Catherine, welcome to planDisney! I will be happy to help with this question about your tickets and some of my favorite add-ons available. Let's hop to it!
When I visit the
Walt Disney World Resort my tickets are usually based on how many days I will be spending in the parks. For our typical family vacations my kids like focusing on just the one park per day. My wife agrees with that plan so when I am in the minority we do not purchase that option. On shorter visits I always use the Park Hopper option. When I visit with fellow panelists or my adult cousins we want to customize our days down to where we eat each meal.
Park Hopper Passes help us facilitate that, and it is all about the food after all. Park Hoppers are actually not a ticket themselves but an add-on to your regular theme park ticket. So if you decide to have them added on they will expire with your tickets whether you park hop during your visit or not. These unfortunately cannot be used at a later time.
If you decide to park hop I have a few strategies I would love to share. If you are staying at a
Disney Resorts Collection hotel make sure you take advantage of
Early Park Entry, and if you are staying at a deluxe resort check on the
Extended Evening Hours. Base your starting park on the second park being open later than the rest, that gives you extra time to play with. I usually do this so I can take the much needed mid-day break. This break is for young and old alike, this break is what makes difference between the tears of joy vs tears from being tired after the fireworks spectacular for me. If I take a 2-hour break in the middle of my day, I can recuperate and have some extra juice for those nighttime displays like
Happily Ever After at
Magic Kingdom Park. Talk about magic, this show chokes me up every time like clockwork.
I hope you now have a better understanding of the park hopper option. If you have any other planning questions or need some pointers on setting up your trip in any way come on back to
planDisney.com.
See ya real soon,
Jeremy A.