Would you sacrifice having park hopper to stay in a better hotel?

[DisneyKidsMom]

We are trying to decide if we should give up the park hopper options and use that money towards upgrading to a moderate hotel?

[Dedivah]

I wouldn't, not for a moderate, maybe a deluxe. My family spends more time at the parks than at the hotel. So it wouldn't be worth it for us.

[tad_tad]

Park hopping is absolutely vital to me. I virtually always go to more than one park on any given day.

[KeriWDE]

We have always stayed at Pop simply so that we CAN have the extra money for our park tickets and DDP.

SOMEDAY, maybe, hopefully, when we win the lottery we might stay at the GF or AKL...

note to self: buy lottery tickets...

But for now, Pop Century and Park Hoppers and DxDP is our way to go.

A hotel room at WDW is merely a place to sleep and shower and put our feet up at the end of LONG days of walking and showing our kids a great time.

When we go on other trips to different parts of the country, we pay for nicer hotels. But at WDW, it's Pop!

[birdsell]

My only thought is if you have young kids that may not be able to handle the park hopping and need the rest instead. That might necessitate the want for a nicer hotel without the hopping.

[tad_tad]

I would think that to some extent it might depend on whether the kids still took naps or not. If you go back to the hotel, you may want to go to a different park in the afternoon. If you just do the marathon park visit all day...that may be different. Even as an adult, I like to take a little hotel break in the early afternoon. :-)

[MarkC]

As much as I love to park hop I would always vote for that. Besides, you are really not in your hotel that much and if you are you are usually sleeping. Keep the park hopper.

The exception would be if your kids like to swim a lot and you wanted a pool with more activities, slides, etc. Its always a tough decision since we're all on fixed incomes. Some are just fixed higher than others.

[Basket Mommy]

We gave up park hoppers 3 years ago and haven't missed it. We found that we weren't really hopping anyway. We tend to choose one park and stay there all day, or take a break in the middle of the day and go back to the same park. The only thing it has affected is where we eat our TS meals (we have to either eat at the park we've already been to or go to a restaurant at a resort since we can't go to a different park), but that has been easy to work around.

We're DVC members, so we go at least once a year. We tend to do a park day, then a rest/resort/pool day, then a park day, etc. We're not in the parks every day. We like to relax in between parks so we're not so exhausted. If it matters, our kids are 12, 10, 8 and 6.

[EeyoresBestFriend]

Love the park hoppers and spontaneity that comes with it.

Like some previous posters said, we aren't at the resort except pretty much to sleep . . . so nope ~ park hopping is always better for us! :cloud9:

[PopPhan]

I would think it would depend on 1) number of nights of your stay 2) how many are in your party 3) dining plans and 4) dates of travel.

$54 per person (the individual price on the Hopper option) during the Value season may be a good trade-off, but during a busier time might not. It might be better to have the opportunity to go from one crowded park to another (hopefully) less crowded one, or to allow dining in a different park than the one you want to spend your day visiting.

[1DisneyNut]

We do the same as Basket Mommy. We also quit buying park hoppers years ago. Well actually never paid for them at all. When they switched over to charging extra for park hoppers we never bought them because we never used it anyway. We plan ahead what park we will go to on each day and on the days we finish a park or leave a park early we do the other things such as visit downtown disney, the board walk or go off site to the beach to eat at a nice seafood restaurant. We just simply don't have any desire to waste a major portion of our vacation waiting on buses and going through entrance lines to park hop. One of the most frustrating things about WDW for us is waiting on buses and working through the security and entrance lines. We don't want to deal with that any more than necessary. I know a lot of people do it but it just doesn't make any sense in my mind.
Also, we can't stand the value resorts. We made the mistake of trying to take a low cost extra trip one year and stayed at the All Star Movies resort during the summer. The bus stop is in front of the building where the sun is baking the front wall. It was like standing in the oven every morning for 30 minutes while waiting on the bus. It was absolutely miserable and I dreaded having to go catch the bus every morning. We like the perks and amenities of the nicer resorts so if I were choosing between park hoppers and a nicer resort, it would be the nicer resort every time.

[Mousemates]

we are pretty committed hoppers I suppose in that we seldom spend an entire day at one park...and almost never at the studios or AKL...they (and this is even with the shorter hours of AKL in mind) just aren't all day affairs for us. Without the ability to hop we would end up feeling kind of stranded when we felt like we were done on the days we started at AKL.

To me, at least until they started doing queen beds in the rooms at the mods, the cost to upgrade from a value was negligible...but now I suppose the decision is a bit more complex. I would say do the hopper...but if you take some time off from the parks to nap and swim, the niceties of the mods might be worth a try.

