Park hopping

[Trishnh]

Seeing the post about doing 4 parks in one day & others like this has me wondering...Are we the only ones who do NOT park hop?? Maybe it is because we have 4 children (one of whom uses a wheelchair) but it just seems like such a hassle and waste of time to park hop. We are stricktly 1 park per day people:lol: I can kind of see going from MK to Epcot since you can just hop on the monorail, bet even that you have to change monorails so it is not one quick ride. The busses would just be a pain. We have also relaxed a little and dont feel like we have to be at a park from open-close and that has made it more 'relaxing' and enjoyable. So, any other non-hoppers out there??

 

[napnet]

We are stricktly 1 park per day people:lol: I can kind of see going from MK to Epcot since you can just hop on the monorail, bet even that you have to change monorails so it is not one quick ride. The busses would just be a pain. We have also relaxed a little and dont feel like we have to be at a park from open-close and that has made it more 'relaxing' and enjoyable.

We park hop because we go about 30 times year... It allows us to ride what we want on the days we go. Before i moved to Florida, we barely park hopped since we would go for like 5 days.

 

[Raven66]

We are hoppers. We don't do it a lot in one day. Just usually from one park to another. But this trip, we hopped so much, I think I forgot which park we were in.

 

[Blue-Lightning]

Depends. I'm taking my wife's family tonight, but they're only going to be there for four days (and one at Typhoon Lagoon). So we'll do two parks per day and then use the last day to hit all our favorite rides.

BL

 

[erasure fan1]

We park hop, but its normaly just 2 parks a day. We start at one park in the morning and stay till 1 or 2. We then go back to the room and eat lunch, rest, swim... Then we go back out to another park for the rest of the night. We find this works with kids so they dont burn out.

 

[hokielutz]

We park hop, but its normaly just 2 parks a day. We start at one park in the morning and stay till 1 or 2. We then go back to the room and eat lunch, rest, swim... Then we go back out to another park for the rest of the night. We find this works with kids so they dont burn out.

Same is true for me. We have never done more than two parks in one day, and our mo is the same as yours. We don't hop more cause we are maximizing our time at Disney when we travel there.

 

[Mr Bill]

Since I usually only go for one day at a time, I tend to park hop. A typical trip starts at the MK then goes to Epcot or MGM. The most notable recent exception to this was Cast Member previews for Everest, where the day started at AK then went to Disney Quest.

 

[GoofyMom2]

We don't park hop every day.

On days we don't, it's usually the "first" time we visited that park during that trip. When we get back from our afternoon break, the kids want to go back to the same park to catch the rides we didn't get to do in the AM.

Towards the end of the trip, we will park hop after our afternoon rest. Maybe to catch some rides a second time, or the fireworks etc, or if a different park is having EMH in the PM.

We have 2 boys, 6 and 9, so yes it can be tiring to go from one to another.

 

[brisem]

We park hop--One park in the am go back to the hotel for swimming and naps and then to whatever park we're having dinner in.

 

[tigsmom]

We also hop. We don't do every attraction in each park and we try to rotate thru some new ones each time. For us MGM is a half day park. AK was too until recently. We like to take advantage of EMH in the mornings and do all the big rides. Then we head out for lunch, a swim and a quick nap. Then we head out again for the evenings. Most of the time its to another park. We also don't really make ADRs way in advance, its more like....what do I feel like eating...let's go here! Then we call and see what available. We have been able to get some good last minute meals at some nice places that way.

It doesn't work for everyone, but it has for us for the last 14 years. :wave:

 

[bgraham34]

I can see people who have kids wont park hop. Its alot of work. Its easy for me cause its my wife or a few friends and we just walk out and go. I love to park hop because for me it makes it just a bit more fun.

 

[Since1976]

We have one day left on our Park Hopper passes from a few years ago, and 4 days left on non-Hopper passes from last year.

I treat the PH passes like emergency tickets. I figure we will save them for the last day of our next trip, so we can quickly catch up on all the rides we missed or want to ride again.

 

[amykissangel]

When my friends and I went last year, we were hopping maniacs. On our last dya, we got up to go to the early Animal Kingdom opening, were out of AK by 10:30 (just did Safari, Dinosaur, and PEW), caught a bus to Epcot to do Soarin' and MS and TT, then had lunch @ Italy, caught American Adventure, took the boat over to MGM, saw shows until our FP for ToT and RRC were ready, and stayed there until Fantasmic was done. Then we headed to MK for evening EMH and were there til 1:30.

We were so exhausted:snore: ...but we DID get to do everything we wanted. The days before that, we usually just stayed at one park, or perhaps two:wave:

 

[DisneygeekCT]

We always intend on Park Hopping, but haven't really done it yet. We usually just plan the day at a park. The only exception to that is if we go to Animal Kingdom (on non-EMH nights). Once the park closes, we usually head to one of the other parks.

 

[justducky78]

I honestly don't know how people do 4 parks in one day! Especially during peak times or on the hottest days! I would be fried by the end of the day, literally! We normally do one park in the AM till about noon or 1pm and then nap/pool till 5ish. Then back out at night for dinner and to a different park. Same goes for waterparks. We go early and are out of there by noon when it starts getting really busy and hot.

 

[DisneyMissy]

At the beginning of my last stay (9 days total trip) we did one park per day they after that we hopped. We had a ball doing it.

 

[kennygman]

We're hoppers, we like to go to an early close park like AK then skip over to the EMH Late park and stay till close. Last year my two oldest and I left mom and baby and rode TT, RnR, saw LMA, hopped to epcot and rode Soarin and Test Track and hopped to MK and rode SM, TM and SM all before lunch and met my wife and baby back at MGM for lunch.

 

[Ciciwoowoo]

We DON'T hop! We must be a minority around here! Our trips to WDW are more about relaxing and vacationing. We don't do the frantic run around.

We go about once every year, so we know if we don't see it this time, we'll catch it on our next trip.

Heck, this year, we decided to skip AK entirely and went resort hopping on the monorail!

 

[Did Knee]

We Usually park hop on the day we do MGM, and no, we don't have kids. MGM seems to be mostly shows tailored to little kids, and in September when we go, I can finish the rides (RNR, TOT, GMR) and even a show or two by noon or 1 PM. Then we usually either eat lunch there and take the boat to EPCOT or just hit the boat and eat in world showcase, then finish our day in EPCOT.

 

[CoffeeJedi]

For those of you saying that park hopping is too time consuming or not relaxing, i offer a counterpoint. Each park has peaks and valleys of attendance during the day, park hopping allows you avoid more lines by going to each park in its "down" period. (for example, i avoid the Magic Kingdom before noon, its hard to see more than 3 attractions in the morning)

Alot of people also don't realize that the quickest park hop is Epcot->MGM. If there's not a boat already waiting at Epcot, walk to the Boardwalk resort and take the next boat, or if you're feeling energetic, simply walk from Epcot directly to the Studios! I'm embarrassed to admit that before I stayed at the Dolphin, I didn't even know that those boats existed!