Hello there, Lucy! Thanks for coming by with your awesome planning question.
I'm so happy to hear that you're planning a visit to
The Happiest Place on Earth and that you're hoping to maximize the day by purchasing a
park hopper ticket. All Guests to
Disneyland Park and
Disney California Adventure Park are required to have both a valid theme park ticket and reservation to enter either theme park. For Park Hopper tickets, you need only make a
theme park reservation for the first park you wish to enter. Currently, starting at 11:00 AM PST, any ticket with the Park Hopper option can go between the two theme parks, regardless of the park reservation.
While it is quite uncommon for the theme parks to reach capacity except on the busiest of days of the year, like Christmas and New Year's Day, the
eTicket Terms & Conditions state that "No credit or refunds will be given for the non-use of any portion of a Theme Park ticket’s entitlements." This includes only entering one park with a Park Hopper ticket. I know this may not be what you were hoping to hear. However, this very rarely happens and I recently discovered that Guests will be notified in real-time via a push notification from the Disneyland app in the event that park hopping becomes unavailable. In the last several years as a Magic Key holder and throughout dozens of visits, I have yet to experience being unable to hop between the parks! Lucy, I hope this helps and I encourage you to download the Disneyland Mobile App and read more about
Park Hopper tickets before your visit!
Thank you for visiting planDisney, Lucy. Please come back again sometime!
See you in the parks,
Melissa