Hello Brent,
Oh boy! You must be so excited for your first vacation to
Walt Disney World. When you arrive, be sure to stop at the front desk of your Walt Disney World Resort and pick up a complimentary "First Visit" button, or you can get them at Guest Relations in any of the four theme parks. Cast members love welcoming new visitors and sharing tips to help you have the most magical experience!
You are absolutely correct, adding the
Park Hopper Option to your tickets will give you the freedom to visit multiple parks in a single day. You just need to reserve the FIRST park you plan to visit on each day. On the day of your visit, as long as your party has visited that first park, you'll be able to hop to another park at 2:00 PM (or whenever park hopping begins for the day) without a reservation.
I think you'll find this gives you a lot of flexibility when you are able to
start booking your dining reservations 60 days in advance. You'll have a lot more options available to you for your dinner reservations. For example, if you're trying to dine at
Space 220 Restaurant in EPCOT, you'll be able to make a reservation for a day where your starting park is Magic Kingdom; whereas without the Park Hopper you would be limited to only the date you planned on visiting EPCOT. This is also helpful for booking special experiences like creating your own droid at
Droid Depot or building a custom lightsaber at
Savi's Workshop in Disney's Hollywood Studios.
Thanks for stopping by planDisney with your question. Have a magical vacation!
Diane