Hello Jennifer!
Welcome back to planDisney! I always love a vacation with a good plan and it sounds as if you are trying to make some smart choices for your upcoming vacation. Since you look like you’ll be visiting over the
holidays, I think you are wise to think in advance about whether park hopping will be available or not, since the holidays are typically some of the busiest days of the year.
There are two separate “buckets” of availability for both
Disney Park Pass Reservations and those who have hopped into the park. While we can use the
Theme Park Availability Calendar to view the “bucket” of available reservations, there is not a way to see hopping availability in advance as it will depend on the day and will occur in real-time. If a theme park is no longer offering Disney Park Pass Reservations for the day, that doesn’t mean that Guests cannot hop. There were multiple days last spring and over the summer that while a park no longer had Park Pass Reservations available, Guests were able to hop later in the day.
To date, the only day where Park Hopping was paused was for Guests hopping to Magic Kingdom last week on the 50th Anniversary of the Walt Disney World Resort, and this pause occurred in the early evening. I don’t think this will be a regular occurrence, but I would be concerned about this happening again on a popular day such as New Year’s Eve. So while you can plan to be able to park hop on most days,
it is always possible that hopping could be paused.
On the day of your visit, if you are wanting to hop to another park, you can call the park hopping capacity phone line at (407) 560-5000. This line will alert you if any parks are closed to hopping on that day, at the time that you call. Hopefully, this will help you as you make your plans that day.
Happy planning, Jennifer! Please let me know if you have any additional questions before your visit.
Have a Magical Day!
- Kate