suggest saving a few bucks and just not hopping.

 

[timeman]

The answer to your question is a resounding NO. If you plan on going to two parks in one day you have to have the Park Hopper option. The admissions on your ticket are day admissions not park admissions, which means once you use a day admission you can only go back to the same park that day.

 

[Mukta]

No, it would not work.

If your 10 day ticket is all on one ticket without a park hopper, the turnstyles will not let you in at the second park.

You can buy an 8 day ticket and a separate 2 days paper ticket, but that is more money than the park hopper.

 

[WDWmazprty]

Right. You have 10 days there. Plenty of time to take 2 days for each park; so why hop?

Now, if you have ADR's at another park while you're at one, or if you want to see something specific in another park, then yeah, you'll need a park hopper.

So, you have to decide which you would rather do.

 

[Magical Dreamer]

We went for 10 nights last November with park hoppers at an added $300+.......found out we easily could have saved the $$.

This year we're going with the base tickets......

If I was going for 3-5 days I would get them, but I think it's a waste of $$ for longer stays.

 

[Monty]

If you find you need to go to two parks on one day, you'll have to get the Hopper option. But what you can do is get the base ticket and only upgrade to Hopper if you find you need it. Then if you don't need it you haven't wasted that money. The cost is the same no matter when you add it.

 

[sbkline]

Right. You have 10 days there. Plenty of time to take 2 days for each park; so why hop?

Now, if you have ADR's at another park while you're at one, or if you want to see something specific in another park, then yeah, you'll need a park hopper.

So, you have to decide which you would rather do.

We went for 10 nights last November with park hoppers at an added $300+.......found out we easily could have saved the $$.

This year we're going with the base tickets......

If I was going for 3-5 days I would get them, but I think it's a waste of $$ for longer stays.

But on the other hand, if the OP wants to take advantage of EMH days, then he may want to parkhop.

We are leaving Saturday for WDW and we are staying for 10 nights. However, 4 of our days are off property days. Two days for Universal, a day for Gatorland and shopping at the mall, and a day to go to the ocean. That leaves 5 days for the Disney Parks (or possibly a little more if we decide to do a few hours at one of the parks on the evening portion of one of our off property days) and I want to be able to take advantage of some of the EMH days. For example, on Friday, we are doing DHS in the morning, but then hopping over to Epcot for supper and evening EMH. On monday, (our only Animal Kingdom day) we want to maximize time at AK by doing morning EMH, and then hopping back to DHS later that evening to do EMH there, since we only have a partial day Friday.

So I would say it depends on what his itinerary is. If he is staying on property all 10 days, with 10 days to do the Disney parks, then I would tend to agree that he probably wouldn't need the parkhopper. One could argue that it would be a good idea to have it for restaraunt reservation purposes, but again, with 10 full days at the Disney parks, it shouldn't be hard to work around that. But if the OP has a few days where he is doing other things outside of WDW, then the parkhopper option could very much be worth it for the chance to utilize EMH to his maximum benefit.

 

[wizards8507]

But on the other hand, if the OP wants to take advantage of EMH days, then he may want to parkhop.

We are leaving Saturday for WDW and we are staying for 10 nights. However, 4 of our days are off property days. Two days for Universal, a day for Gatorland and shopping at the mall, and a day to go to the ocean. That leaves 5 days for the Disney Parks (or possibly a little more if we decide to do a few hours at one of the parks on the evening portion of one of our off property days) and I want to be able to take advantage of some of the EMH days. For example, on Friday, we are doing DHS in the morning, but then hopping over to Epcot for supper and evening EMH. On monday, (our only Animal Kingdom day) we want to maximize time at AK by doing morning EMH, and then hopping back to DHS later that evening to do EMH there, since we only have a partial day Friday.

So I would say it depends on what his itinerary is. If he is staying on property all 10 days, with 10 days to do the Disney parks, then I would tend to agree that he probably wouldn't need the parkhopper. One could argue that it would be a good idea to have it for restaraunt reservation purposes, but again, with 10 full days at the Disney parks, it shouldn't be hard to work around that. But if the OP has a few days where he is doing other things outside of WDW, then the parkhopper option could very much be worth it for the chance to utilize EMH to his maximum benefit.

This is all quite true, but it comes with a couple of caveats.

1) Doing morning extra magic hours in one park AND evening extra magic hours in another park requires a tremendous amount of stamina and sleep deprivation, especially if you're going to be in one park or another for ten days without any break.

2) Extra magic hours are great when you're actually IN the extra magic hours, but for the rest of the day you feel the EMH effects by that particular park being more crowded than normal. I'd usually prefer to avoid EMH (except for summer nights at MK) and go to the park that'll be the least crowded for the entire day.

 

[sbkline]

This is all quite true, but it comes with a couple of caveats.

1) Doing morning extra magic hours in one park AND evening extra magic hours in another park requires a tremendous amount of stamina and sleep deprivation, especially if you're going to be in one park or another for ten days without any break.

That's true, but I failed to mention that we will probably be doing some kind of a midday break in there for nap/pool time. I'm hoping that in that one EMH hour in the morning, we can walk right onto the rides in DinoLand and I can get my ride or two on Expedition Everest, and then still have plenty of time to do the essentials at AK and then leave reasonably early in order for my wife and son to get a nap and for me to get some pool time.

2) Extra magic hours are great when you're actually IN the extra magic hours, but for the rest of the day you feel the EMH effects by that particular park being more crowded than normal. I'd usually prefer to avoid EMH (except for summer nights at MK) and go to the park that'll be the least crowded for the entire day.

True, and that's where the benefits of parkhopping come into play. You can do a non EMH park for the first part of the day and then hop over for EMH later. Or do the morning EMH park in the morning, then hop over to another park later. And again, this is even more beneficial if you are eating up some of your vacation on off property activities and want to make up for lost time as much as possible by using EMH to your maximum benefit.

I've done it both ways. Last year, my itinerary only called for parkhopping once, or possibly twice during our trip, and I decided that we could save that money and forgo parkhopping. However, that was also the trip where I decided to try a different approach to ADRs and just make them as I go. Without parkhopping, it greatly limited my options, when I would get on the phone a day or two beforehand to make a supper reservation, knowing that it had to be at the same park that we're doing, or in a resort.

Going during peak Easter season this year, I knew better than to try that approach this time, and even though it all worked out last year, I decided I wanted the freedom that parkhopping offers and that it was worth it this time to pay for that option. But like I said, if we weren't spending 4 days off property, I may have decided differently.