[Basket Mommy]

When they switched over to charging extra for park hoppers we never bought them because we never used it anyway.

That's when we stopped getting hoppers, too. Maybe it's been more than 3 years?!?


We plan ahead what park we will go to on each day and on the days we finish a park or leave a park early we do the other things such as visit downtown disney, the board walk or go off site to the beach to eat at a nice seafood restaurant. We just simply don't have any desire to waste a major portion of our vacation waiting on buses and going through entrance lines to park hop.

Exactly.



Also, we can't stand the value resorts. We made the mistake of trying to take a low cost extra trip one year and stayed at the All Star Movies resort during the summer.

Our one and only stay in the values (Movies, too!) ended in us joining DVC. We're a family of 6, and when the youngest child outgrew the crib, we tried the values. Never again. Just not us. We found that the service, facilities, pools and accomodations@ Deluxes were far superior to what we experienced at the Values. You really get what you pay for ; )


We like the perks and amenities of the nicer resorts so if I were choosing between park hoppers and a nicer resort, it would be the nicer resort every time.

Definitely.

[The Hitchhiking Ghost]

It's kind of like asking the question - "Is the Disney Dining Plan worth it?" It is to some, and to others, not, all depends on your individual situation.

The park hopper is a great tool, but if you aren't going to make use of it, why pay for it. Only you can really decide if it's worth it. We were just down there and initially didn't buy the park hoppers, then added it when we were down there for 5 of us (which included 3 dd ages 3-5-8) and in hindsight, not sure if I still would have gone thru with it. There was probably one real night that made it worth while, as a family, then a couple nights I took advantage of it myself, but really it was the dining plans that drove our park hopping. With kids that young, not sure it was really worth it.

Again, it all depends on your individual situation. If you have a lot of little tykes, not sure a park hopper is the best way to go.

[Daisy'sMom]

Don't take this the wrong way. Please. But if you have to decide whether to buy a park hopper or stay at a moderate, then it would seem the best thing to do is to skip the moderate and the park hopping and pocket the money.
My DH is a divorce lawyer and so many times he needs a break from the awful things that he hears. We head over to WDW and stay a value. We could stay anywhere, but a value serves our purpose and Disney already gets alot of our money.
So, I guess, it is to each his own. :mickey:

[TinkerBeth21]

are you planning to do parks everyday? or are you planning to skip some days? We were going to go to parks every other day and then when we looked at ticket prices a 3 day parkhopper was more than a 5 day base. we decided to save the money and get the 5 day base and go to parks everyday, even if we don't stay in that days park all day we are saving money!

[caryrae]

Since we aren't PH people we would get the Resort upgrade. We have stayed at a couple values (POP and ASMovies) and not to long ago we stayed at 2 moderates (CS and POFQ) and we liked the Mods better, POFQ was our favorite. We are also people who don't Parks every single day too, we like to have a day or 2 that are lazy days where we don't have anything planned except to relax.

[mook3y]

the only reason we have ever added PH was for using the DDP. Many of the places we wanted to eat were at Epcot so we would do one park in the morning and then make our way to Epcot for Dinner.

[forever a child]

We have stopped using PH tickets. I prefer to use the $ for other things. In Dec we used it for nicer resort and DDP. This year for our Sept trip we will use savings to buy tickets to MNSSHP and for Universal Tickets to visit WWoHP for the first time. We can schedule our TS dining with our park we are visiting or we will eat TS at a Deluxe resort and return back to same park. We tend to close parks and follow evening EMH's or go to DTD during early nights when park closes.

I USED to find PH valuable when Fantasmic was shown nightly because we used to see it twice during our visit and would return to DHS on a second night. Now we just have to plan carefully because it is usually only shown once, MAYBE twice during our week visit. :unsure:

[Crow]

good question..
depends on how much time u will spend in parks & how much in resort
last trip i didnt get hopper. which is something i almost always did before. just because it was gf first time there.
id probly go w the hopper

[BugeyedMuggy]

We wouldnt stay in a moderate hotel even if Disney upgraded us for free. The transportation and resort layout make getting around long and tedious. If we can't afford Deluxe or the Dolphin we stay at a value. Just our opinion but I would put the money toward a park hopper.

[KennyandKim]

We don't do the park hopper because we don't have to rush through a park. We can take our time and return to the hotel midday and then return to the same park to finish out our day. We didn't stay at value because my son was suppose to go and we were a party of 5 but he didn't go and we kept our reservation at POR. Its not a big deal to us to schedule our meals around which park we are going to.

