I go to Disney World all the time for work, and I’ve learned some surprising things about the best ways to navigate the parks.
I’ve always been a park hopper. Why go to one theme park in a day when you could go to two? But I’ve recently come to the realization that I was wrong! Here’s why you absolutely should not park hop in Disney World!
Now don’t get me wrong. You absolutely can have a perfect Disney World day when you park hop. You can watch us do it in this video!
But, I actually don’t recommend park hopping if you can help it. If you have fewer than four days in the parks and want to go to all four, then you might have to, but otherwise there are a few reasons you should avoid hopping.
The Cost
For one, the Park Hopper add-on is another thing to pay for on top of your base ticket. Pricing for the Park Hopper Option varies based on how many days you are purchasing a ticket for, and it is subject to surge pricing.
Typically, it will cost between $60 and $90 per person to add Park Hopper to the length of your trip. For a family, this can add a few hundred dollars to the expense of your trip.
The Restrictions
On top of that, there are restrictions with Park Hopper! Since the 2020 park closures, guests may not hop from their first park until after 2PM, and they have to have scanned into their first park in most cases.
This makes it so that Park Hopping is a lot less versatile than it used to be. When I used to travel to Disney World, we would often go to Extra Magic Hours (now Early Entry) in one park in the morning and then immediately hop to get out of the crowds. That isn’t really an option anymore and can make it difficult to plan your day.
Plus, it has an effect on when and how you can book Virtual Queue access for rides like TRON Lightcycle / Run and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and how the skip-the-line service, Genie+ works.
Travel Time
We also prefer not to park hop due to travel times. At minimum it takes about 20 minutes to get from one park gate to another (via Disney transportation or your own car), and that would be under perfect circumstances. Between transportation delays, arriving right when a bus pulls away, and the unpredictability of Disney World’s transportation; we typically recommend allowing an hour for travel from Point A to Point B05 in Disney World.
An hour for travel means an hour out of your park day! You paid for time in the theme parks and taking an hour (or more if you hop more than once) for travel could have you missing out on some fun. Sticking to one park the whole day means you have the most chance to maximize your Disney day.
The Energy
Perhaps the biggest reason we like to avoid park hopping is because it actually makes us more tired. I know, I know, Disney is tiring anyways. That’s true! But take it from us, we always find ourself more exhausted when we park hop.
The extra steps, rushing for transportation, and taking away a potential hour of riding, snacking, or taking a break in the AC can make for a serious drain on energy. The AllEars YouTube team agrees that if we can avoid park hopping, we do, and we’ll have more energy for the rest of the day!
All in all, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy. Maybe park hopping is your favorite way to do the parks and by all means you should keep that up! But consider some of the cons before you make the purchase. Keep an eye on AllEars.Net for more Disney tips!
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The only reason we get the parkhopper is we buy the discounted military tickets that has the parkhopper included. We park hopped from Animal Kingdom to Hollywood Studios. And was able to ride alot of rides in HS. Then we did a whole day in HS. It was great.
Still miss the old days of FastPass parkhopping with my daughter. We are AP, and there were no restrictions. Staying on-property, we undertook our own “4 park challenge”. We started at AK and ended at MK. In a day we did our favorite 4 rides, at least, and a meal or snack in each park, using bus, monorail, Friendship boat and ferry. After fireworks at MK, we did 4 walk on repeats of Space Mountain to end the evening. Hard to do anything like that any more,
I just went to two parks yesterday and completely agree. I used to like park hopping but the crowds and implementation of Genie+ made it tougher this time around. Not being able to book anything in the second park in advance, and having some of those queues be maxed out on arrival, was disappointing.
Will likely try and do a return trip later in the year and just focus on one park that time.
The only trip I’ve enjoyed park hopping was an adults only trip in 2015 to the F&WF. We would go to EPCOT first do our cooking or mixology demo, have some snacks & then head to another park for the evening. The one time we did park hoppers with our kids they hated it! They felt rushed & like they didn’t get to enjoy the special things at each park. We will never do park hoppers again
I totally disagree with your article. I go to the Park twice a year and I like to see the main st parade and go star wars. I don’t want to stay in on park all day. I want to see the various live shows from park to park. At end of the day I want to end with dinner in Epcot and fireworks.
My wife and I parkhop frequently. Last week, on a Friday, our schedules lined up and we did a four park challenge. At least 2 rides and a snack at each park. We accomplished it, starting at MK, then Epcot, AK, ending at DHS. Next up is doing it using only Disney transportation.
Park hopping can be stressful, especially for day ticket folks, but with planning it can a lot fun. Wear comfortable shoes.
Hopping can be handy if you’re not a big fan of a particular park. Example, if a park only has a few things you like and really want to di them, go there, then hop to a park you can’t get enough of. Or sometimes they way dining reservations play out, it might help in flexibility there.
We had prior to COVID but with strict rules and steep price upcharges in place…we found ourselves leaving the park and heading off Disney property to multiple entertainment locations…including Universal Studios where parking is free after 6 pm….City Walk has quite a bit to offer.