Park hopping for only 2 days

[DisneyPhD]

Hi, my hubby's parents have decided to drive up to Orlando from Naples where they winter and visit us for a few days during our upcoming trip. (staying at BCV) We plan on having annual passes (just normal not preimun) and are wondering what to do for their passes while they are with us.

They plan to do 2 days at the park with us, but I don't want to be stuck going to just one park each day and want to "hop around". (especially with the reduced hours at the parks).

So far my only idea for park hopping tickets is us buying 2, 5 day hoppers and letting them each use 2 days on them. Then we can use the remaining days on a trip next year or after that ourselves. They do not go every year like us, and would have a problem spending $ they wouldn't be using right away. I consider it an investment since the price is alway going up anyway. It means spending a truck load on tickets this year for us. (annual passes and 5 day hoppers) But at least little PhD is free for one more year!!!

Don't really want to do lengh of stay pass since we won't have any options other then the parks (no BB or PI this trip)

Anybody else have any ideas for park hopping on a mini trip? Anyone every try this before?

 

[tolter]

We usually like to park hop. We're going down next month with a group of twelve, all mixed ages. My husband and I have two days of a five day hopper left. We figured we could do the four parks without any problem. First you have to do a little research as to what parks have early entry. So if you wanted to go to MK, find out what day they open early, go there for half a day, and go to Epcot for the rest of the day. Epcot is the only one open late, 9pm, at least when we're there. Then the other day, we would go to probably AK for half then after a break go to MGM. We've done this before, and as long as we take a few hours in between to relax, we don't find it too exhausting. Good luck!! Tolter

 

[Bagheera]

Well, we're kind of in the middle of doing the same thing. We had two park hoppers with one day left, and we were getting annual passes for ourselves and the Tigger Boy (3 trips within 11-1/2 months). My in-laws were joining us for two days in the parks on our most recent (2/8-16) trip, and my mother and stepfather are joining us for up to four days on our next (10/10-18) trip. We bought two 5-day hopper plus passes. The in-laws used the last day on the old hoppers and the first day of the new hoppers. My folks will use the remaining days on the hoppers, and we will use the plus features for ourselves to go to water parks or PI (if we can manage to leave the Tigger Boy at the Sandcastle Club in October) since we have APs and not PAPs. We'll only have to buy a water park ticket for the Tigger Boy, and we're good to go!

As far as an itinerary for park hopping with grandparents for two days, here's what we did. The day they arrived (non-park), we went to Downtown Disney, and had dinner at Spoodles. First full (park) day with them, we headed to the MK for the whole day. We got there around 9:30, had a 12:35 PS at Crystal Palace, stayed until late afternoon, then headed back to the room to rest before dinner at Jungle Jim's. (Off property? Oh, no!) The next day, we got to the Animal Kingdom around 10:00, headed to the Studios around 3:00, stayed until about 6:00-6:30, back to the room to rest, and then over to Cape May Cafe for dinner at 7:30. Last morning before they left, we had a late breakfast at Chef Mickey's. Got a lot done. YMMV.

 

[DisneyPhD]

Sounds good. My in laws are a little concerned about not having the engery to "hop around", but if you are going back to the room to rest anyway, why not? (they haven't been to WDW in 5 years and yet to see AK.) They will love Epcot, and seeing MK with the grandkid is a must.

I am going to the local mall the get the passes today.


BTW, did you know you can "trade in" unsused days on park hopper to upgrade to new park hopper or an annual pass? If they were Park hopper plus with options, you can only trade in other PAP if you used one option yet.