[Mitzie]

This is such an individual choice. For our family the resort and restaurants are as much about the trip as the parks. We 'hopped' for the first time this past Oct. why- we were staying at BWI and wanted to go into Epcot several nights to eat in the countries. We would only do this if we were staying in the Epcot area. Other trips we didn't hop and that was ok. We like coming back from AK park and having that evening free to sit in a hot tub or lounge around the resort. If we spent every waking moment in the parks...I would feel short changed...but that is just me.

[Goofster]

We don't buy park hoppers anymore. We do our schedule ahead of time and pick which parks we are doing that day, where we are eating and when we'll have pool days at the hotel. I just don't think its worth the $54 x five people to park hop. To me its a waste of time traveling between the parks anyways, so I don't really see the benefit. So, if I had to choose between a moderate and no PH or a value with a PH, I'd choose a moderate with no PH.

[rubato]

This is a tough question, and, as others have said, really differs from person to person. I can't imagine going to the parks without a hopper. I hate being stuck in one park. I love gettting up in the morning, riding TofT, and then, heading over to Epcot. And, if Epcot is busy, I'm off to the next thing.

But, I also will never stay at a value again. I am unable to cope with the noise level at the values, so I will forever stay at POFQ.

If it were me, I'd do both and not do any dining plans or TS (see, we're all different). :mickey:

[A Big Kid]

I wouldn't, not for a moderate, maybe a deluxe. My family spends more time at the parks than at the hotel. So it wouldn't be worth it for us.


Just the opposite for me.

Park hopper or staying at the Values, I would do without the Park Hopper.

Park hopper or moving up to a deluxe, I'd do the PH.

[BrerGnat]

I, personally, won't do WDW without a park hopper.

That said, I will also NOT (any longer) stay lower than Deluxe level.

So, for me, if I can't afford BOTH, I postpone the trip until I can.

[brownie]

Probably not. I'd rather spend my money on the parks instead of the hotel, if I have to make a choice (which usually we do.)

[LudwigVonDrake]

Nope. Park hopping is part of my trip :mickey:

[MOJoe]

On our last trip, that exact question came up. I polled the family and the vote that came up was split.

2 kids voted to Park Hop

2 parents voted to upgrade the Resort

What did i do?

You guessed it. Both :blush:

[LuvAllPrincesses]

If you are a good planner - you can easily plan ADRs and see a great deal of all parks without the hoppers. If you like to be spontaneous, you probably won't want to be without the hoppers. We decide based on how long our vacation will be. 5 days or less we hop. Our next trip will be 8 days so we will not hop and I will enjoy planning it all out ahead of time to save the money. We hope to not have to stay at values again...they just aren't nearly as relaxing...and will be doing POFQ next trip...after the queen bed renovation.

[Hull-onian]

Do not give up your park hopper tickets for a better resort. It is so easy to go from MK over to EPCOT.....To me the park hopper is worth it..:mickey:

[Jillirose]

No, we value being spontaneous and having more options everyday - especially if we get to a park and it is beyond busy, we ditch!

[Genie1953]

We would never give up our park hoppers even for an upgrade. We mostly use our park hoppers for getting into various parks for meals. In fact quite a few of our meals on our last trip were in Epcot. We were at Disneyworld for 10 days and we did try to schedule ourselves so we didn't have to park hop as often but found it impossible to do so. I should also mention that we made it a point to always head back to our hotel for a rest every afternoon so we did one park in the morning....whichever one was in the vicinity of where we were eating breakfast...and then went back to the hotel for a rest and then headed out to whichever park was in the vicinity of where we were eating dinner. Worked out well for us. It also allowed for spontaneous change in plans if a park was overly crowded.

[johnO]

I would ditch the PH for the nicer resort. We've also quit using PH. When you park hop, you seriously miss out on so much of the fine details at the parks because youre too focused on rushing so you can get to the next park. We've found the park experiences to be so much better when you slow down and devote an entire day.

Also, the buses and food courts at the Moderates are so much less chaotic than values. In 2009 we stayed at Movies. The hotel was worn out and filthy. I made numerous complaints. The buses were always packed and the lines unbelievable. I decided that we were done with values when one night, after Wishes, we waited for over an hour to get on a bus. It was a hot September night, people were vomiting in line, becoming furious, and arguing with the bus drivers. It was absolute bedlam. I watched across the bus depot as the moderate and deluxe hotels had very short lines and more frequent bus pick ups.

Ive waited for over an hour at ASMusic for a bus to epcot one morning in the hot sun. Unreal. It wasnt that the line was long, it was litteraly an hour between the times I saw epcot buses. Again people were furious in the hot Florida sun, the manager and a Bus supervisor came out. They redirected a bus, we got on, only to be involved in a traffic collision, and had to wait for another bus!!!

