I’m nervous about getting a boarding group for rise of the resistance, so I have two days booked at HS. We have 4 girls ages 1-10. I’m looking at touring plans and ride options. I know the girls would like Magic Kingdom a lot more than Hollywood studio. Does it seem like a decent idea to keep my Hollywood studio APR’s and hop both days to Magic Kingdom after 2? Our trip is late January early February. I do have a full day planned for MK. I would plan to do headliners that day with rope drop. The afternoons would be more for the rides the little kids love.
How east is it to hop at WDW?
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If you are familiar with the BG process, and hit Join at 6:59:59, you should not have a problem getting a BG number under 60 so you can still hop by 2:00.
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Park Hopping doesn’t restart until Jan 1 so nobody really knows how it is going to work under the new Park Pass rules…Will parks “fill up”? what parks will fill up quicker? will the majority have the same strategy? All that being said, you are going at one of the least busy times of the year and I don’t think it should be a problem…Every park still has park pass availability for every day in January (ex New Years)…Prior to park hopping, the order the parks would fill up are: HS, MK, AK and finally Epcot…If you are going to AK or Epcot, then it might make sense to have HS park pass for those days and then hop to those parks knowing they have the least demand…The risk is that a lot of other people will have that same strategy (especially at Epcot because of the dining options)
I plan to park hop to Epcot pretty much every day for dinner since I’m staying at Boardwalk. If you have ADR’s will they let you in for sure even if it’s full? That might also be a way for this situation in this post to guarantee entrance to Mk?
I believe from theme park to theme park there is often a bus for parks that aren’t connected by monorail, skyliner or boat (example DHS to EPC and MK to EPC). I wonder if there is a bus from DHS to MK for park hoppers? If not my suggestion would be to get on the Contemporary bus and walk from there or the Grand Floridian bus and take the monorail from there. It’s much easier to get from park to park than it is from hotel to hotel but it’s still not as wonderful as DLR or USOR where you can just walk or take the train in Universal.
I called and asked this very question yesterday! I was told that those with reservations have a separate park availability pool but if the park is full when you show up for your reservation, the CM at the front of the park will provide options for you. I took that as- it’s still a possibility that a park COULD be full even if you have an ADR, but unless it’s a holiday notorious for filling up, it probably won’t be a problem.
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Options? Like move your reservation to a later time and hope people start leaving but this would only work if the restaurant wasn’t booked out? I’m assuming in this situation you wouldn’t be charged the no show fee. What if you booked a prepaid meal like CRT? (If it’s still prepaid right now?). I cannot believe they wouldn’t account for people with ADRs in their park capacity.
I know, I was thinking the same thing- sooo, “options” meaning they wont charge us $10??
But, the vibe I got by the end of our convo was “Seriously, don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine and get into the park you want if you have a reservation”… but they couldn’t come out and say it.
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So maybe I should make a reservation to the park I plan to hop to. Or don’t worry about it because there’s lots of availability for my trip so far.
Edit: make a dinner reservation
OK. I guess they know the statistics pretty well about people leaving the parks. That must be why they picked 2pm. I bet that’s the beginning of morning people leaving.
Sounds like it’s not a guarantee so I wouldn’t do it unless you wanted to.
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I’m definitely not counting on my dinner reservation as getting me into the park I hop to… but having this information is reminding me to be flexible. But lets be honest, Ill probably cry at the tapstiles if I show up for my Be Out Guest dinner reservation only to find out the park is full 
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Honestly, if the park is at capacity and you have an ADR I think your options will be:
- they’ll allow you to cancel and / or help you find somewhere else
- waive the no-show fee
It’s very clear that park hopping is subject to availability. A pre-paid reservation (is CRT the only one) might be an exception. Even so, I wouldn’t be booking that if I didn’t have an MK park reservation for the day.
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Me too! My goal is to eat my way around the world as I currently have 12 nights booked at Boardwalk so what better time than to set this silly goal for myself. I’m hoping at least one table service restaurant is open in each country (except America of course HA!) but I do know that might not be the case. But I will be utterly devastated if I cannot make my goal because they won’t let me in even if I have an ADR. And I don’t want to spend all of my 10 days of tickets on Epcot as much as I love that park so I’m going to have to hop to accomplish my goal.
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They have always said you have to have a reservation to get into the park even for an ADR, so I’d imagine that the park would have to be under capacity to get in with an ADR as you’re not making a reservation (plus I’ve never been asked “do you have a reservation for a restaurant” when making a park reservation, so I don’t buy the “separate pool of park reservations for ADRs” thing - they don’t know when you’re making your ADRs in general).
It will be interesting to see how things go, but I’m guessing that Epcot may well hit capacity at some point every night unless they keep other parks open later to prevent it. We’ll have to see how things go when they start allowing hopping, but I’d not count on being able to hop in there unless you’re planning to go in at 2pm every day.
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I have till Memorial Day weekend so I’ll be paying attention. If anyone else gets locked out of Epcot or is easily let in please post. I’ll be very curious.
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Yes, definitely keep an eye on it. Pay close attention to high-traffic times like Presidents’ Week (which also (UGH) coincides with Mardi Gras this year), “Spring Break” which can be mid-March through mid-April, and Easter weekend since Memorial Day is definitely a high-traffic time.
I agree with your plan to have two days reserved at HS. That’s the hardest reservation to get, so better to have two there and plan to hop than reserve another park (assuming you have at least one day at each other park. The only park I would risk not having an advance reservation for at all is Epcot.) You can always change your reservation as it gets closer.
Having a dining reservation is also a good idea just in case. There have been situations in the past where an ADR has been a ticket into an at-capacity park or land (such as SWGE when it first opened), so there is precedent.
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Epcot can hold a lot of people though, but I agree in that it will be popular for dinner reservations. I doubt it will be a problem to get in, simply because of it’s size. It is the one park that has never hit the target attendance since re-opening.
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Phew and this being Christmas week if it still isn’t gives me hope for Memorial Day and the first week and a half of June.