Do I Need Park Hopper Tickets?
Becky Criswell5.10.20I’ve spent many days in Walt Disney World during my lifetime. Let me quickly tell you about three of my favorites. In 2011, my husband and I were on an adult-only adventure and we spen(t) the last day of our vacation hopping to each of the four Disney parks to experience our most favorite attraction in each park. In 2017, my husband had a business meeting in Orlando and we had just ONE day to visit Disney World. We started the day in Epcot, walked to Hollywood Studios just to ride Tower of Terror (our favorite!), walked back to Epcot, then made a last minute to spend the evening in Magic Kingdom for fireworks! Lastly, in 2018 I was on a VIP Tour with the wonderful agents of Wishes Family Travel and we also were able to visit all four parks in one day. How was all of this possible? Park-hopper tickets!If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain. When you purchase tickets to Walt Disney World you have the choice between base tickets and park-hopper tickets. With base tickets you can only visit one theme park per day. If you start the day in Magic Kingdom, that’s the only park you can visit for the day. When you have park hopper tickets, you can visit as many of the four theme parks as you wish within a single day. The questions I often here are, “Do I need park hopper tickets? Is it worth it?” I hope to leave you with some thoughts today that will help you to make that decision.
Major Advantages:
- Flexibility with Dining Reservations: There are hundreds of restaurants to choose from when scheduling dining reservations for your vacation. The truth is, some of these restaurants are hard to get into and you can’t always get the exact date and time that you are hoping for. Also, some parks have (many) more sit-down options than others. A complaint that I often here is that people don’t like to schedule their entire day around a dining reservation, or be tied to a certain park because it’s the only reservation they could get. When you have a park-hopper ticket you can spend the day in Magic Kingdom for instance and hop over to Epcot for dinner. No problem!
- Nighttime Entertainment: Every park has a unique nighttime show. From fireworks each night in Magic Kingdom and Epcot, to Fantasmic! in Hollywood Studios or Rivers of Light in Animal Kingdom, there’s lots to see! If there’s a particular show you are interested in but you want to spend your daytime hours elsewhere, you can feel free to do that with a park-hopper ticket.
- One Day is Not Enough: Perhaps you visit one of the four theme parks and you couldn’t quite fit everything you wanted into one day. However, you don’t want to commit another full day to that same park. With the hopper option, you can spend just half the day finishing up what you want to do before hopping over to another park.
Who Might Not Benefit from a Park Hopper Ticket? As you can see above, I’m a huge fan of the park-hopper option. However, I will say that this option may not be right for everyone or for every trip.
- Traveling with Small Children: Every child is different and only you know your child best. I mentioned several adult-only trips above, but I have small children and have visited the parks with them multiple times. It’s not always easy hopping around when children are in tow. Especially if you have strollers, diaper bags, etc. to load on and off of buses, not to mention sleepy children to carry. You may find it easier to get to a park and stick with it for the day!
- Shorter trips: Depending on how many parks you want to visit, if you only have a few days you may not want to spend time traveling between parks. If you are there for 3 days and you have 3 parks you want to see, I recommend dedicating one day to each park. On the flip side, if you are short on time but you have lots you want to see in multiple parks the hopper option may indeed be right for you!
I hope this has helped you to understand the Park-Hopper ticket option a little bit better. I’d love to assist you with making these types of decisions in order to plan the best vacation for your family and your individual needs! You can contact me at beckyc@wishesfamilytravel.com.