This last trip at CSR, the buses came more frequently. There is a covered bus stop, w/ drink machines, the lines are shorter, the food court was far less chaotic. The hotel has queen beds, a refridgerator, flat panel TV. Plus, theres a sit down restaurant at the moderates.

You should try it this time. You might like it and be done w/ values and park hoppers, or if you dont like it, you can go back to the values.

[akaDisneyDreamer]

I think I would have to find a way to do both! Cutting back at home to save extra money? Have a garage sale? Disney is really the only thing I ever splurge on! I want everything about my Disney Vacation to be outstanding and to me, staying in a nice place is all part of the magic. So, bottom line, if I had to choose between a nice resort or park hopper, I'd choose the resort, even though I love using the park hopper. Seriously, if you can find a way, I recommend doing both. :tink:

[mom2morgan]

I would. I like both Park Hopping AND stayig in a moderate, but if forced to choose, I'd do the moderate. Love the parks - but it is also important to me to have a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere to hang out in aftewards :-)


We are trying to decide if we should give up the park hopper options and use that money towards upgrading to a moderate hotel?

[dwonderz]

Personally, it depends on the number of days your there.

If your there for a shorter period of time, I would stick with Park Hopper as you will be able to hop between parks and experience more in a shorter amount of time. Also, you won't be spending too much time in your hotel room when your going for a shorter time.

If your there for a longer time and can devote one day to every park - sure, why not splurge and upgrade to a moderate! Maybe you'll get a pin code :)!

[ransam]

wow..never thought of that...i have always used park hopper and stayed in the value....but maybe i can use what i don't spend on the park hopper on a moderate. I"l lhave to do some price comparison.

[johnO]

wow..never thought of that...i have always used park hopper and stayed in the value....but maybe i can use what i don't spend on the park hopper on a moderate. I"l lhave to do some price comparison.

Yeah, try it.

[disney1122]

For a deluxe resort.....YES!

[EJS-Houston]

I would under no circumstances sacrifice getting a Park Hopper pass and being able to go where I want when I want in order to upgrade my hotel. I don't plan to spend all that much time in the hotel, preferring to be out in the parks as much as possible.

[Dsnygirl]

I agree with other people who have said it depends on the length of your stay, and the number of people you are travelling with.

That being said, we always do PH, and would never not use them, unless it was a financial necessity. We don't get them to rush from park to park -- we get them primarily b/c we don't care to do the parks w/ evening EMH during the day, as they are the busiest and lines are the longest b/c of people without PH that are stuck going there all day just to get to the EMH at night. We enjoy relaxing somewhere else, having a nice dinner and then heading to EMH w/o having to have waited in crazy lines all day. :)

As far as the resorts... we have stayed value, mod AND deluxe. Value had either been me on my own for a "girlfriends' trip" or just my DH and I, down there for 3 or 4 nights... we have always gone moderate or deluxe with our girls (now 9 & 12) b/c of the added bathroom space.

But honestly, if I had to choose b/w staying value w/ a PH or going moderate w/o?? I'd stay value and enjoy the freedom a PH gives you, unless your family would really be tight on space. Just my :twocents:....

[wdwfansince75]

Although it would mean changing our visit and tour approach, I am certain that most of our family would forego Park Hopping to upgrade our resort. We have always had hoppers, or length of stay passes...and used SoG for many of our trips...But last trip, DS#2 and DDiL#2 did not hop...and had a wonderful time...
Even with hoppers, DW rarely does more than one park a day...While I usually do one park for early opening, letting her sleep in, and then, meet her at her park for that day...To her, the resort is more important, since she spends more of her time there than at the parks. If giving up the PH would allow us to upgrade the resort stay, we could easily adapt, and the consensus is, so could the rest of the family.

[QTPie68]

This is an interesting post because I have never thought about not getting Park Hoppers, but then, we are just two people...I can see if you had a family of 5 how PH's could add up!

Personally, I would get PH's and stay at Pop Century - but then, my DH actually really likes the values :D.

[RBrooksC]

We always get Park Hopper passes. And we use them. Maybe we don't every day, but during our trip we used them a few times.

First off, we always rent a car so as to not have to use buses. That helps as one can get between parks much faster when one drives.

Second, park hopper passes gives one a flexibility that one may not always have. For example, this May we will be at WDW. Sunday night my wife and I are having dinner at the California Grill with some friends of ours who live in Orlando. After dinner and fireworks, I am going to take my son back to the MK to go on some rides before bed. However, Sunday will be our day in AK since dinner is at 7 PM. If we didn't have park hopper passes, our day would be done and I couldn't walk over to the MK from the CR to let my son enjoy some rides late at night.